Assistance requested - Weapon visual glow effects

I has been a while since I did any DS1/LoA weapons mods, but I would be happy to look at this. Can you tell me is it a mod you designed or another person made? Is the mod a DS1 mod or a mod specific to LoA? If it is a mod someone else did what is the name of the mod? If it is a mod of your own making could you give me a link to it so that I can download it and have a look?

Thanks for getting back to me bare_elf

You may have heard of the mod... It's actually Ultima V: Lazarus I note that you have links to their main site here.

This particular issue is actually evident in the official final release.

I have decided to conglomerate all subsequent submods and game fixes to the final release (which have been made by several modders since final release) as several of these mods conflict with each other. I am reviewing each submod - what it does, what other mods it conflicts with - and creating a set of finalised mods that encompass all previously made fixes and improvements without conflict (such as spell fixes, weapon fixes, dialogue fixes and so on). Once I've finished with these the host of Ultima Codex has offered to upload the final versions onto the site for the rest of the community to use and benefit from.

Even though there are several different weapon fix mods made by others for Lazarus, these only address the damage dealt by weapons. There is one that modifies the weapon glows when they are equipped, however none of these fixes address the fact that weapons no longer show their visual equipped effects once you go through a transition.

I have included a link for current weapon fixes submod that I have incorporated all current weapon fixes into - it simply needs this addition to have it finished: https://www.dropbox.com/s/93gt15haetfk7c1/Intrinsic%20Dragon%20-%20All%20Weapon%20Fixes%20%2B%20Main%20Gauche.dsres?dl=0

I've also made a temporary mod that puts all magic weapons in the starting location (the barrel in the shed) purely for mod testing purposes to make it easier. There are teleport scrolls in the house to help you make a transition with them equipped. I won't be including this test mod when I release the others (I'm not looking to release 'cheat' mods): https://www.dropbox.com/s/0s8sdntvkx2wtyc/Intrinsic%20Dragon%20-%20Special%20Starter%20Items.dsres?dl=0

Let me know what you think.

Many thanks

I don't suppose any of those patches include fixes what might improve performance, hm? Because, while I'm playing it on a laptop, I've found that I have more gamebreaking lag in Ultima 6 even at lowest graphical settings than I have at any point in Dungeon Siege II, modded map or otherwise. Is Ultima 6 really so chock full of detail that my potato-laptop can't handle it, or is it maybe just not well optimized?

I have not only heard of it but played it many times. I also know at least from on line conversations most of the people that worked on the project. I discovered many of the bugs that where in the map prior to the final release. I remember several people including myself attempting to fix the magic weapon glow vanishing on a transition. I will dig back in my notes once I remember which computer they where on and see with we discovered. Once you find the solution to the issues we can also post the mods here. Some of the items and effects where used by iryan in the legendary mod. Did you know that the project director of Ultima 5: Lazarus “FRILLY WUMPUS” is a member here? It has been a while since he visited but he does from time to time. You could always PM him and ask him about the problem too.

Update, the hard drive that had my copy of Ultima 5 and my notes no longer works. I looked on line for a copy of Ultima 5 but could not find any that would download most sites that I checked either had incomplete or damaged files.

... squirrelled away on a CD. It is u5_lazarus_setup_v1.20(.exe), 533,456 KB on the CD, dated August 2009 which I think is most likely when I downloaded it. Where from I do not remember - I was collecting stuff from several of the obvious sites then - it is one of those I haven't got around to playing yet.

Is this the same version that the others have?

Hi bare_elf, thanks for looking for your old notes. You should be able to download the final version from several of the mirrored links on their site: http://www.u5lazarus.com/Downloads.php - let me know if you need me to upload a copy here. The link to TheHawk's Nest seems to work best - http://lazarus.thehawkonline.com/downloads/u5_lazarus_setup_v1.20.exe

Once you have it installed, just drop the submods I linked previously into the 'resources' folder of your Lazarus installation directory.

Raymus - the mods do not relate to performance changes, only bug fixes - and these are for Ultima 5, not 6. I haven't played around with the Ultima 6 remake yet to be able to offer any tips there. Were you able to play Ultima V: Lazarus without any performance issues? It may simply be your laptop.

I tried. I've never uploaded before so didn't know what buttons to press in what order. I tried Upload (without touching Submit, which was obviously what I would have done if supplying a link instead of an upload) and the window just sat there with "in progress" dots circling for an hour and a half. (In the other direction, downloading Legendary Mod 33a Installer, which is larger, took my system only a fraction of the time, and I had Windows tracking progress.) While in another window (putting together an SOS PM, which I've now thankfully abandoned) I noticed they had stopped and the form had blanked out - no message to tell me if the upload had completed or failed.

Shouldn't matter anyway now we have those links from Intrinsic-Dragon, but I'm curious.

I have the file now. It took 8 tries to get it the file, the first 7 attempts the download stopped at between 40 and 60 percent. the last time the whole file downloaded in 18 minutes without error. Why that happened only the Internet knows for sure. I will install it tomorrow and see what happens.

Oh right! When I tried that link it worked first time, downloaded in 15 mins for me. Well done for persevering!

