Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

The Battlefield Heroes conversion for BF1942 can be found here!
Mod Download, Serverside Mods and Custom Maps
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Apache Thunder
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by Apache Thunder »

Yeah I might have forgotten to update the init.con of the mod so the old version string is shown in the custom games menu. :P

As for Avatar Star, the maps I ported from that game have been there since 5.1 I believe? Don't recall exactly when I added them. Avatar Star was a Chinease game that was pretty much a rip off of Battlefield Heroes but an infantry only game. (no vehicles were ever added to the game and the maps weren't designed for vehicles). Only early builds of the game used assets from BFH. But as the game devs worked on it further, it began to diverge and have it's own unique assets and didn't really look like a direct ripoff anymore. The game was kinda fun though they took the micro-transactions to the extreme with that game. I played that game for a little while early on before it got crazy with microtransactions really starting to ruin the balance of the game. It unfortunately died awhile back just like with how Battlefield Heroes got shutdown. I think though Avatar Star was shut down before Battlefield Heroes was so it didn't last anywhere near as long.

I liked the map designs and discovered that the game engine is horribly unoptimized. It didn't use lod meshes for lowering detail of meshes that are far away, rendered all geometries that weren't in camera view and had no culling to speak of so far away stuff was rendered as well.

This made it very easy to rip the model from ram while the game was running (I forget the name of the program I used to do this) and reconstructed it as a level in Battlefield 1942. :D

The last bug I fixed in this mod was a hidden bug that people might not have noticed yet. If you use the mini rc tank, there is a small chance a bot could steal your body while you are out driving the tank. This had the funny effect of the bot and you controlling the same soldier. If you didn't interfere, the bot could take your body anywhere it wanted. Not sure what happens if the bot tries to enter a vehicle or use weapons. Only seen it happen on small infantry maps.

While interesting, I had to quash that bug by removing the entry point object on the soldiers (why EA put entry points on soldiers is beyond me, there is never a time when your not in a soldier. They don't act like vehicles and you can't exit them (not without crashing the game anyways).

The game would crash if the soldier the bot and you were occupying died. Also, if a human player got near a soldier who had used a minitank they'd be able to enter it too. However unlike bots, the game crashes the moment a human player attempts to enter an unoccupied soldier object. Not sure why bots can do that but humans can't. Perhaps camera/UI related. Very early builds of the game like the singleplayer demo for example won't crash and you can enter a soldier object and run around with it. Crashes still occured though if you died in it or if the soldier you left behind died. (round ending also caused a crash I think?)

I wonder if this bug impacts PCOs that fires remotely operated projectiles. Like that one anti aircraft missle launcher from DesertCombat. I don't recall attempting to enter that vehicle while another player was controlling a rocket. Perhaps something would have happened. That was not something I ever tested.

Anyways, the entry point being removed resolved that issue. :D
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buschhans
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by buschhans »

Apache Thunder wrote:Yeah I might have forgotten to update the init.con of the mod so the old version string is shown in the custom games menu. :P

As for Avatar Star, the maps I ported from that game have been there since 5.1 I believe? Don't recall exactly when I added them. Avatar Star was a Chinease game that was pretty much a rip off of Battlefield Heroes but an infantry only game. (no vehicles were ever added to the game and the maps weren't designed for vehicles). Only early builds of the game used assets from BFH. But as the game devs worked on it further, it began to diverge and have it's own unique assets and didn't really look like a direct ripoff anymore. The game was kinda fun though they took the micro-transactions to the extreme with that game. I played that game for a little while early on before it got crazy with microtransactions really starting to ruin the balance of the game. It unfortunately died awhile back just like with how Battlefield Heroes got shutdown. I think though Avatar Star was shut down before Battlefield Heroes was so it didn't last anywhere near as long.

I liked the map designs and discovered that the game engine is horribly unoptimized. It didn't use lod meshes for lowering detail of meshes that are far away, rendered all geometries that weren't in camera view and had no culling to speak of so far away stuff was rendered as well.

