game profile: StarWars Battlefront 2

[iondrive]

hi all,

Boy that took alot longer than I thought it would but I finally got it done. It's not perfect but very playable except for one or two levels. From the iZ3D forum:

This was done with iZ3D version 1.10 on winXP with a geForce 7800GTX in BLC shutterglass mode but should work fine with many other setups.

Well, I've made an iZ3D game profile for Starwars Battlefront and I thought I should go ahead and make one for Starwars Battlefront 2 and here it is. It took alot longer than I thought because of certain complexities and trying to find 3 presets that work with all needed circumstances so I'm kind of proud of this one although it still has some issues you need to work around or get used to. I tried to make it like SW-BF1 but there are some unavoidable differences. Basically, your index finger controls 1st/3rd person views for spacecraft in the same way it did for aircraft in SW-BF1 and your ring finger controls views for infantry and turrets while the mouse wheel button always toggles zoom except for Jedi which don't have zoom and use that button for blocking instead. This complicated setup was necessary because spacecraft need different 3d settings than infantry. Basically "C" is the hotkey for spacecraft 3d settings, "Q" is for 1st-person infantry and long-range sniping, and "Z" is for 3rd-person infantry settings. It works well once you get used to it and you can change the profile for SW-BF1 to be more like this one by including "Z" as an alternate view toggle for infantry.

Starwars Battlefront II game notes:
This game is pretty good especially if you like the first one except that the jet trooper is not that good here. It's the engineer that's the most fun for running in and taking a command post since he can drop health and ammo packs for himself while he's fighting. There are some significant differences between the two games and one is the ability of troops to sprint which is pretty helpful. Others include the ability to play as Jedi/Sith or other special characters. Also, there're no interior views of vehicles or air/spacecraft so that's too bad since it was pretty cool in s3d in SW-BF1. The best difference is that this game has 6 space-based levels where you can have some really good space-dogfighting fun or else you can land aboard the enemy star-cruiser and sabotage systems there in person. 3D settings were tweaked to make this a good experience such as the "Q" hotkey being used to set the settings so that it's perfect for shooting at the auto-defense guns in the control rooms. Zoom in for a better shot.

Here are the recommended changes you need to make in the game control menu:

Infantry settings:
set View to "Q" and "Z" for 1st and 3rd person views. It's a toggle but try to use them as separate controls. Use "Q" for long-range sniping.
set "X" to be crouch and Ctrl to be rolling-dodge or whatever you prefer.
Troops can't lie down like in SW-BF1, neither can jedi.

Starfighter settings:
set "trick" to "Z" or something else, this is a quick sidestep dodge and is used with the mouse. Actually, you don't need to set this one since double-tapping "A" or "D" will do the dodge for you.
set "immelman" to "X". This is a quick U-turn and you should learn to use it alot. This also works with the mouse and lets you choose which direction to do the U-turn in, left/right/up/down or in-between.
set view to "E" and "C" for 1st/3rd person views. It's a toggle but try to use them as separate controls.
set exit to "Q". This is unfortunately different from exiting vehicles and turrets using "X" but I think it's the best compromise I could find since I wanted "X" for the immelman and "Q" automatically sets your 3d settings for your guy-view.

Vehicle settings including Droidekas:
set "droideka deploy" to "E" to enter/exit rolling mode. This is nice since it matches SW-BF1.
set "droideka view" to "Q" and "Z" for 1st/3rd person views. Once again, it's a toggle but try to use them as separate controls.
set "exit vehicle" to "X". We can't use "Q" here since it's used for droideka 1st-person view. I think it was a game design mistake to include droideka controls under vehicles.

Jedi settings:
jedi have neither 1st-person view nor zoom so they use mouse button 3 to toggle blocking instead.
set "X" to be crouch and Ctrl to be rolling-dodge or whatever you prefer.
use the "2" key to toggle the iZ3D lasersight on/off to help you aim your saber-throws and also for unzoomed 3rd-person snipers since they have no game-reticle for some reason unless they're zoomed-in.