I see what you mean about the weapons that have a glow when first equipped and then the glow vanishes when you restart the map or you jump from one location to another. Re-equipping the weapon fixes the problem most of the time but not always with a few of the swords.

Now I recall why I stopped playing U5 The lengthy conversations. The forever explanations pages and pages of stuff to read. I like a little less talking and a lot more action.

I will have a look at the code for these weapons to see if I can find anything in common between them and explore the effects to see if there is something preventing them from displaying all the time.

Thanks bare_elf. I appreciate that.

Intrinsic-Dragon, I have had a brief look at some of the weapons and as yet have not found anything that might cause the problem with the weapon glow turning off when one jumps to a new location or saves a game. Could you give me a complete list of the weapons that exhibit the problem. If not no worries.

Hi bare_elf,

Thanks for looking. The problem happens with every weapon that has a glow attached to it, there isn't any weapon that glows which keeps its glow after a loading screen - this leads me to think the problem doesn't necessarily lie in the weapons codes themselves (unless they are all missing a certain piece of code). Here is a complete list of the 10 magic weapons with a glow:

Magic Axes = pb_magic_axe;
Magic Bows = pb_magic_bow;
Glass Swords = pb_glass_sword;
Silver Swords = pb_silver_sword;
Graesh's Sword = uvl_graesh_sword;
Windfer's Sword = uvl_windfers_sword;
Sword of Stonestrike = uvl_sword_of_stonestrike;
Mystic Sword = pb_mystic_sword;
Mystic Staff = pb_mystic_staff;
Enilno = pb_enilno;

I imagine that the problem may lie in the game code itself, possibly for loading characters or somesuch.

Taking a look around the mod, I have found a teleport file that stores the code for teleporting characters through a transition. It effectively seems to create new characters, give them the weapons the old ones were holding, and replace their gear. It's in:

resources\britannia_logic.dres - world\global\skrits\k_inc_pb_teleport.skrit

I think the way it creates and gives the new weapons is the key here, but I don't know enough code to figure it out.

Maybe this can be fixed, or maybe new code can be put in to unequip and re-equip the weapons again after they are created. I notice that in the camping scene, weapons are removed and when re-equipped upon waking have their glows (just like manual unequipping & re-equipping).

The camping skrit is:

resources\britannia_logic.dres - world\contentdb\components\britannia\interactivity\bedroll_camping.skrit

Here you can see the code for characters removing and re-equipping their weapons. Would you know how to re-work the teleport skrit?

I was unable to find anything out of place with the weapons templates, so it may have something to do with the teleporting of characters, however it would not explain what occurs when a game is saved and reloaded and the magic weapons do not have the glow until being re-equipped.

Hi bare_elf, I do not experience the problem when saving a game and reloading. I have just tried it again, and when saving/reloading there is no problem with the glows, if they are on the weapons when saved. I tried saving it after a transition (when there is no glow), and reloading brings up the weapons as they were saved - with no glow.

So it seems once they transition properly, saving and loading won't affect the glows fortunately.

Have you any idea how to incorporate into the teleport skrit some code that will unequip and re-equip the weapons? There should be some code to do this in the camping skrit I mentioned but I can't quite make it out.

If you post the files here, I'll be happy to help.
See you.

Thanks for stepping up - this is regarding the Lazarus mod which can be obtained at http://lazarus.thehawkonline.com/downloads/u5_lazarus_setup_v1.20.exe if you want to see how it operates.

The specific file to look at for the scripts is britannia_logic.dres, which can be found in the resources subfolder of the installation directory - I've also put a link to it here in case you want to just look at the file in isolation - https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt13jjd8widwrsc/britannia_logic.dsres?dl=0

The teleportation script within britannia_logic.dres is world\global\skrits\k_inc_pb_teleport.skrit, and the camping script where weapons are un-equipped before sleep and re-equipped on waking is world\contentdb\components\britannia\interactivity\bedroll_camping.skrit

In case you want to trial it to see if the weapons do then keep their glow, my two mods for this are https://www.dropbox.com/s/93gt15haetfk7c1/Intrinsic%20Dragon%20-%20All%20Weapon%20Fixes%20%2B%20Main%20Gauche.dsres?dl=0 and
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0s8sdntvkx2wtyc/Intrinsic%20Dragon%20-%20Special%20Starter%20Items.dsres?dl=0 - these are placed into the resources subfolder.

These have magic weapons stored in the barrel in the shed in the starting area to test them.

I thought pasting the scripts here on the forum might be too lengthy, but if that's preferable let me know.

So this is a bit strange in fact, the camping skrit works in fact because it speed the time up so no transition is made. But the teleportation already have the "equip-unequip" code to reactive the effects in fact they wrote it in the comments. So i'm bit confiused and I'll have to look around a bit more.

Hi there,

I've just returned from a week away and was wondering if there was any light shed on this. I know it was mentioned that the teleport skrit already has some code to equip the weapons, but can extra code be written at the end of the event, to manually again unequip and re-equip the weapons?

I mentioned the camping skrit earlier because although there is no transition involved there and it simply speeds up time, the characters in fact remove their weapons before they sleep and then re-equip them after waking - this means the coding that does that unequip + re-equip works, so was hoping to add it to the bottom of the teleport skrit, as described above.

Thanks!