Freeplay

[Cooper]

Freeplay is my passion

[Dannye]

Yeah having to work with longer replays that may contain many failed attempts can be kinda annoying, though hopefully its not a too-common occurrence these days? (With USCM always clearing the replay buffer on teleports triggered after bails, and now having the option to do that for all teleports - not sure how many people use the latter but I normally do).

My approach for dealing with such reps has been to enable fast-forward and use Shift+X to create breakpoints every so often while it plays (also being sure to have loopback enabled so the rep doesn't end unexpectedly [I have this auto-enabled via the settings file as I always prefer it on]), then once I realise we've finally hit the important part I can jump-backwards to the most recent breakpoint and work from there (potentially narrowing it down further subsequently if needed, and taking note of the frame number if I think I'll need to do it again later). Still quite inconvenient I admit, but its something at least, and can be done with just one playback.

Regarding the frame-counter colouring idea: I do quite like that as a concept, but indeed it does seem that making it based on custom data baked into the rep and/or coordinates could be problematic, so the best I can imagine is maybe a version where its based on how far through the total rep you are (eg. green for first third of a rep, orange for second third, red for last third), though even then I'm not immediately sure if that's something I can do, and ofcourse that doesn't necessarily relate to when the stunt occurs.

Regarding starting/jumping to a point within a rep: Yeah ideally the ability to jump around to different parts of a replay (currently done via breakpoints [and kinda has to be, else I'd have trouble with conflicts between it and breakpoints/frame-tracking]) would be more flexible such that you could jump to any breakpoint at any time during playback, and thus if you had one setup at your desired starting point (either added during a prior playback, or loaded via a frep-rep file [which can always be trimmed down to contain solely the breakpoints definition line, and thus affect nothing else when loaded]) you could immediately go there after starting playback. Unfortunately I'm not sure that the way replay progress is tracked in freeplay vs the game plays too nice with that, hence the added need to first reach/pass the point in the active playback naturally before being allowed to jump there - I'd love to remove this restriction, but I am not too confident in being able to do so.

I'll be sure to keep pondering this stuff.
Cheers for all the feedback and kind words guys!

[Dannye]

The next version of Freeplay, v8, is (kind of) here, finally! The documentation is not finalised yet, so it's not quite ready for an official release, but for anyone who would like to make use of this update prior to that (and thus do so without fully-detailed documentation of the changes) I am including a 'pre-release' download link in this post that you are welcome to use until then.

Download: VC Freeplay v8 Pre-release

Lots of changes this time around (though many are smaller-scale changes), with most stemming from work on Momentum - some implemented during development (and thus can often be seen in-action in the video), and then further related additions/improvements in this time since.

The Changelog    (included also in the download above, with slightly more detail and key bindings)

Time:

• Force Traffic Light Colour: Locks all traffic lights to a preferred colour/state - Off, Red, Yellow, Green
• Flashing Traffic Lights: Sets a preference for whether a Forced Traffic Light Colour will be static/constant (default) or flashing on/off
• Rotating Cranes In Replays: Allows the cranes that normally rotate in regular gameplay to also rotate in replay playback
• Non-Stop Crane Rotation: Simplifies the pattern of rotating cranes, so they now always rotate endlessly in their primary direction without any interruption

Weather:

• A few more weather shortcuts added: Hurricane, Cloudy, Sunny with half-strength Clouds
• Always Raining: Always show rain, regardless of the weather type (if not prevented by "Hide All Rain Effects")
• Rainfall Preference: Choose to only render one of the two primary 'rainfall' effects during rain (screen-layer vs in-world), compared to default of both-together

