- Soldat Flashbangs -
LiveDemo (Soldat Plugin) Included

The Idea: (Recommended that you download the WMV Movie preview)
SWAT4 style Flashbangs; as a Bonus or Secondary Grenade type (Make it a option between Grenades and Flashbangs like seconday weapons?). With Flashbangs in the game, it would definately add tactic to the game, and improve clan wars alot. The way I was thinking this should be implemented is as follows:
You only get one flashbang per death or whatever the server has set Max_Flash= to.
The flashbang only goes off if the bang is on your screen (Easy to evade)
If flashed, your screen will turn white and after 2 seconds of white screen, your original screen will begin to fade back in; however the first thing that comes back into vision is the frozen screen when the flashbang exploded, which then also fades back into normal gameplay with minor motion blur still in effect, and your mouse will have jumped 100 pixels to the left/right up/down. This will add abit of confusion to the flashed players, therefore serving its purpose. Ofcourse, there is always one downfall to Flashbangs; Team Flashing. So there should be an option to disable flashbangs and/or a delay before flashbangs can be thrown before spawning. The line-of-sight method used in Survival mode should also be used (How other players dont appear unless they are in your line-of-sight)

NOTE: NONE OF THESE IMAGES/MOVIES ARE EDITED! Proof lies within the LiveDemo plugin!


The Examples:
Screenshots:
[IMAGE]
The screen after a grenade explodes while on your screen.
[IMAGE]
The screen after starting to fade back in. Distortion is in effect (Note: the lines arent THAT visible when using the live demo or demo movie)
[IMAGE]
Screen fading back in, with the screen when the player was flashed interlacing with the actual gameplay.

wmv Movie (4.19 MB - 33 Seconds)
Download: Click Here*
* Note: WinRAR required to extract. No codecs required since its WMV format.

LiveDemo Plugin (See Tweaker.ini for tweaking instructions)
What is this?
This is a plugin for Soldat that will actually implement the flashbangs into the game, to a limited extent.
How to use:
Throw a normal grenade and keep it on your screen. Dont
let it collide with a player or sandbag / collider. The
grenade has to explode normally otherwise it will not flash
you. BOOM! You are now flashed. Try going into a multiplayer
server with this and see how much more fun the game is when
youve gotta try and evade the flashbangs. Hopefully this will
be implemented into Soldat one day :)
How to run
See Readme.txt.
Download: Click Here

How its done
Simple.
[CODE]if (Grenade) then
if (ExplodeTime < 2) then
if (GrenadeAlive) then
if (Greande is on screen) then
flashed = true
CreateThread for Fading
end if
end if
end if
end if[/CODE]

-----------------------------------------------------

So, post your comments. Should this be implemented? If you dont have somthing INTELLIGENT or meaningful to say, then please do not post at all; else your comments are welcome.

-EnEsCe

Omgosh downloading and testing right now.

That would be a pretty cool idea, would help alot in a pinned against the wall situtations, but I bet many complainers will come...
Will the flashbang's effect dependent on the players location? Like will the effect be the same when one player is in front of the flashbang, and another player in pathway below it?

quote:Originally posted by CrazyKid980That would be a pretty cool idea, would help alot in a pinned against the wall situtations, but I bet many complainers will come...
Will the flashbang's effect dependent on the players location? Like will the effect be the same when one player is in front of the flashbang, and another player in pathway below it?

quote:Originally posted by EnEsCeThe line-of-sight method used in Survival mode should also be used (How other players dont appear unless they are in your line-of-sight)

Oh I read it wrong, thought it said only in survival mode it had that lin e of sight method.

[CENSORED] I get an access violation error.

[IMAGE]

Help EnEsCe.

damn that's a cool plugin. great visual effects, it actually worked on my comp, and it has a 16mb graphics card. nice.

it's also the most confusing thing ever. THIS HAS TO BE IMPLEMENTED.

quote:Originally posted by aznbl00d[CENSORED] I get an access violation error.
-img-
Help EnEsCe.

Sorry bro, cant help ya. I dont know what causes the error :(
Readme.txt says:quote:If you get an error, then
I am sorry but I cant help you. This error comes up on crap
computers alot, and I dont know how to fix it :P. You will just
have to download the LiveDemo movie from this url:
http://enesce.com/flash/FlashbangDemo.rar

quote:Originally posted by aznbl00d[CENSORED] I get an access violation error.

