Bad "Alien Turn" Camera Behaviour - Post Here!

[Aaron]

As many of you have noticed the camera does not always behave very well during the alien turn - it sometimes shows the hidden movement screen when it shouldn't, and vice versa or jumps around in a disorienting or seemingly random way. Because of the way the code for the camera has been implemented we cannot fix this centrally - instead we need a saved game from just before some bad piece of camera behaviour, so we can identify and fix the specific bit of the fragmented camera code causing the issue.

So, if you see poor camera behaviour AND you have a saved game that can demonstrate it, please post it in this thread with a short description of what the camera did and what you expected it to do. This will help us find all the problems much more quickly than us devs searching on our own.

If the camera bug you have seen is an obvious duplicate of one someone has already posted here then you probably don't need to repost - but if in doubt, please post it!

Thanks all.

[Xenomorph]

I've been playing with the hidden camera image disabled, and i haven't been missing anything relevant, except what happens inside FOW that i don't see. The camera is focusing on the right stuff. What if you just disable it when an alien is doing stuff? Is that what you've been trying to do, that's so hard?

[Hety]

Hmm. in 19.4 its always "hidden movement" even if alien is my LOS all the time. Is it the expected behavior?

[smoitessier]

in my 19.4 the hiddenmove picture always stays over the action, it never goes away

[kabill]

As mentioned in the other thread, here's a GC save game where the 'hidden movement' screen is always on during the alien turn, even when there is an alien doing something in line of sight.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32960771/2013-07-24_09.55.34.sav

There's an alien spotted towards the top of the map. Pressing end turn will have it do some stuff, but the hidden movement screen stays on all of the time.

This is common of all my play experience so far (which has been only with the v19.x experimental builds). I have never had even part of an alien turn when the hidden movement screen has not displayed. If you think it might be useful, I can post up other save games too.

Hope this is useful.

EDIT: If the save doesn't load up a GC, I accidentally posted the wrong save. Tell me and I'll sort it.

[GizmoGomez]

Really, there's no issue I'm seeing in my play besides the unfortunate fact that the hidden movement image never goes away. Apart from that, I've not noticed anything grossly amiss. I'll keep my eye out, though.

[Aaron]

Thanks very much kabil. I've loaded that up in the Steam version and can confirm I see the problem - what's better news though is that I loaded it up in the latest development version, and the problem no longer occurs! One of Sergey's camera changes must have fixed. So, hopefully, the next experimental build should fix the issue for you guys.

[kabill]

Awesome. Easiest fix ever, apparently (it already having been done!).

[Umbra]

I just tried experimental build 19.5 and the hidden movement screen still covers the entire alien turn. Reaction fire and spotted aliens are still covered up.

[Ol' Stinky]

This isn't exactly the same problem, but maybe it's related: when a Xenonaut reaction fires, the camera tends to focus on the last soldier the player selected, and not the Xenonaut who fired the reaction shot. This means that you can miss the alien's movement after the reaction shot.

[Max_Caine]

Here are a pair of savegames, one during the day and one during the night which have the camera issues. They should be saved so you can see aliens quite easily.

One

Two

[kabill]

I have a question - during the alien's turn, is it supposed to be the case that you can see aliens acting if you have spotted them on your turn but no longer have LOS to them?

I had a ground battle yesterday where I kept retreating my soldiers back around some rocks such that by the end of the turn none of my soldiers could see the aliens I was fighting. But during their turn, I could still see them moving, expect when they went into undiscovered (black) areas of the map. This seems like it shouldn't be the case, but wanted to check.

[Aaron]

@Max_Caine: Thanks for posting those, but when I load them the hidden movment screen just behaves as expected in both saved games. So when you load those saved games you do definitely still see the issue? This is important to know, as it could be that loading a saved game "fixes" the issue, which might give us a clue where it happens. Would you mind giving me information about your system? Either a dxdiag file, or just list what hardware/OS you are using. Also are you playing the game in fullscreen or in a window, and at what resolution?

Could anybody who does not suffer from the problem of the hidden movement screen being always on also post their system specs and the resolution and windowed mode they play the game in? We need to eliminate as many variables as possible.

@kabill: That is how sight intended to work currently, yes, but we might be changing it so you can only see what your soldiers see at that moment, rather than everything they have uncovered for a whole turn.