Environment

• Still Clouds: Prevent clouds from moving/changing/rotating over time
• Fluffy Clouds Only: Prevent the thin/low cloud types from being rendered during cloudy weather, instead only showing the fluffy/soft types
• Raise the Clouds: Cycle between normal and 2 levels of increased height, so the camera doesn't have to be above them anymore
• Extend the Sky: Extends the sky below the horizon slightly (prevent seeing the 'void' on higher cameras), or make the sky never-ending (prevent seeing the 'void' ever, at extreme height and even during camera rolls; caveat: sky only uses top-colour, no gradient)
• Prevent Transparent Water: Nearby water patches will not render with transparency (caveat: can make water look flatter up-close)
• Transparent Water Styling Changes: Improve the blending in-between and at the boundaries of transparent water patches, optionally also extending the transparent water range (caveat: can make water look flatter up-close, and may not work as well for all weather types)
• Prevent Flowing-Water Overlay: The 'flowing water' effect/filter normally applied on top of the nearest water patches will not be rendered

Rendering Prevention

• Hide All Rain Effects: Never show any particles/effects associated with rain, regardless of the weather type
• Hide Water Sparkles: Prevents 'water sparkles' particle effects from being rendered on nearby water
• Hide Birds: Prevents birds flying around in the sky
• Hide Airborne Leaves: Prevents leaves from floating around in the air
• Hide Horizon Boats: Prevents the display of 2D ships along the horizon

Rendering Behaviour

• Experimental Culling Fixes: Tries to prevent the culling (choosing not to render) of map-chunks/objects/buildings/etc that should be visible on the screen but the game incorrectly thinks otherwise (eg due to camera rolls confusing it). Caveat: culled areas may now appear, but only as low-quality LOD models, and unfortunately this will also happen to other objects that previously displayed fine. Best only used if absolutely necessary, and compositing/masking the footage with a matching capture made without this feature, to get the best of both

Replay Playback Pausing

• Pause Particles Too: When replay playback is paused, all particle rendering is paused too - no duplicates created, plus existing ones hold their current state/position

Automatic/Always-On

• Support for applying custom frame-specific FOV value changes defined within replay files via Replay Manager
• Allow Tank/Police/Enforcer Missing Doors in Replays: Fixes game-bug that otherwise makes them render as present-but-damaged during replay playback instead
• Prevents extremely sharp camera angles from causing world background colours to suddenly change to a darker brown covering the entirety
• Hide 'Blood Droplets on Screen' Effect: Just like Freeplay already did for the slide-down-screen raindrops, now for blood-drops too
• Prevent Particle Carryover: When starting/ending replay playback, or performing a Breakpoint Jump or Replay Loopback, Freeplay now ensures that no particles from prior to that event still linger inappropriately in the new context/time after the event. (The game already did this, somewhat/sometimes, but not fully/reliably - now it will) (This also significantly reduces the chance of entire particle system breakdown, and provides an easy fix should it occur)
• Reduce Rain Related Redundancy: Prevents some rain-related particles from doubling-up during replay playback - if rainy during playback the game will render fresh versions of them, but if it was raining when the replay was created the particles will also be recreated from that time, thus double. For the doubles prevented here Freeplay opts for the dynamic/live versions rather than recreated ones (thus also avoiding the game quirk of the replay-recreated screen-layer rainfall effect rendering at the wrong speed compared to the live equivalent)
• Improved In-World Rainfall Consistency & Tracking: This rainfall effect is now finally able to properly 'keep up' (and thus visibly render in-frame) with a fast moving camera, something the game normally struggled (and often gave up) trying to do. In addition, normally there is some variation in the amount of rain rendered by this effect, sometimes even showing none at all for short periods - now it will be consistent, if you want this rain, you get it

Updated Features

• Hide All Particles: Now not only prevents the game from creating new ones, it also immediately removes any existing ones
• Force Replay(-Manager) Camera: Simplification of this feature behind-the-scenes to improve/prevent SAiVC stability issues
• Extended Vehicle (LOD-0)Model Render Distance: Will now work when running the game with the Widescreen Mod active

With thanks to Darkstar for the Replay Manager related changes and boxXx for the heads-up about the Widescreen mod compatibility issue.

And that should cover it. Hopefully I'll be back soon with an official release, but the changelog will likely be the same as above. If anyone has any questions about these changes, runs into any issues using the pre-release version, or anything else, let me know.

