Visible Player Hands Mod

[jivo]

7 minutes ago, snatcher said:

When it comes to mods for The Dark Mod set your expectations to low in this neighborhood.

I ask because some people were requesting a linux version and I just wanted to make sure everything was working correctly. Though, a while back I uploaded the linux binary of a previous version of the mod to the discord and someone on there confirmed that this method worked to compile it, so I'm just going to assume that everything is fine.

15 minutes ago, snatcher said:

You know, @ptw23 is up to something but I am not sure what nor in what form. My understanding is that he could make some "things" work without having to directly edit the source code. I don't know, just keep having fun. Who knows what the future holds.

I saw that, but I didn't really understand it. Perhaps when I have more time I could take a better look.

[wesp5]

In my opinion this could be an optional part of the core game if the clipping-through-stuff-issue has been fixed. After all the hands have no use except for adding to the immersion and this goes right out of the window when that happens ;)!

Edited January 28 by wesp5

[MirceaKitsune]

8 hours ago, wesp5 said:

In my opinion this could be an optional part of the core game if the clipping-through-stuff-issue has been fixed. After all the hands have no use except for adding to the immersion and this goes right out of the window when that happens ;)!

Agreed. That was my own point a while ago: I don't see a reason why this can't be an option for those that want it, granted all issues are fixed and the dev team decides so. We're far from that point in any case, we'll see when the time comes... as a reminder though this was my suggestion for the menu.

On 12/9/2024 at 2:04 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

I suggest designing your patch with a main menu setting; I'd add it to either "Settings - Gameplay - General" or "Settings - Video - General" whichever makes more sense. I propose giving it the following 4 options:

• Disabled: Never show POV hands even for weapons. If someone wants this for any reason we're also giving players an option to disable them entirely.
• Weapons: Only Blackjack / Sword / Arrows. Current functionality and can remain default.
• Weapons & Items: Also see your hands holding any selected item (lantern, compass, key, readable, etc) but hide them otherwise. I'm in favor of this being the new default if no one finds it too disruptive.
• Always: Show even the empty hands when nothing is selected, in which case you see the mantling / leaning movements. Likely too disruptive to default but I see myself using even that.

[jivo]

9 hours ago, wesp5 said:

In my opinion this could be an optional part of the core game if the clipping-through-stuff-issue has been fixed. After all the hands have no use except for adding to the immersion and this goes right out of the window when that happens ;)!

I haven't researched the issue much, but I did see that the weapon code sets the weapon depth hack to true for the attachments (which is how I'm implementing the items), so it's weird that they clip through objects.

43 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

Agreed. That was my own point a while ago: I don't see a reason why this can't be an option for those that want it, granted all issues are fixed and the dev team decides so. We're far from that point in any case, we'll see when the time comes... as a reminder though this was my suggestion for the menu.

It's on my to-do list. Just trying to add more items and fix the current issues first before I look into that. Currently working on the potions!

Edited January 28 by jivo

[The Black Arrow]

Amazing, this is a very interesting mod. It's not exactly something I like, I somehow like it when I have my lamp out without the hand, I just imagine he uses it on his hip or so. For the compass, well...Magic for all I care.

Adding this into default TDM would be great, as an option. However, what really intrigues me from this is the possibility that it could be upgraded into also making it so you can see your own legs and shadows? If possible, that'd be even greater!

Also, this mod makes me realize that the Player Model needs a complete overhaul, the meshes, UV textures and even bones are so bad, hah!

[jivo]

11 hours ago, The Black Arrow said:

However, what really intrigues me from this is the possibility that it could be upgraded into also making it so you can see your own legs and shadows? If possible, that'd be even greater!

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is possible—at least not with the way the mod is currently implemented.

All the models and animations are tied to the “unarmed” weapon entity, not the player entity. In order to have the legs and the rest of the body, we would need to add the models and animations to the player entity and modify the source code to allow the body to be visible, kind of like how it's done here. I did initially try this method but realized that the existing model/animations are a bit of a mess and it would be a LOT of work to make it look good.