Turret settings:
some turrets work differently than others with mouse button 3 enabling zoom mode, then Q and Z zooming in and out. Some vehicles have turrets and starship turrets can be controlled through the control room seats. You can cycle through starship turrets with the mouse wheel. Cycle away from a turret that's about to be destroyed or else you'll die when that happens.
set zoom-in to "Q" and zoom-out to "Z"
set "exit turret" to "E" and/or "X"

under all the above possible:
mouse wheel cycles primary/secondary weapons or vehicle positions
mouse wheel click toggles zoom (mouse button 3)
set target lock to "F"
set map to "Tab"
set enter to "E"


notes on problems:

There are basically 4 types of problems with the rendering in this game when using the iZ3D driver 1.10. The game does not have these problems when the driver is not used.
1: star-field popout instead of in. Other 3d settings may not show this phenomenon.
2: shiny reflecting floors sometimes have weird static-like fractures.
3: some levels have a sky problem that looks like fractures of white flashing on and off or else has a different color.
4: sometimes surfaces pop to 2d when you get close to them. I think this is unavoidable as a consequence of making the HUD 2d. (<VertexShader CRC="0x94EA9682" ZNear="5.0" />) Minimum ZNear was found via trial and error. It defines the distance from the camera that things drawn with that shader become 2d. Beyond that distance, things remain 3d.


On some levels, stars popout instead of in and it's not a normal texture. I think I need the VertexShader CRC to fix this. These are the levels with popout stars: Coruscant, Naboo, and all space levels. It's very possible that one fix will fix all levels regarding this issue.


Level Data:

Levels with no serious problems:
Mos Eisley: good
Mygeeto: good
Dagobah: no real problems
Endor: some ignorable sky flashing.
Geonosis: very ignorable 2d mountain range
Death Star: ignorable floor reflection static/cracks
Jabba's Palace: some ignorable 2d-near-surface popping
Kamino: some ignorable 2d distant structures. some ignorable 2d-near-surface popping.
Mustafar: some ignorable 2d-near-surface popping, some eruptions in sky (game programming issue).
Tantive IV: some 2d-near-surface popping, some annoying floor flickering. Floor reflections work fine without 3d driver.


Levels with ignorable but annoying problems:
Coruscant: star-field popout
Naboo: star-field popout
Space Felucia: star-field popout
Space Hoth: star-field popout and ignorable shiny floor problem
Space Kashyyyk: star-field popout
Space Mygeeto: star-field popout
Space Tatooine: star-field popout and ignorable shiny floor problem
Space Yavin: star-field popout and ignorable shiny floor problem
Yavin 4: ignorable white fracturing sky, some ignorable 2d-near-surface popping
Polls Massa: sky has white flickering fractures when force-fields or some glass is in view. Ignorable when indoors.
some ignorable 2d-near-surface popping


Levels that are bad or unplayable:
Felucia: many white flashing cracks in sky. some 2d-near-surface popping. playable if you can ignore the sky.
Hoth: very frequent white broken flashing big dome around character blocking almost all visibility. Playable with some units but unplayable with others that depend on distant visibility. This glitch goes away when you look away from the sun.

Next, the profile.

[iondrive]

The profile:

To use this profile, just find the "StarWars Battlefront II" section in UserProfile.xml and swap it out with this one. Backup your original if you want. All the Texture-CRC's are for fixing bad-depth problems with sky/horizon/skyline/nebulas/planets and were found using Texmod.


warning: this profile uses pop-out to make the in-game reticle usable. I think advanced users can tolerate/enjoy this but I'm unsure about 3D newbies.


For reference, here's the original profile from 1.10 BaseProfile.xml

Code: Select all

	<Profile Name="StarWars Battlefront II">
		<File Name="BattlefrontII.exe" />
		<!-- guns and buildings become mono with low detail -->
		<Mono>
			<!--menu interface ATi-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0xCFFECC8A"/>
			<!--Minimap-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x33A55DBF"/>
		</Mono>
		<Stereo>
			<!--Weapon glow-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x2AC6660D" ZNear="3.0"/>
			<!--Crosshair-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x4871A9AA" ZNear="3.0"/>
			<!--Crosshair-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x77825664" ZNear="3.0"/>
			<!--Gun and grenade pictures for Humans-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x06DE00A4" ZNear="3.0"/>
			<!--Gun and grenade pictures  for Robots-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x1F3F4E7D" ZNear="3.0"/>
			<!--Stripe under gun and grenade pictures in interface-->
			<VertexShader CRC="0x94EA9682" ZNear="3.0"/>
		</Stereo>
		<MonoFixedPipeline Value="1"/>
	</Profile>

and here's my version:

Code: Select all

    <Profile Name="StarWars Battlefront II">
        <File Name="BattlefrontII.exe" />
        <MonoFixedPipeline Value="0" />
        <SeparationMode Value="2" />
        <Mono>
            <!-- HUD numbers, bars, ammo reticle, map command posts -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0xCFFECC8A" />
            <!-- Minimap white circle component -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x33A55DBF" />
            <!-- Geonosis dust cloud -->
            <Texture CRC="0xC69F2FA7" />
        </Mono>
        <Stereo>
            <!-- Minimap dark circle and pointer components -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x94EA9682" ZNear="5.0" />
            <!-- Reticle, outer -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x77825664" ZNear="4.5" />
            <!-- Lock-on reticle -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x1F3F4E7D" ZNear="4.5" />
            <!-- Damage-indicating reticle -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x4871A9AA" ZNear="4.5" />
            <!-- 2D-ifies 1st-person weapon and HUD weapons, I set it to 0.0 for 3d gun -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x06DE00A4" ZNear="0.0" />
            <!-- Weapon glow, I don't see any effect from this so I set it to 0.0 -->
            <VertexShader CRC="0x2AC6660D" ZNear="0.0" />
        </Stereo>
        <Multiplier Value="-0.6">
            <!-- Endor-Deathstar -->
            <Texture CRC="0x8D5E3931" />
            <!-- Endor-Shield-Generator -->
            <Texture CRC="0xA86CDDC6" />
            <!-- Mustafar-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x9A5B29CC" />
            <!-- Mustafar-smoke -->
            <Texture CRC="0x09E4B775" />
        </Multiplier>
        <Multiplier Value="-0.4">
            <!-- planet clouds: Yavin, Mygeeto, Felucia, Hoth, Kashyyyk -->
            <Texture CRC="0x41420EBF" />
            <!-- Kashyyyk planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere -->
            <Texture CRC="0x069CAB3D" />
            <Texture CRC="0x37AFA830" />
            <Texture CRC="0x7EDAF933" />
            <!-- Kashyyyk nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0x16E87A82" />
            <!-- Hoth planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere -->
            <Texture CRC="0x1D93EEE2" />
            <Texture CRC="0xA0384E3D" />
            <Texture CRC="0x42B6A5E5" />
            <!-- Hoth nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0xCA38C6B5" />
            <!-- Yavin planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere -->
            <Texture CRC="0xF02E8C5B" />
            <Texture CRC="0xF2FF3389" />
            <Texture CRC="0x7E92ECC9" />
            <!-- Yavin nebula-a,b -->
            <Texture CRC="0x923E90DD" />
            <Texture CRC="0x08ECC0B0" />
            <!-- Mygeeto planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere -->
            <Texture CRC="0x477690F8" />
            <Texture CRC="0x8ABCC866" />
            <Texture CRC="0x1135E4BF" />
            <!-- Mygeeto nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0xC0DA422E" />
            <!-- Felucia planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere -->
            <Texture CRC="0xB40F253C" />
            <Texture CRC="0xE5E98A4A" />
            <Texture CRC="0x145C335E" />
            <!-- Felucia-nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0x6D08FEC4" />
            <!-- Tatooine planet: surface-a,b, atmosphere, clouds -->
            <Texture CRC="0x21E8D245" />
            <Texture CRC="0x69F55D2D" />
            <Texture CRC="0x15C97854" />
            <Texture CRC="0x02FDB990" />
            <!-- Tatooine-nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0x380F1226" />
            <!-- Utapau-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x6C35941D" />
            <!-- Mustafar-firespout -->
            <Texture CRC="0x1FD252C4" />
            <!-- Mustafar-mountains -->
            <Texture CRC="0x0F4FA6D4" />
            <!-- Polls-Massa-nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0x8AA2A146" />
            <!-- Polls-Massa-stars -->
            <Texture CRC="0x04CD80E2" />
            <!-- Hoth-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x0C02BB53" />
            <!-- Mos-Eisley-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x1804686F" />
            <!-- Kamino-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x9B073399" />
            <!-- Kashyyyk-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x01727153" />
            <!-- Dagobah-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x302A77DB" />
            <!-- Felucia-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x306CD250" />
            <!-- Endor-forest-backdrop -->
            <Texture CRC="0x55DE86D9" />
            <!-- Deathstar-nebula -->
            <Texture CRC="0xEB54109C" />
            <!-- Geonosis-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0xA2169C9C" />
            <!-- Geonosis-2d-mountains, no help -->
            <Texture CRC="0x713F0390" />
            <!-- Yavin-sky -->
            <Texture CRC="0x1343A479" />
            <!-- Yavin-red-sun -->
            <Texture CRC="0x9CC97385" />
        </Multiplier>
        <Multiplier Value="-0.2">
            <!-- Yavin-clouds -->
            <Texture CRC="0xF3B463DA" />
            <!-- Kashyyyk-clouds -->
            <Texture CRC="0xAB532392" />
            <!-- sky explosions -->
            <Texture CRC="0x46F5DDA3" />
            <!-- Felucia-horizon-plants -->
            <Texture CRC="0xBA3AA8A5" />
            <!-- Coruscant-skyline -->
            <Texture CRC="0x6D9256BE" />
            <!-- Kamino-skyline -->
            <Texture CRC="0xCC7B8B03" />
        </Multiplier>
        <Presets>
            <Preset Index="0">
                <One_div_ZPS Value="0.009110" />
                <StereoBase Value="0.091210" />
                <AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
            </Preset>
            <Preset Index="1">
                <One_div_ZPS Value="0.037113" />
                <StereoBase Value="0.179822" />
                <AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
            </Preset>
            <Preset Index="2">
                <One_div_ZPS Value="0.008606" />
                <StereoBase Value="0.529319" />
                <AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
            </Preset>
        </Presets>
        <Keys>
            <!-- "Q" preset 1 hotkey is used to exit a vehicle to normal guy view -->
            <SetPreset1 Key="81" />
            <!-- "Z" preset 2 hotkey is for zoomed-in long-range view -->
            <SetPreset2 Key="90" />
            <!-- "C" preset 3 hotkey is for starship and vehicle view -->
            <SetPreset3 Key="67" />
            <!-- ToggleLaserSight Key "number 2" key -->
            <ToggleLaserSight Key="50" />
        </Keys>
        <LaserSightYCoordinate Value="0.688" />
        <ShowWizardAtStartup Value="0" />
        <SwapEyes Value="0" />
        <LaserSightEnable Value="0" />
    </Profile>