Cheers

[Max_]

Another fantastic edition. Mostly hyped for the still clouds and rainfall tracking features, as well as all the environment and particle fixes. Can't wait to not have to restart my game every time the sparks decide to give up on me
Thanks Dannye

[Argy]

Seeing you still work on this is nothing but inspiration can't wait to see these wather/clouds features in action.

[Ltab-]

awesome update Dannye, looking forward to putting it to use

[Dannye]

The complete version 8 release of Freeplay is now available. The main purpose of this release was to finally include a fully-updated Documentation HTML file, covering all of the changes made in the v8 'Pre-release' from earlier in the year, however because I took so long to do the proper documentation, this release is also able to include some minor feature additions/changes as well.

Download: VC Freeplay v8 Complete

The Changelog    (more comprehensively detailed throughout the proper Documentation file included the download above)

Water Feature Improvements:

• Prevent Transparent Water: No more caveats, achieves its goal without 'flattening' the water (thus the 'wavy' patches/region remains active)
• Transparent Water Styling Changes: split into two distinct features, both working without sacrificing the 'wavy' region (thus no more caveats here either)
  • Improved Transparent Water Blending: Improve the blending of transparency levels at water region boundaries (no more abrupt edges/cutoffs)
  • Extended Transparent Water Distance: Extend the size of the transparency-supporting regions of water
• Hide Flowing-Water Overlay: New button combo to trigger it, and new name
  • (thus also new label in settings file: so use new file from this release, copying any of your changes across, or copy across its changes to your old one)
• Hide Water Sparkles: New button combo to trigger it

Other Feature Improvements:

• Slow-Motion Replay Playback:
  • Particle rendering/behaviour during slowmo has been significantly improved (though still not perfect). Previously their velocity/direction/length/quantity were all incorrect (and only got worse the slower the speed), now all much closer to how they should be. (With thanks to Deathcobra and Darkstar)
• Force Replay Camera (and Replay Manager custom data):
  • The last release added support for processing custom replay packets created in Replay Manager and applying their data (currently: per-frame FOV changes), however it was treated as an always/automatic behaviour, which meant it would be done even if "Force Replay Camera" was disabled and thus any custom camerawork defined in Replay Manager was not being applied. This was not intended, produced awkward results (had inconsistent support from Freeplay's other camera modes), and was likely undesirable, since any Replay Manager custom FOV values are surely configured with the custom camerawork in mind. This feature now appropriately ties all this together, being the one toggle for whether to force/apply both the replay file camerawork and any data from its custom packets. (The name of this feature was thus also slightly adjusted to indicate this new combined behaviour)
  • Continuing this proper integration of the custom data packet handling into Freeplay, how it interacts with Freeplay's "Override FOV Control" feature is now properly defined - the latter takes priority. Thus if you are enabling "Force Replay Camera" to view a customised replay with Replay Manager camerawork and FOV values, you will likely want to ensure that you have "Override FOV Control" disabled (it is by default), unless you specifically want to ignore those replay-defined FOV values (perhaps to live-experiment with alternatives)

General Improvements:

• Freeplay is now more responsive with its detection of keypresses, so there is less chance of you pressing a key and Freeplay not registering it. (With thanks to V06 and Ltab)

Documentation:

• Various UI and UX improvements
• Actually finished now, finally incorporating all of the v8 changes, both from the 'Pre-Release' version and this 'Complete' one:
  • New entries in the Features table for every new feature, with significant new additional 'details' content for each (viewed by clicking on their name in the first column of their table entries)
  • Changes to existing entries in the Features table (name, trigger, description and/or extra details content, as appropriate) for any modified feature, and often other features associated with the new/modified features
  • Full changelog notes in document's Changelog section
• And some misc changes to unrelated feature entries/details to provide additional info/context/clarity (one example being better presentation of the 4 Draw Distance features - Standard DD, Object Models, Vehicle Models, Vehicle Shadows - each now getting their own dedicated row so their existence is less obscured)

If anyone has any questions about these changes, runs into any issues using this release, or anything else, let me know.

Cheers