[IMAGE]

Help EnEsCe.


Most likely because of your video card. If you have an older card, it might not support alpha blending and/or it might have to do with the texture thats created not being a power of 2 (causing it to fail on certain cards) Possibly fixable, time will tell, so just settle with the video for now =P

Actually I think you're right. My old ATI 512 screwed around half a year ago, so I had to use the old, rusty one in the garage. ='(

Pretty cool. Great idea.
Love to see this put in. Maybe 2 seconds is a tad to long?

Hah, this would be really cool.

God damn, that's nice...I love you for taking the time to make such a good display of your idea, and it's purrty, but I don't want this in Soldat because I really truly fear that it will start a chain reaction of changes, the result of which will be that Soldat will end up more like CS or AA than what it's supposed to be. Flashbangs are just too realistic and, IMO, crossing the fine line between Soldat and realistic shooters.

EDIT: [CENSORED] it, actually this is a great idea. However, I agree with Vash that it should be less than 2 seconds. IMO because of the cursor throw and overlay of the frozen image from time of flash, it should be more like one second followed by the distortion. Otherwise awesome. And I can't get over how pretty it looks ingame.

EDIT AGAIN: OK, after playing around with this a bit ingame I have a few questions/comments.

1) Will the flashbang be a nade? In other words, will nades act as flashbangs unless they hit something, causing them to explode normally, or are you proposing that the flashbangs be something completely seperate?

2) You said a player would get one flashbang for every death. What exactly does that mean? Deaths on the scoreboard? If so, some players might take advantage by letting themselves die numerous times to get more flashes. Why not just have the flashes come in boxes like nades?

3) Would bots be affected?

4) Does your plugin work online if the other players in the server have the plugin? I might want to try this with some friends to see how it would work out in an actual match.

quote:
1) Will the flashbang be a nade? In other words, will nades act as flashbangs unless they hit something, causing them to explode normally, or are you proposing that the flashbangs be something completely seperate?
No, thats just in the Demo plugin. If this were to be implemented, it should be a secondary grenade.. like in the player config menu there should be another dropdown box to choose between having frag grenades or a flashbang. Similar to the secondary weapons dropdown box.

quote:2) You said a player would get one flashbang for every death. What exactly does that mean? Deaths on the scoreboard? If so, some players might take advantage by letting themselves die numerous times to get more flashes. Why not just have the flashes come in boxes like nades?
EG: you spawn, you have a flash, you use it, you dont get another one untill you die.

quote:3) Would bots be affected?
If Michal implements this, then yes.

quote:4) Does your plugin work online if the other players in the server have the plugin? I might want to try this with some friends to see how it would work out in an actual match.
It works online even if no one in the server has the plugin. Hence why the 'How to use' part says "Try going into a multiplayer server with this and see how much more fun the game is when youve gotta try and evade the flashbangs."

One thing I forgot to mention is that when flashed, the deaf sound should be playing. Ya know? the sound when a grenade explodes right ontop of you but doesnt kill you.

Well, in that case I back this 100%. Hope it gets implemented.

I really would like to see this.

And if you can only choose between grenades and flashbangs, should the amount of flash bangs be less than nades?

And you would have to be able to pick them up. So the boxes used for grenades would give people that chose flashbangs, flashbangs. And the people who chose nades, nades.

Heres an idea:
Have one/two flashbang packs in circulation between the 2 teams (if in CTF). Similar to health pack stealing, how one team can have all the health packs and the other team has to steal them to get some spawn in their spawn area.

^or just have them as a bonus, like cluster grenades.

2 seconds is way too long, it is kinda good for long mapes, but in small maps your almost blinded the whole time. Also, how do you turn it off? Also if oyu plan on updating the plugin, you should put a hotkey in to turn it on and off.

I don't like this.

DAmn THis is so [CENSORED]ing awsome with the flashback effect to :D

Nice Idea.

ps : ive got blamed for this while ago.

Well, I told everyone who was in the U13 Private last night to go get this, and of the three people who did, they all agreed that the flash effect should be lowered to one second, because often you'll get caught in the middle of a giant flashfest and be totally blinded. Also, if you're in an important position, like having the enemy's flag, it can get quite irritating when an enemy can just pop out of nowhere, flash you, and kill you before you can really react.