[kabill]

@kabill: That is how sight intended to work currently, yes, but we might be changing it so you can only see what your soldiers see at that moment, rather than everything they have uncovered for a whole turn.

Awesome. Just wanted to check in case it wasn't supposed to be like that.

Also, is the hidden movement screen bug supposed to be fixed in 19.5? I'd assumed not (as I'm still suffering from it), but your post seems to imply otherwise. Assuming it is supposed to be fixed, I'm playing in fullscreen mode at 1280x1024.

Dxdiag file:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32960771/DxDiag.txt

[Max_Caine]

Hi Aaron,

Sorry dude, but I'm still having the same camera issues. To ensure that nothing even vaguely moddy was affecting the game, I uninstalled Xenonauts and did a clean re-install (hence the slow response). I then downloaded the savegames and put those into the Xeno save directory. After reloading each savegame, I got this:

Aliencameraone

And this:

Aliencameratwo

Here's the DxDiag file you wanted

EDIT: And I'm playing in fullscreen, at 1280x1024

Edited August 2, 2013 by Max_Caine

[bambam30]

Hey Aaron,

Logged in just for you (well, and me, because I love this game).

Seeing the same issue here, alien on the left hand side covered by Hidden Movement Screen

Playing on a dual monitor setup, at 1280x1024 in windowed mode. GeForce DTX 460 dual head graphics card.

Save File - http://www.mediafire.com/download/3c3kg3mjni7c2sy/2013-08-02_18.41.49.sav

DXDiag - http://www.mediafire.com/download/cfbd4e79lj619b7/DxDiag.txt

[Stinkspray]

I've been playing with the hidden camera image disabled, and i haven't been missing anything relevant, except what happens inside FOW that i don't see. The camera is focusing on the right stuff. What if you just disable it when an alien is doing stuff? Is that what you've been trying to do, that's so hard?

How can i disable hidden movement image? Its obviously bugged atm, covering the screen all the time even when i'm reaction firing

[Ol' Stinky]

How can i disable hidden movement image? Its obviously bugged atm, covering the screen all the time even when i'm reaction firing

1) Browse to your Xenonauts directory. There's an option in Steam to do it: go to Library, right-click "Xenonauts" on the list, select "properties", go to the "local files" tab, and click on the "browse local files..." button.

2) Go to assets\gui\GroundCombat\hiddenmovement.

3) Make a folder called "backup", move hiddenmovement.png and hiddenmovement_small into the folder. (You can simply delete the two .pngs, but I like to play it safe.)

4) Enjoy!

[Stinkspray]

Ol' Stinky

Thanks alot

[kabill]

So, I just loaded the game up via quick combat to test something and the hidden movement screen seems to be working correctly there (i.e. disappears when it should do). Is that because it uses an old build in some way?

[Aaron]

THIS BUG IS NOW FIXED HUZZAH.

Essentially the bug was limited to the release executable only, whereas I normally only use the debug build or ran quickbattles, in both of which it worked fine. I will make sure to try and reproduce any slippery defects in the release build in future!

[xcomnaut]

Some issues still exist. First reaction shot is still hidden behind picture. Also, when alien comes in your sight, picture not always removed. Sometimes I see that alien is detected only when player's turn starts.

[Msvknight]

It worked for me

BTW your the best Aaron

now I don't have rely on hearing if my soldiers die

[GizmoGomez]

Upon reaction firing, the camera often refocuses on a soldier instead of on the alien that's continuing to move after being shot at.

For example, pistol guy A is sitting with excess TUs watching a Caesan. The Caesan starts moving, camera focuses on pistol guy A, the reaction fire box pops up, the camera follows the bullet, the bullet either hits or misses the caesan (I forget which, I'd test both), and the camera refocuses on either pistol guy A or more often pistol chick B, an unrelated person who did no reaction firing.

[Ol' Stinky]

Upon reaction firing, the camera often refocuses on a soldier instead of on the alien that's continuing to move after being shot at.

For example, pistol guy A is sitting with excess TUs watching a Caesan. The Caesan starts moving, camera focuses on pistol guy A, the reaction fire box pops up, the camera follows the bullet, the bullet either hits or misses the caesan (I forget which, I'd test both), and the camera refocuses on either pistol guy A or more often pistol chick B, an unrelated person who did no reaction firing.

Yeah, I think it focuses on the last unit the player selected. I always select the soldier closest to the action before hitting end turn to try and avoid missing any of the action.