This made it very easy to rip the model from ram while the game was running (I forget the name of the program I used to do this) and reconstructed it as a level in Battlefield 1942. :D

The last bug I fixed in this mod was a hidden bug that people might not have noticed yet. If you use the mini rc tank, there is a small chance a bot could steal your body while you are out driving the tank. This had the funny effect of the bot and you controlling the same soldier. If you didn't interfere, the bot could take your body anywhere it wanted. Not sure what happens if the bot tries to enter a vehicle or use weapons. Only seen it happen on small infantry maps.

While interesting, I had to quash that bug by removing the entry point object on the soldiers (why EA put entry points on soldiers is beyond me, there is never a time when your not in a soldier. They don't act like vehicles and you can't exit them (not without crashing the game anyways).

The game would crash if the soldier the bot and you were occupying died. Also, if a human player got near a soldier who had used a minitank they'd be able to enter it too. However unlike bots, the game crashes the moment a human player attempts to enter an unoccupied soldier object. Not sure why bots can do that but humans can't. Perhaps camera/UI related. Very early builds of the game like the singleplayer demo for example won't crash and you can enter a soldier object and run around with it. Crashes still occured though if you died in it or if the soldier you left behind died. (round ending also caused a crash I think?)

I wonder if this bug impacts PCOs that fires remotely operated projectiles. Like that one anti aircraft missle launcher from DesertCombat. I don't recall attempting to enter that vehicle while another player was controlling a rocket. Perhaps something would have happened. That was not something I ever tested.

Anyways, the entry point being removed resolved that issue. :D
Thank you for the Background History to the Avatar Star game and Thank you for fixing the Crashes. Yes Avatar Star was added to the 5.1 i think. Thank you mistamontiel for this help, it works if i click Internet or Lokal to start a game. Of course, i can remember, thats the same like before in 5.1.

My wish is to play Lunar Landing 1/2 in COOP. Is it possible to do that to bring the missing Maps COOP in bfheroes? That would be great.:-)
Lunar Landing for Example i see only, if anyone else a Server start. I cannot start a Lokal Game to use that map for example? It is one of the Highlight of this BF Heroes Game.
If do you like the BF 1942 Mods or search a Download please visit: http://hg-clan.blogspot.de/
freddy
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by freddy »

Apache Thunder wrote:
The last bug I fixed in this mod was a hidden bug that people might not have noticed yet. If you use the mini rc tank, there is a small chance a bot could steal your body while you are out driving the tank. This had the funny effect of the bot and you controlling the same soldier. If you didn't interfere, the bot could take your body anywhere it wanted. Not sure what happens if the bot tries to enter a vehicle or use weapons. Only seen it happen on small infantry maps.

While interesting, I had to quash that bug by removing the entry point object on the soldiers (why EA put entry points on soldiers is beyond me, there is never a time when your not in a soldier. They don't act like vehicles and you can't exit them (not without crashing the game anyways).

The game would crash if the soldier the bot and you were occupying died. Also, if a human player got near a soldier who had used a minitank they'd be able to enter it too. However unlike bots, the game crashes the moment a human player attempts to enter an unoccupied soldier object. Not sure why bots can do that but humans can't. Perhaps camera/UI related. Very early builds of the game like the singleplayer demo for example won't crash and you can enter a soldier object and run around with it. Crashes still occured though if you died in it or if the soldier you left behind died. (round ending also caused a crash I think?)

I wonder if this bug impacts PCOs that fires remotely operated projectiles. Like that one anti aircraft missle launcher from DesertCombat. I don't recall attempting to enter that vehicle while another player was controlling a rocket. Perhaps something would have happened. That was not something I ever tested.

Anyways, the entry point being removed resolved that issue. :D
I thinkered some with the entry point object on the soldiers long ago, but never noticed any difference, not as i can remember anyway. If it works serverside to stop crashing i could propably come up with some ideas how to use it. Long time ago i spawned a lot of soldiers with a jetengine on there back and used as moving target practice :)

There is some remote rocket thingy in the secret weapon expansion, its using a bunker building that has a radar on top i think. I dont think one can enter it when its occupied, but if i remember i will try it next time im playing that map.
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Swaffy
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by Swaffy »

freddy wrote:[bots] with a jetengine on there back and used as moving target practice :)
I actually had this idea, to make a map and every kit has a jet pack. I would mod the jet pack to go off on the Walk keybind and have every spawn kit with one. Every time a bot walks the jet pack would send them off! (including human players)
(Forum Thread|Download) Swaffy'sMod v0.34 | Download link to come Soon™
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Apache Thunder
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by Apache Thunder »