Still quite a nice idea though. The hotkey would allso be very useful, but then we have to think about how that would work online. It isn't really fair to have a few people able to see the flashes, while others just opt to turn it off. Like last night, Ryukk and I had the plugin turned on and we both went something like 3-17 in a roun. Maybe there could just be a server setting to turn it on or off, then players could decide which server to go in based on whether or not they like flashbangs.

Will be blinded even who trew it ?
I quess yes. So u will be instantly blind. Urs theirs Urs theirs flashbangs....

BTW lithium. It's KARMAZON no KRAMAZON

No, it's KRAMAZON.

Can these flashbangs go off in the air? Also, if the flashbang is offscreen when it blows, are there any effects on your screen? Small rays of light for example?

If you had that it could also probably double as a signal flare.

Say you're playing R/S INF and you see the entire alpha rushing your base low so you set off a flashbang so you're team knows they're there, and that they're temp. blinded.

I know it's karmazon. I just like spelling it wrong.

Theoretically the flashbangs can go off in the air, but because of the explode delay on grenades you will only see it if you play on a map that is very tall.

If the flashbang is offscreen, nothing happens.

Remember: this is just a proof-of-concept to show that it is possible to fairly easily add this effect to Soldat.

This suggestion is great. But if people pick it up and throw it too much, then there will be too much white screen effect.

wow, this looks pretty cool! one wuestion, is this like a 'hack'??? in that it hooks into soldat and modifies some memory location? i would be interested to know how this works

EDIT:also, i have never seen any plugins for soldat! i think i have missed something...

No actually it doesnt modify any memory locations.... and you havent seen any plugins because this is the first one.

and who gives a [CENSORED] about kramanoob, dont talk about him here.
Dairy, you might want to actually TRY it instead of asking stupid questions left and right. and DeLarge, thats why we said to only have ONE and make it a bonus or a secondary grenade type...

It's not a hack. It doesn't modify memory, only reads it, and draws some extra graphics on the screen. You can't use this to gain any sort of advantage, in fact, you become disadvantaged over someone who doesn't have it, because they won't get blinded and you will.

lol, this is awsome. i hope this gets implemented some version :D

I only mean a hotkey for the plugin, not if it acctually implemented

I have to admit, it looks like you've done the Soldat equivalent of pulling a Jesus and turning water into wine.

The effect definitely needs to be shortened, though. The initial "solid white" portion was definitely too long, since any length of total blindness is pretty dooming in a game as fast-paced as Soldat.

It's also something that should happen pretty seldomly, so it's probably best as powerup that works like the cluster nades, in that it replaces your current stock of grenades. Of course, in that case they should probably come in packs of two, so as to compensate for their rarity.

perhaps have a regular version thats only about a second and blinds everyone...

and then a powerup like cluster grenade that blinds only the opponents and for a little while longer

ok I will update the plugin later today/tomorrow and make it so you can modify everything about it through an INI file.

But It's some kind of silly. I quess U will be very often blinded.
And U stoopid mates [not all] will just throw it 4fun and blind their ownz.
I think this don't really pass into soldat.
And just rushing or running and throw it well be very stoopid too coz u just blind same as foe.
So If u wanna use it u can just in some tactic situation and I guess normal mod doesn't accept silent operations with surpriseable end-action.

quote:Originally posted by EnEsCeok I will update the plugin later today/tomorrow and make it so you can modify everything about it through an INI file.


Omfg Garrys( EnEsCe) Mod?

ok, then, i was just wondering with what program/programming language could I make something that draws graphics on the screen.(FINALLY SUNFLARE EFFECTS!) EDIT:(god, didn't finish my sentence.)

.5 sec of complete blindness, then for 1 sec, everything fades back into view.
This way, the opponents will get only a slight stun, instead of seeing blank on their screen making the game less action packed and fun. I think this will not take away from the fast-paced action Soldat provides, as well as give players more tactics and strategies.

Dairy your post was completely stupid... If its a bonus you wont get blinded continuosly or have team mates throwing them left right and center... get a brain, sheesh

Throwing a flash, grabing the flag - and with everyone blinded - running back to your base wouldn't be that fun for the defending team. Would be easy as pie to get the flag from 3 defenders and get some distance from them. Unless the flash time is significantly lowered, and/or it was a bonus or you had to chose between regular nades and flash nades this would ruin clan wars.

