Aerial View

UT2004 version - 26^th March 2004

Miles Asvachin

mailto:miles@cheese83.freeserve.co.uk

Description:

A single mutator for UT2004 combining the capabilities of the three mutators Taken from Behind, Fly Mutator and Boots of Jumping and adding quite a few new features.

Specifically, it allows players to fly, allows 3rd person view with proper aiming and gives players jump boots. Each of the three components can be enabled/disabled independently.

Installation:

UT4MOD Installation:

Simply double-click on the .ut4mod file and click a few buttons.

Manual Installation:

If you would rather do a manual install, then you must first extract the files from the ut4mod. There is a utility available for this purpose, called 'UT2MODExtractor' (yes it works with ut4mods, you just have to set it to open all file types when you go to open the ut4mod).

Once that is done, put the following files in the indicated directories:

AerialView.u                             ->        UT2004\System
AerialView.int                           ->        UT2004\System
AerialView.ucl                           ->        UT2004\System
AerialView.ini                           ->        UT2004\System
AerialViewSounds.uax              ->        UT2004\Sounds
AerialViewStaticMeshes.usx      ->       UT2004\StaticMeshes
AerialViewTextures.utx              ->       UT2004\Textures

Usage:

Add the mutator like any other. The mutator can be configured (click on it in the mutator list, then on the 'configure' button that appears in the lower right of the screen, or edit the ini file). It has the following options, which are server-side unless noted:

GiveWings: Players can fly.
Third person view: Allow 3rd person view with proper aiming.
JumpArena: Give everyone jump boots.

These options only take effect if flying is enabled:

Start walking: You will be walking when you spawn if ticked, otherwise you will spawn flying (client-side).
Relative motion: If ticked, up/down, left/right and forward/back are all relative to the player's point of view. If unticked then up/down is always vertical and left/right and forward/back are always horizontal (client-side).
Maximum air speed: Controls how fast players can fly.
Air resistance: Controls how fast players decelerate.
Shark effect: If players stop moving they will begin falling to the ground with this acceleration.
Wing colour: Select which wing colour you would prefer to use. The default of 0 will assign a colour for you in a pseudo-random manner. Note that although the options allow for five skins, not all wing types have that many so some selections may yield the same skin. Also, some skins are best suited to specific characters, especially the bot wings, which are coloured to match the various bots (client-side).

These options only take effect if 3rd person view is enabled Press F4 to switch between 1st and 3rd person views:

Start in 1st person: If ticked, then you will be in 1st person mode when spawned, otherwise you will start in 3rd person (client-side).
Switch crosshairs: Switch back to the normal crosshair when in 1st person (client-side).
Standard crosshair texture: The special 3rd person crosshair will use the normal crosshair texture if ticked (or weapon-specific crosshairs if you have them enabled), instead of the special animated circle texture (client-side) .
Camera distance offset: A positive value will move the camera further away. A negative value will bring the camera in closer (client-side).
Max crosshair distance: Distance beyond which the 3rd person crosshair stops decreasing in size (client-side).
Transparent player: You will be transparent. Allows better visibility. You will only see yourself as transparent - all other players will appear normal (client-side).
Player alpha: How transparent you will be. The maximum of 255 is completely opaque, the minimum of 0 is completely invisible (client-side).

Note that the animated crosshair assumes the colour of your normal, non-weapon-specific crosshair. To set that colour, go to the weapon preference menu, and make sure 'custom weapon crosshairs' is turned off (you can turn it back on after setting the colour).

These options only take effect if Jump Arena is enabled:

Jump speed: Speed the boots propel you upwards. A higher number implies higher jumping.
Maximum fall speed: How fast you can be falling before taking damage. Should be at least as high as jump speed or you will take always take damage from jumping.

There is one extra control bind-able in the controls menu:

Toggle flying: Switches between flying and walking, if flying is enabled.

If you run a server with the mutator, you must add the package to the server packages list in UT2004.ini. Add the line ServerPackages=AerialView under the section labelled [Engine.GameEngine], making sure there are no spaces at the end of the line.

Changes since UT2003 version:

Added support for custom weapon crosshairs.
Fixed crosshair being partially obscured by objects.

Known bugs:

'Transparent player' doesn't make attachments transparent, such as the weapon, boots and wings.
Boots don't de-res with players (they simply disappear).
Crosshair takes a few seconds to change colour when changing weapons with custom weapon crosshairs.
Flying bots go a bit mad on maps containing FlyingPathNodes (i.e. Onslaught maps with Raptors in them).
3rd person crosshair doesn't work in vehicles.

If you find any bugs or have any suggestions or comments, please e-mail them to me.