Introducing: Scripting

• A new Scripting Engine extension that implements Squirrel scripting language into the game.
• These scripts allow you to implement the following things without the need to compile custom plugins in C++ from scratch:
  • Server-side & demo-compatible gamemodes and other plugins for all the clients with the same version of the patch.
  • Custom chat commands for various vanilla and/or patch-exclusive functionality.
  • Local utilities and tools, such as information display and world editing from within the game (including for the host client in multiplayer).
• Documentation about scripting is available here.

Common changes

• Properly fixed texture wrapping on SKA models in fog/haze this time as the previous fix was very dirty and faulty.
• Fixed fog & light colors on SKA models ignoring hue shift & saturation.
• Allowed specifying access level & usage information for chat commands.
• Implemented timestamps for the messages in the console and the log file (con_bLogTimestamps command).
• Fixed global screenshots not being saved if the "Screenshots" folder was missing (now creates it automatically).
• Ensured consistent text scaling whenever the "Display3-narrow" font is used instead of letting it become bigger/smaller depending on the font texture resolution (across the menu, custom mod and Advanced HUD).

Servers

• Added a built-in help chat command for displaying a list of available commands.
• Allowed sending as big of a response to chat commands as possible by dividing it into lines that are sent one after another instead of replying with the entire message at once.
• Improved and beautified output of built-in chat commands.
  • Added two new commands for customizing colors of various outputs from chat commands: ser_iChatCommandColor and ser_iChatCommandColor2
• Added support for colored text in the log of the dedicated server application (ded_iColoredText command).
• Made dedicated server application output all text with the correct encoding based on the current system locale.
• Added a new command for toggling the initial CRC check on client connection in order to bypass the "Wrong CRC check" error, if needed (ser_bInitialCRCCheck command). See this entry in the FAQ to learn more.

Client log

• Added command for toggling auto-saving of the client log and disabled it by default as it is typically unused by regular players (ser_bAutoSaveClientLog command).
• Made client log store client restrictions with each respective client in the file to preserve bans and mutes between sessions.
• Added shell commands for banning and muting clients akin to the existing chat commands (ClientLogBan() and ClientLogMute() commands).
• Added shell commands for adding and removing extra addresses (ClientLogAddHost() and ClientLogRemoveHost() commands).

Observer camera

• Fixed the mouse wheel input not being registered while the game was paused.
• Made singleplayer games and demo playback pause automatically upon entering photo mode.
• Temporarily disabled photo mode screenshots under Direct3D due to the following issues: #47, #48
• Fixed the camera view being rendered per player when activated in split screen instead of just once over the entire screen.
• Fixed environment particles (grass, rain, snow) not rendering in photo mode.
  • This only works in the custom mod from the patch and all other mods (including vanilla game) compensate by removing player particles (e.g. power up glow).
• Fixed items not disappearing after being picked up by the player that the camera is currently focused on (only in the custom mod).
• Fixed lens flares not appearing on HQ screenshots taken with the observer camera.
• Added new button for speeding up flight by 5 times while held.
• Added new button for rotating the camera while held instead of always being able to rotate it with the mouse.
• Allowed using mouse buttons (and other buttons for skipping demos) while photo mode is active during demo/intro playback.
• Made photo mode always activate at the current viewpoint instead of the player's viewpoint or the center of the world.
• Redesigned observer camera information screen to be more user-friendly instead of simply listing console commands.
• Removed separate commands for controlling observer camera in favor of the already existing system of rebindable camera controls.
• Added toggleable "rule of thirds" grid with a crosshair in the middle to the photo mode.
• Added "orbiting" mode to player focusing instead of simply locking the camera angle onto them while flying after them.
• Added player posing mode to photo mode for customizing the pose of the current player.
  • Supports custom poses based on the default animations and custom item models for each hand using config files.