Summarizing hotkeys from least 3d to most:

Q is for 1st-person infantry views and long-range zoomed-in snipers.
Z is for normal 3rd-person guy-view.
C is for external vehicle/spacecraft views and E is for 1st-person spacecraft view but it doesn't change 3d settings.

Once again, try not to use these as toggles unless you have to.


Notes:
I've set the "number 2" key to toggle the iZ3D lasersight to help you aim with the jedi saber-throw and the sniper's 3rd-person view. You probably want to use my custom lasersight taken from a screenshot of the game. <LaserSightYCoordinate Value="whatever"> really needs to be presettable via hotkeys since the sniper needs a different value depending if he's in 1st or 3rd person unzoomed view. A custom LS is very helpful here for both the sniper and some Jedi for their saber-throwing ability. You should be able to download this reticle and use it by setting <CustomLaserSightIconPath Value="" /> to your copy's location. "CustomLaserSightIconPath Value" is in your Config.xml which should be in the same folder as BaseProfile.xml. For winXP, it's in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\iZ3D Driver.

SW-BF2.png

Figured out how to edit transparency in the GIMP so here's the same reticle at 75% transparency. It's better this way.

75-percent-SW-BF2.png

Comments:
If you want only one Starwars Battlefront game, then choose "1" if you're in love with jet-pack games. If you want a space-dogfighting game, then choose "2". If you're a Starwars fan, get both. They're cheap enough.

Don't forget to have fun,

--- iondrive ---