A few videos have been posted of the test build already. Thanks for covering it, you guys. I enjoyed watching. 🙂
Category Archives: Daggerfall Unity
More About Scaling
One of the issues that caught me by surprise was a UI scaling problem. This turned out to be more interesting than expected, so I decided to write up a visual diary post about it.
For those who didn’t experience the problem, this is how it looked (1280×960).
What’s happening here isn’t technically a scaling problem, it’s a positioning problem. See, Daggerfall has a fixed-size UI of 320×200 pixels. My custom UI system was designed from the ground up to scale Daggerfall’s fixed UI to any resolution while maintaining correct aspect ratio. Depending on the width to height ratio of your resolution, the fixed UI may need to be pillarboxed (black bars down the sides) or letterboxed (black bars top and bottom). The goal is to fit the entire UI into the display without any clipped off edges and keeping that pixel-perfect ratio.
So what’s going in the screenshot above? The answer is that I forgot to turn on vertical alignment in the UI for the parent panel. This means the UI is stuck to the top of the screen instead of letterboxing like it’s supposed to. This is how the above display should look (1280×960).
The scaling and aspect ratio are correct in both cases, just the UI wasn’t centering vertically like it should for the letter-box effect at that resolution.
Unfortunately, it really isn’t possible to avoid pillarboxing or letterboxing with a fixed UI, unless you have a resolution that is an exact multiple of 320×200. For example, the screenshot below is a perfect x4 multiple of 320×200 and fits the frame completely at the correct aspect ratio (1280×800).
Now it occurs to me that some people simply don’t want letterboxing or pillarboxing. The best solution I can offer is a new option in the INI called “FreeScaling”. When this is enabled, the GUI will scale width and height independently. Here’s an example with FreeScaling enabled (1280×960).
The result is the UI is stretched as required to fill entire viewport. This obviously means the aspect ratio is no longer correct, but the chunky pixels still don’t look that bad with a little stretching. I’m willing to bet a lot of people actually play this way in DOSBox without noticing. It’s all down to personal preference anyway. If you want perfect aspect ratio, just leave things at default and the UI will scale and position itself properly now. If you definitely want to get rid of the black bars, then enable FreeScale and enjoy.
It’s also worth noting this does not apply to the game view rendering, which always fills the entire viewport. Only the classic 320×200 UI has this quirk.
I’m just happy my retro UI system is robust enough to handle all these different resolutions, scales, and positions while still working as it should. That’s an accomplishment by itself.
Test Release Fixes Incoming
Thanks to feedback from intrepid testers, I have a solid list of priority items to fix. I will start rolling out fixes in the next 24-48 hours, and may need to spread fixes across multiple test releases.
On the whole, the first compatibility test went very well. Daggerfall Unity ran for most people on a wide variety of systems, and most of the bugs found can be easily resolved. A very positive start to things.
Here’s the list of priority fixes coming in next couple of test builds.
- UI scaling issue at many resolutions.
- Alternate save path not used by SaveLoadManager.
- Linux not loading career data for class selection dialog.
- Needs Direct3D11 for full deferred shading on Windows. Will add INI options for downlevel rendering paths for all systems. (Note: This may reduce quality of lights and shadows).
- Game not launching, crashing on video files. Confirmed *.VID files not present in Arena2. Need to fail cleanly and advise users on how to workaround.
- INI options for tuning mouse weapon swinging.
- INI options for some cheating, GodMode and ExplorerMode (from demos).
- Pressing load with nothing to load will hang game.
- Genders occasionally not read properly from vanilla saves.
- Reaction setting occasionally not read properly from vanilla saves.
- Loading some saves will drop you through the world.
- Vampire characters not read cleanly. Need to at least read these characters back to starting race and appearance. Vampirism won’t be implemented until after quest system is done.
- Rebindable keys. Will do this in a config file first, then later provide a UI.
Daggerfall Unity Test Build 1
Download
The first test build of Daggerfall Unity is now available for download. Grab your version below.
Invalid download ID. Invalid download ID.Note: Please see Setting Up below for more information on running build.
Note for Linux users: This build has videos and MIDI audio disabled. This will be fixed in test build 2.
Update
- Users are reporting UI scaling issues. I have been able to reproduce this and will fix as soon as possible.
Purpose
I plan to drop multiple test builds leading up to first true release. Each test build will open up more features and fix more bugs. By the time the first true release is available, I’m hoping most of the big problems will be resolved.
Thank you to any testers who jump in this early and let me know of problems you encounter. While testing, please keep in mind this build is specifically to test the below key items. At this time, I don’t require any bug reports unless it pertains to the following.
- Does the build run on your system?
- Can you start a new game, create a character, and spawn to the bottom of Privateer’s Hold?
- Can you exit Privateer’s Hold into the outside world?
- Can you quick-save and quick-load successfully while inside a dungeon and in wilderness?
- Can you load an existing character from a classic Daggerfall save game?
- Can you use F5 in-game to view your character sheet, and was your character loaded successfully? (Note: character items are not currently loaded).