Mod changes

• Fixed game themes not resetting to default values if it couldn't load the selected theme; fixed fullscreen crashes due to the missing pointer texture.
• Prevented burning/flame particles from rendering on players in first person view when playing online with prediction turned on.
• Allowed looking up shell symbols in the console by a part of the typed string in symbol names instead of checking for prefixes, similar to Serious Sam Revolution (Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab shortcuts for moving up and down the list).
• Made "model glow" particles and burning/flame particles render on the currently selected player model instead of the default player model of the entity itself.
• Replaced usage of the FlamerItem.mdl model with Flamer.mdl on player models to fix the offset of the Flamethrower weapon because the player body attachment was originally configured for the latter model.
• Allowed customizing different menu fonts and the textures of the game logo in the main menu via game themes.
• Fixed flare rendering on weapon viewmodels to be updated per game tick instead of per frame (which rendered them practically invisible if the FPS was much higher than the monitor's refresh rate).
• Made sharp turning work on the third person view.
• Made third person view camera position be calculated in real time instead of relying on the position of the view entity.
• Fixed slight view bobbing disappearing while sharp turning is turned on, including wobbling while swimming.
• Allowed locking the third person view angle to prevent it from following the crosshair position (plr_bStaticThirdPersonAngle command).
• Fixed the chat (a.k.a. the "talk console") sometimes playing the closing animation of the full-sized console upon closing it when it should never play any animation to begin with (if con_tmConsoleFade is set to more than 0).
• Added a fallback default player skin if the one from the game cannot be loaded (e.g. when the "Serious Sam" skin in TFE is replaced with a skin that relies on TSE models): #35

Game changes

• Added "Customize game" button to the split screen setup menu akin to the one on the difficulty selection screen in singleplayer.
• Added a warning whenever photo mode cannot be enabled through the menu during the game.
• Added toggleable "Tip of the day" button to the main menu that displays one of the predefined tips and fun facts about Classics Patch every day.
• Clarified the effects of seasonal events on the event notifications.
• Fixed "High Score" menu sometimes exiting to the in-game pause menu instead of the main menu after finishing a singleplayer game.
• Slightly reworked the internal mechanism of going between menus. If you notice any bugs or unusual behavior when opening/closing different menus, please submit an issue.
• Implemented an experimental workaround for enlarging text font in NETRICSA across any mod (any vanilla game without the custom mod) that uses console font for its text, thus making it slightly more readable on higher resolutions (cmp_bBigFont command).
• Added a string field for filtering demos, saves, controls and other entries by name similar to the existing level filtering.
• Allowed pausing/unpausing demo playback on the same pause key as for the game (by toggling dem_fSyncRate between -1.0 and 0.0).
• Added extra scripts to the "Execute Addon" menu for quick setup of the game client for playing specific game content. Useful when different players want to play on the same patched server that's configured for specific content. Configuration scripts include: "Vanilla game", "Classic game", "The First Encounter mount", "Revolution mount" and "Revolution + its workshop mounts".

Plugin changes

Advanced HUD

• Added a command for resizing all HUD text (ahud_fTextScaling command).
• Fixed random flickering of player tags in The First Encounter: #19
• Removed latency display from the player list in demos as it is not updated anyway.
• Made player tags correctly follow player predictions instead of lagging behind them.

Extended Input

• Hopefully fixed a rare crash upon starting a game when it couldn't retrieve a value of some engine input console command.

Scripting Engine

• Fully implemented all of the planned interfaces for Squirrel scripts by adding a variety of classes and functions for easy interaction with the engine and the patch.
• Added support for custom scripts that are loaded by the plugin and executed by calling specific functions from specific plugin events.

Other changes

• Updated SDL library to 3.4.0 and added SDL version in the description of the Extended Input extension.
• Fixed the function hook for executing code per simulation tick being executed more than once per tick if the server received packets other than all player actions at the same time.
• Fixed ClassicsCore_IsEntitiesModded() API function returning true with no active mod.
• Made certain API functions related to retrieving values of various properties by enum types safer by converting their values into needed types instead of reinterpreting data as is.
• Forked the widely popular Serious Editor EX / Serious Modeler EX project by SeriousAlexej to initialize Classics Patch and make its features available from within those tools. See Classics Patch downloads section to download it separately.