Nevertheless a good concept.

its kinda the point 3rd account.
bring out the moddable version already, so wer can play around weith the times and make the most suitable configuration, or well burn your families pet of choice

quote:Originally posted by 3rd_accountThrowing a flash, grabing the flag - and with everyone blinded - running back to your base wouldn't be that fun for the defending team. Would be easy as pie to get the flag from 3 defenders and get some distance from them. Unless the flash time is significantly lowered, and/or it was a bonus or you had to chose between regular nades and flash nades this would ruin clan wars.

Nevertheless a good concept.


Agh, great way to totaly ignore what has already been said... A) You get flashed aswell, DUH. B) Ofcourse its going to be a bonus/secondary grenade type. C) The freaking demo plugin is only a demo, not what it is going to be like if it were to be implemented.

EnEsCe maybe if you have it so it only flashes when a cluster goes off people might better understand your suggestion, but if thats not possible this is still pretty damn sweet

This looks so awsome. You mentioned a DLL earlier on, but in the WinRAR download I could only find the WMV. I WANT to see this implemented. Sweet.
EDIT: By the way, what language was this programmed in? I'm assuming it's either C++ or Delphi.

EDIT 2: Whoops, downloading the wrong file. I downloaded the demo, not the actual file with the DLL. Sorry 'bout that.

--
Sticky_Soldier

This topic is not about how the DLL was made. Its about the Flashbang idead... KEEP ON TOPIC.

Sorry. But it is a good idea, and the movie shows it at it's best.
lol

--
Sticky_Soldier

WOW! My god, NSC, you really nailed it! This is awesome. This should defenitely be in soldat. Maybe you could choose between normal nades and flashbangs.. And the difference should be abvious on the visuel part, so you enemy could know if it was a nade or flash you just threw.
This is wicked. I don't know what to say..
It's just so awesome and prof to argue with!
This has my vote.. Bigtime!

That will be VERY VERY VERY VERY Cool

quote:Originally posted by sotijaThat will be VERY VERY VERY VERY Cool


*annoying

I see (or dont see) 20 dip[CENSORED]s trhowing flashbombs.. This would end the history of PUB servers without a pass :)

However as a power up I like the Idea ! 'nifty little bugger'

Offtopic; I want the source of yer program for Xmas :D

it's rally cool, but if it's implemented there will be more [CENSORED]ing about it than barret and the m79 combined.It will be n00bed to death, because n00bs wont care if their teammates or themselves get flashed.

You should still be able to shoot while the flash is going, but make your gun have recoil, and if in realistic, make it insane recoil?

it would be extremely annoying. I dont like the idea of flashbangs in soldat.

quote:Originally posted by Saint-Cross

You should still be able to shoot while the flash is going, but make your gun have recoil, and if in realistic, make it insane recoil?
you can shoot when the flashbang goes off, try the demo, and what would extra recoil do? think about it, it makes no sense whatsoever. it's YOUR descision whether or not you want to shoot like a moron when you can't see, not your gun's descision.

who was teh first tester? ME! w00t...

kthxgg bye nick

No, chrisgbk was. owned haha.

Bonus = 1 flashbang. Anyone who gets flashed can still shoot. So no more excuses about "ohhhh waaaa waaaa its gonna get spammed evarywhaarreee waaa" k

This is awsome. Lower the full white screen down to one second and you've got my vote, big time.

--
Sticky_Soldier

What I'm curious about though is let's say you're speeding through the map, and happen upon two fighting soldats when one tosses a flashbang. Boom, you're blinded, but still running.

Could you 'run away' from the effect of it? Obviously the flashbang couldn't cover the whole map, so if you run out of the range of where it exploded, would the light fade off faster?

I really would not like this at all. I saw the video, thought it looked incredibly frustrating. I'd hate to experience this.

Cool.

This should just be a powerup though, like cluster nades. It would tone down the random flashage and annoyingness.

Also, it should only affect players within a certain distance of it. If they are at the edge of the screen they should be unaffected, just for balance. Actually, you should varying amounts of effect. Depending on how close they are (and what direction they are facing), they receive a different brightness and different duration (of flash and deafness).

Have an option to make it not affect teammates. This would just be like friendly fire: your nades do not harm your teamies, but it harms yourself and the enemies. Make it a kind of damage somehow?