Also, I chose to do it this way to allow the mod to be compatible with everything, since the script and def files for the "unarmed" entity aren’t modified by any FMs (as far as I know—I haven’t tested them all). I assumed that someone may have tweaked the player files for their FM, as those are far more relevant than the "unarmed" files (which are essentially blank in the vanilla game). If I had overwritten them, I’d risk breaking their mission.

There has been some discussion in the forums about having full body awareness and there didn't seem to be a lot of interest in it. Plus, it could end up being immersion-breaking. Imagine standing on a small rope and then looking down, only to see your feet just kind of floating in midair.

[jivo]

On 1/28/2025 at 8:42 AM, wesp5 said:

In my opinion this could be an optional part of the core game if the clipping-through-stuff-issue has been fixed. After all the hands have no use except for adding to the immersion and this goes right out of the window when that happens ;)!

Finally managed to fix the clipping issues with the items. Here's a video showing a comparison between a model with the fix applied (unlit lantern) and another without (lit lantern).

 

Edited January 30 by jivo

[jivo]

What animation should be used when the holy water is applied?

I think drinking it like the other potions feels a bit weird, since it's meant to be used for dousing the water arrows. But that's not something that can easily be represented through an animation, or at least I can't think of a way to do it, because the other hand may be occupied with the blackjack or the sword.

Any ideas? Keep in mind that it's meant to be a short animation.

Edited January 31 by jivo

[MirceaKitsune]

That's an interesting question. Does the item hand still show when you have the bow selected if you aren't firing it? In either case, I'd say tip and lower the bottle toward the bow so it looks like you're dousing the off-screen arrow: You apply holy water before firing so this makes the most sense in my opinion.

[jivo]

15 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

That's an interesting question. Does the item hand still show when you have the bow selected if you aren't firing it? In either case, I'd say tip and lower the bottle toward the bow so it looks like you're dousing the off-screen arrow: You apply holy water before firing so this makes the most sense in my opinion.

The item shows regardless of the weapon. If the bow is selected, the item hand switches from left to right.

The problem is if no weapon is selected or the blackjack/sword is selected, I can't tip the bottle towards the bow, since it is not in view.

[wesp5]

That is indeed a weird problem because the use is timed as well, and not set to a certain number of arrows. I never liked that so I replaced it with the help of Obsttorte with a bottle that you can throw at enemies which might be the only reasonable solution.

[jivo]

You can use the holy water even if you don't have water arrows equipped or even if they are not in your inventory, which contradicts the information in the wiki page: "the player needs to have these arrows selected while applying HW". If this were true, it would be no problem to just add an animation that leans the bottle into the water arrows bow.

[MirceaKitsune]

I'd need to test again to be sure, but from what I remember yes: The holy water can be used at any time including with the weapon holstered. This makes sense as it starts a timer that lasts for a fixed duration, during this time you can still freely switch between weapons, so it's not tied to having the water arrow selected at the moment of activation.

[jivo]

New potion animations coming soon! I think this is a nice way to represent the application of holy water.

Let me know what you think about these.

 

[MirceaKitsune]

1 hour ago, jivo said:

New potion animations coming soon! I think this is a nice way to represent the application of holy water.

Let me know what you think about these.

 

This is incredible! How did you get the other hand with the water arrow to show for the holy water... what does it do if the bow weapon is itself selected, is it customizable for custom potions applied to other arrows? The animation is a little stiff in places which can be fixed later, once again the results are mindblowing and beyond what I imagined.

[snatcher]

It looks great!

A little off-topic but I many times fantasized with the idea that Holy Water (only) blesses your blade forcing you to get dangerously close to the undead. I think most of the players never use the sword and this would force them to engage with the combat mechanic. Time could be increased to 60 seconds and we would spare water arrows along the way. Perhaps a mod someday.

Anyway, carry on with the good work!

[jivo]

On 2/5/2025 at 4:44 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

This is incredible!