Finally got around to uploaded the "standalone" version of Battlefield Heroes'42. (also my original mega account was nuked so any mega links I had to the last version no longer worked)

This will probably be the final build of the mod:


https://mega.nz/#!qChRSbBS!JerXvxBV_GtU ... 0AWo6afMTs


This merges BFH'42 into the bf1942 directory. I stripped out unused vanilla assets and modified the EXE to mount the rfa files from a different location as well as change the naming of a few commands. So as a result existings mods won't work properly on this build of bf1942. Though it's not recommend you attempt that anyways since I had stripped out unused assets.

Also note this build of BFH can NOT be used with the non standalone version of the game as I have not made this version available on it. I have also made the same EXE changes to bf1942_r and the dedicated server exe. Did not do the same to the linux exe though one could add my changes to that reletively easily. Just compare the differences to the vanilla Windows EXE and translate the changes to the Linux binary.

The "dev" files:

https://mega.nz/#!rLA0DALJ!1suBYBFHc1ny ... AjK1-COGjQ

This is the entire game unpacked and playable in bf1942_r. This is how I debug and build the rfs files for the mod. To this day I still don't use newer GUI tools to build the mod files. I still pack the RFAs old school with the debugger and command line stuff. :P

Changelog:

1. Merged Battlefield Heroes'42 into vanilla BF1942 and removed unused vanilla assets. This mod is now a fully independent version of Battlefield Heroes'42 and no longer requires a previous installation of Battlefield 1942. This can also exist along side BF1942 and won't interfere with it.

2. Various bug fixes here and there. There was a large time gap between me initially making this build and uploading it. So I have forgotten all the small tweaks I've done.

3. Redid lightmaps Alpine Assault and maybe one or 2 other maps I might have forgotten doing. Enabled sky shadows during lightmap render and makes lightmaps much higher quality. Also tweaked light settings in the level's init.con file. I did plan to redo the lightmaps for most of the maps but it was a time consuming task and I didn't have the time.

4. Coastal Clash Doomsday backported from my Halloween special for Battlefield Heroes Revive (which was used in a few other revival projects of BFH). This includes the skeleton death effect which is used exclusively on this map. Due to energy/time constraints I did not port all the Doomsday maps I did, but at least I finished this one. BF1942 handles the skeleton death effect a little better then BFH too. Parts go flying higher if soldier dies from explosion. The individual parts inherit the momentum the body had just before it died. This was not the case for BFH. One more thing BF1942 did better then BF2/BF2142. :D

Enjoy! :D
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freddy
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by freddy »

Thanks! :)
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mistamontiel
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by mistamontiel »

Holy! :shock: Nice work!

I guess it'll co-exist alongside a proper install though would love to see mod version! 1.5 gigs free
seppforcher

Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by seppforcher »

Hey ApacheThuner!
Thanks for your great work! Hopefully you see this post!

Sadly the Standalone Version from your Final Post produces a blackscreen when trying to launch the game :-( Is there a Fix or Workaround for this problem?
seppforcher

Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by seppforcher »

Hey!

Thank you Apache for your great work!

When I try to launch the standalone version Im always getting a blackscreen :-( Is there a fix or workaround for that? Tried to download 5.2 mod in the meantime but the link is dead :-(

Really hope you see this post!
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Apache Thunder
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Re: Battlefield Heroes mod for BF1942...

Post by Apache Thunder »

I think that last download link (the one that still works is the 5.2 version. The older one was posted on my original mega account which was since been pulled so all the links I had that used it were removed. Knowing this, I'm pretty sure the working link is 5.2 since that was the last version I worked on/uploaded and was probably posted on my new mega account.

You can try building the mod files manually from the github repo:

https://github.com/ApacheThunder/bfheroes42

If you want to try and see if that resolves your black screen issue. If not, then probably an issue with the version of Windows you are using. Never tested this on Win10. But it ran fine for me on Win7 64-bit .
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