Speaking of damage, it should do a tiny amount of it if you get a direct hit, just to make things interesting.

Lastly, You should keep most of the interface visible when you are flashed. I'm sure in real life, if you are flashbanged, you can still tell if you are dead or if you are taking damage.

PS: How do plugins work? I didn't know you could do this. Are there any other kinds?

that would be so annoying, If that was implemented I'd never play anything other than climbing maps

Smoke grenades would be nice too.

lol flash bangs would be awesome but only as an added bonus pickup cus everyone throwing flash bangs would just ruin the game.

I must say, Its very nice you had the time to give a visual presentation.

It looks cool, Killed my eyes :\. However, ehh...I don't think this'll be very good to have in Soldat. Gawd looks annoying to have happen over and over.

I like the way you made this.. but it seems really [CENSORED]ing annoying. Maybe if it ended quicker or wasnt so bright.

quote:Originally posted by karmazonplthat would be so annoying, If that was implemented I'd never play anything other than climbing maps

Would you quit the forums aswell?

ive changed the flash time to 1 second, ill post it up later today.

what kind of childish, immature and irrevelant question is that pee pee head

quote:Originally posted by EnEsCequote:Originally posted by 3rd_accountThrowing a flash, grabing the flag - and with everyone blinded - running back to your base wouldn't be that fun for the defending team. Would be easy as pie to get the flag from 3 defenders and get some distance from them. Unless the flash time is significantly lowered, and/or it was a bonus or you had to chose between regular nades and flash nades this would ruin clan wars.

Nevertheless a good concept.


Agh, great way to totaly ignore what has already been said... A) You get flashed aswell, DUH. B) Ofcourse its going to be a bonus/secondary grenade type. C) The freaking demo plugin is only a demo, not what it is going to be like if it were to be implemented.


Nargh, you don't need to see to be able to run towards your base. But the enemy does need to see to kill the flagger. But i still assumed you'd throw the flash so there'd be polygons inbetween when it went off.

And from where did you get that I thought it was the final release? It's called constructive criticism.

Customizable version is now availible. (Re-download FlashBang.zip from page 1)
There is now a file called 'Tweaker.ini' located in the ZIP archive where you can change most of the primary variables. Note: the default settings are for 2 seconds fade.


- FadeTopRightStart / FadeTopLeftStart / FadeBottomRightStart / FadeBottomLeftStart
Integer from 0 to 255. Defines the Alpha level of the white texture in the corner of the screen
when the flash first goes off. I do not suggest tweaking this, because if the transparency goes
lesser than 0, it will go back to 255. If you change this, you need to change almost every other
variable aswell.

- FadeTopRightSpeed / FadeTopLeftSpeed / FadeBottomRightSpeed / FadeBottomLeftSpeed
Defines how much to take from the FadeTop/BottomRight/LeftStart every XXms (XX = SleepTime)

- FlashTime
Overall running time of the Flashbang effect, including blur and light array fade.
Best way to use this is: FlashTime * SleepTime.

- FadeStartTimeTLBR (Fade start time top left & bottom right)
At which stage during the FlashTime * SleepTime loop should the fading effect start on the top left
and bottom right corners of the screen.

- FadeStartTimeTRBL (Fade start time top right & bottom left)
At which stage during the FlashTime * SleepTime loop should the fading effect start on the top right
and bottom left corners of the screen.

- SleepTime
How many milliseconds to sleep before taking adding 1 to the FlashTime variable. This is used in
a for loop, so be careful.

----------
If you still cant understand my descriptions and you know abit of C++, here is the code chunk where
all these variables are actually used.

[CODE]long WINAPI FlashThread()
{
flashfade = 0;
fadeTR = set.FadeTopRightStart;
fadeTL = set.FadeTopLeftStart;
fadeBR = set.FadeBottomRightStart;
fadeBL = set.FadeBottomLeftStart;
for (flashfade=0;flashfade<set.FlashTime;flashfade++)
{
if (flashfade >set.FadeStartTimeTRBL) {
fadeTR -= 1;
fadeBL -= 1;
}
if (flashfade >cvar.FadeStartTimeTLBR) {
fadeTL -= 2;
fadeBR -= 2;
}
Sleep(set.SleepTime);
}
flashed = false;
copied = false;
copied2 = true;
return 1;
}[/CODE]