Thank you

On 2/5/2025 at 4:44 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

How did you get the other hand with the water arrow to show for the holy water...

It's just another attachment added to the "unarmed" def file that only shows when the holy water is used. It seems there's no limit to how many attachments you can add to a weapon entity, which is very useful for this mod.

On 2/5/2025 at 4:44 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

what does it do if the bow weapon is itself selected

If a weapon is selected, it gets lowered the same way as when the player is mantling or using the inventory. In the particular case of the bow, it's the same animation but with the bottle on the right hand and the arrow on the left, since the holy water would be in the right hand in that case.

On 2/5/2025 at 4:44 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

is it customizable for custom potions applied to other arrows?

Unfortunately I don't think so, at least with the way I'm doing it. I added a new cvar to the source code to detect when an item is used and which one, which involves prior knowledge of the name of the item entity, so it's a rather static method and only works with the default TDM items. If I can figure out some other way to detect what item was used through the script, I don't see why this wouldn't be possible. However, I tried a lot of scripting methods but they were very unreliable and also lacked in generalization.

Are there a lot of FMs that use custom potions on specific arrows? I seem to spend more time working on the mod than actually playing the game, so my experience and knowledge of the custom content is limited.

On 2/5/2025 at 4:44 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

The animation is a little stiff in places

Animating is the part I like the least, the one I'm worst at, and the one that takes the longest. Also, working with md5 meshes is extremely boring and difficult, at least for me. This is the best I can do with my experience, sorry

[snatcher]

On 1/30/2025 at 11:35 PM, jivo said:

Finally managed to fix the clipping issues with the items. [...]

Can you share with us your findings? What is the "depth hack" about? This knowledge could come in handy for other initiatives.

[jivo]

On 2/6/2025 at 8:09 PM, snatcher said:

Can you share with us your findings? What is the "depth hack" about? This knowledge could come in handy for other initiatives.

Of course. The depth hack works as intended and basically stops weapons and weapon attachments from clipping through the map geometry. I confirmed this by setting it to false in the engine code and noticed that the weapons/items clipped without the hack enabled.

I think the issue happens when an object is fully outside of the map. You can see this if you "noclip" to an out of bounds zone, the weapon will stop being rendered. So, when the player leans against a wall, the items in the hand, which are fairly small, will be completely outside of the map and thus stop showing on screen. To fix this, I simply added a square plane to the object model to make it bigger than it actually is, and added the "nodraw" texture to this plane so it wouldn't be visible. This way, the object is big enough that some part of it is always inside the map, forcing it to be rendered.

The easiest way to add this invisible plane is by exporting the object model we want as an ASE file in Dark Radiant - so we can open and change it - and then manually adding the geometry and material of the plane to the file. I edited the first item in blender to add the invisible plane and then saved its geometry and material in a template file that I can now use to just copy and paste to any new models I want to add to the mod. It seems to work well. The only important part is exporting the model in Dark Radiant with origin at "0 0 0", since the first plane was created for an item with that origin.

[jivo]

Can a script function be too big? My "holding item" state is getting pretty massive as I add new items and variables to support the logic that is needed to handle each use case and, since adding the flashbomb, I'm getting this error:
"EnterFuncton: locals stack overflow"

[snatcher]

Never seen that error. @stgatilov probably can shed some light.

[jivo]

1 hour ago, snatcher said:

Never seen that error. @stgatilov probably can shed some light.

I think I've fixed it

[TheUnbeholden]

Cool. I can't wait to see this in the main mod, if people in the team approve of course

[snatcher]

Waiting (im)patiently for a version compatible with 2.13, @jivo !

[jivo]

On 4/2/2025 at 8:26 PM, snatcher said:

Waiting (im)patiently for a version compatible with 2.13, @jivo !

I'm planning on releasing the 2.13 version and also adding the updates I've shared in this thread.

I've been focused on finishing writing my thesis so there hasn't been much time for me to work on the mod but it will come eventually and I haven't abandoned it.