Limitations
This build is missing several features planned for the first true release. Following are the main limitations of this build.
- Only a single quick-save slot is currently available for Daggerfall Unity games. This is pending more work on custom UI windows.
- Cannot save or load inside buildings.
- When loading a classic save, the player will not spawn inside buildings or dungeons. If you have a save where your character is inside a building or dungeon your character will instead spawn to an approximate exterior position.
- No fast travel.
- Cannot rebind keys.
- No resting to recoup health.
Setting Up
To play this build of Daggerfall Unity, please follow these steps.
- Have a clean install of Daggerfall available (patched to .213). DaggerfallSetup is preferred.
- Unzip the download package.
- Edit settings.ini inside Daggerfall Unity_Data folder to setup your game. See below section on INI file.
- Run the Daggerfall Unity application.
Note: CD-based installs of Daggerfall may not install videos locally, resulting in a crash to black screen. If this happens (and your Daggerfall path is definitely correct), check that you have 17 *.VID folders in your installs arena2 folder. If these are missing, you can copy .VID files from the CD to your local arena2 folder.
INI File
The INI file contains all game settings. Not all settings are currently live. Key settings are.
- MyDaggerfallPath. This should be set to your top-level Daggerfall folder. This is the folder containing the “arena2” and “SAVE” folders. For example, this path might be C:\ Games\Daggerfall on Windows. On Linux, it will look something like /home/YourName/Games/Daggerfall. Remember that Linux paths are case-sensitive.
- MyDaggerfallUnitySavePath. When left blank saves will be directed to Daggerfall Unity_Data folder.
- InvertMouseVertical. If you want to invert your mouse.
- MouseLookSmoothing. Toggles mouse smoothing.
- MouseLookSensitivity. Set this value between 0.1 – 4.0 to adjust your mouse look sensitivity.
Controls
General
- Mouse to look.
- W, S, A, D to move.
- SHIFT (hold) to run.
- SPACE to jump.
- LEFT-CLICK mouse to open doors, enter dungeons, operate switches, etc.
- ESC to pause game or go back to previous window.
- F5 to open Character Sheet.
Weapons
- Z to toggle weapon.
- RIGHT-CLICK and drag mouse to swing weapon.
Save/Load
- F9 to quick-save.
- F12 to quick-load.
Feedback
Preferred method of feedback is the following thread on the forums.
http://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=141
When reporting bugs, please include the following in your report.
- A clear description of what went wrong and process to reproduce problem (if possible).
- Main system specs (OS, CPU, RAM, GPU).
- If requested, please email output_log.txt file from inside the Daggerfall Unity_Data folder.
- If requested, please email QuickSave.txt file from inside the Daggerfall Unity_Data/Saves folder (or from wherever your saves are directed).
- Note that because log and saves are both plain text files, it is also possible to post these to forum thread above.
Thankyou!
And once again, a big thankyou to all contributors, testers, and supporters of this project. You are each helping to create something wonderful.
First Look At Classic Save Importing
Just a quick update today, as I’m right in the thick of it getting the test build ready.
The below GFY shows the current early state of importing classic Daggerfall save games inside Daggerfall Unity. At the moment this is just spawning a character to exact position in world, but I hope to be importing all vital character details eventually. As with everything else, classic save import will become more advanced over time. My ultimate goal is for you to be able to import your Daggerfall characters and pick up the game more-or-less where you left off.
This represents a nice milestone in development so far, one that has required several weeks of planning and engineering just to accomplish this much. Now to put some meat on those bones.
Daggerfall Unity Test Build
Sometime in the next 7-10 days, I will release a test build of Daggerfall Unity as part of my lead-up to first release. Everyone is welcome to try to the test build, but testers should be comfortable with editing INI files as this build will not include a launcher. I’m hoping to get valuable feedback and squash as many bugs as possible prior to first release. Test build will be available for Windows and Linux.
The first release of Daggerfall Unity will carry the moniker “Outer Loop” as this best describes the work so far. The outer loop is that essential framework of game startup, character creation, free roam, save/load, basic combat resolution, resting, and player death. With this framework out of the way, I can start work on individual systems that exist inside of the outer loop. For example, quests, inventory, and loot tables are systems that will be incrementally added over time. Systems with a high number of dependencies (e.g. quests rely on many other systems) will arrive later than more atomic systems with a lower number of dependencies.
Once the first release is available, I’m hoping to set a release schedule of every 4-6 weeks at most. I’m planning out the work in small dependency-aware chunks that should be achievable in those time-frames. This means releases will generally pendulum back and forth between small features and large features.
I have tried my best to create a versioning save/load system so that your saves from older releases can be loaded by newer releases, but it may become necessary at some point to set a minimum supported version for saves. I will mention this in the release notes if and when it happens.
As always, life has a habit of getting in the way despite best intentions. I will let you know whenever there will be delays due to personal issues or scheduled leave time.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement so far. I look forward to hearing your feedback if you decide to play with the upcoming test build.