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u/BoffinBrain

r/losslessscaling r/keming r/Deusex r/DeviantArt r/BadDesigns r/commandandconquer r/mythbusters
▲ 48 r/keming

RUNER?

Maybe not the worst keming in the world, but the negative spacing is... questionable.

u/BoffinBrain — 13 days ago
▲ 67 r/commandandconquer

Oops! Accidental Mission Failure

Inside you, there are two mission scripts.

  • One says: Great! You've captured the operations center. Proceed with the next objective.
  • The other says: Oh, you don't have any more engineers. You lose! Good day Sir!
u/BoffinBrain — 26 days ago
▲ 51 r/commandandconquer

Oddly Familiar?

These troopers say they feel like they've fought here before... What are they referencing? A mission in Tiberian Sun, perhaps?

u/BoffinBrain — 27 days ago
▲ 4 r/DeviantArt

Working around DA's Blocking of VPNs

Looking around this subreddit [examples: 1 2 3 4], it seems like I'm far from the only one who gets presented with these unprofessional and unhelpful error pages when trying to access the site.

https://preview.redd.it/pgnnh99uy0dh1.png?width=821&format=png&auto=webp&s=e98c9ee1830cba8a373ee8187160da6368c5aac6

DA uses Amazon CloudFront as the middleman for their web hosting. Similar to CloudFlare, it's designed to provide DDOS protection, among other things. However, DA's CloudFlare seems to be configured (either accidentally or deliberately) to block pretty much any VPN node from any VPN provider.

Unlike websites like Reddit, which does similar things, DA initially provides no way for users to prove they're a human by ticking a box, completing a CAPTCHA, or allowing them to log in with their existing user account.

Anyone who has opened their eyes recently will know that the legal and political state of the internet these days is... Not great. Absolutely nobody can be trusted, corporate or government, so VPNs form a crucial part of a modern internet citizen's privacy and security toolkit. Disabling my VPN is not an option.

Workarounds

In my case, I had to go to a cafe and leech off their wifi, log in via my laptop, then copy my session data off that and onto my PC. Once you have some 'signed' cookie variables stored in your browser, CloudFront lets you in from anywhere. Not a great solution, but as long as you can grab an unblocked IP from somewhere temporarily, it's fine.

It also turns out that going directly to the URL https://www.deviantart.com/users/login can work around the problem. I'm sure I tried this before, but perhaps it changed at some point. This is obviously the better option, but DA makes no effort to tell people about it.

Thanks to Lissanro in the comments below, we now have a clever third option. Visit DA's support site at https://www.deviantartsupport.com/kb/en and use the login function there. This should log you in on the support site and the main website.

I'm just putting this out there before I make a support ticket letting DA know about the issue. I don't think they'll do anything about it because I've let them know via their (former) Discord server and feedback forms in the past, but I'll give it one last try. Hopefully this helps someone.

reddit.com
u/BoffinBrain — 1 month ago
▲ 335 r/commandandconquer

Infantry Cover mechanic in C&C3, Part 2

A follow-up to my previous post.

All this time, I thought my infantry were just glitching, but they're actually behaving as intended. Most structures in the game have cover points dotted around them, and your infantry units will seek them out when stationary.

I still have no idea whether this provides any defense bonus, and I'm not even sure how I'd begin to test that, since force-firing on your own troops will target just one unit in the squad. Here are some thoughts:

  • For engineers, covering behind buildings could block line-of-sight to the enemy and save them.
  • For any other unit, blocked LOS means you might only have a fraction of the whole squad firing on the enemy, reducing DPS.
  • Units in cover are apparently 'almost impossible to suppress' but being suppressed supposedly confers its own defense bonus, so this may or may not help them survive.
  • If squads are left in the default, defensive stance, they're likely to move away from cover anyway once they engage the enemy, rendering this entire conversation pointless!

All in all, a very neat little detail, but strategically dubious and unpredictable.

u/BoffinBrain — 1 month ago
▲ 130 r/commandandconquer

Infantry Cover mechanic in C&C3

I spotted this section in the game's manual and was very surprised. I've never noticed this happen.

Is this feature actually in the game? If so, which buildings/props will trigger it? What kind of defense bonus does it provide, or is it only resistance to suppression?

u/BoffinBrain — 1 month ago
▲ 45 r/commandandconquer

Are these statistics just for decoration or do they indicate cut content in C&C Generals?

When you defeat a general, there are these 'statistic' figures in the background art...

  • Command Efficiency
  • Unit Moral (presumably a typo for morale)
  • Kill Ratio
  • Enemy Killed
  • Enemy Wounded
  • Enemy Captured

On the left side, the figures are positive, and on the right they are negative, suggesting your opponent's performance may reduce your score. Also note that some of the stats appear to have two numbers, but it's actually just one; most of the decimal numbers have word-wrapped onto the next line.

The question: is this just a mock-up or was this intended as a feature early in development? I know that capturing POWs was originally intended but cut later. I remember 'Efficiency' was a scoring metric in the first two C&C games that still baffles new players to this day.

u/BoffinBrain — 2 months ago
▲ 36 r/losslessscaling

Framegen on classic 2D RTS games like C&C Red Alert 2

  • Upscaling: Integer (2x, 720p to 1440p)
  • Framegen: LSFG 3.1 (2x, 30 to 60fps, Flow Scale 100%)
  • Video exported at 1440p, 60fps (Reddit might downscale to 1080p)

LS has been pretty helpful in games like these, where rendering at native resolution would result in tiny sprites and UI. The game engine runs at a steady 30fps so it's a perfect candidate for 2x framegen.

While I prefer the clarity of the original pixel sprites (xBR, Anime4K etc. didn't deliver desirable results), the results for frame smoothing are pretty good. There are some occasions where it hallucinates with text and overlays.

I was wondering if there were any future plans to make a framegen model tailored specifically to 2D graphics in the future (i.e. to only allow smooth translations & fading, and disallow distortions/morphing when big changes occur). Otherwise, suggestions are welcome!

u/BoffinBrain — 3 months ago
▲ 29 r/commandandconquer

He's Saying Yuri... Right?

Usually there's too much combat going on to notice, but it sounds like the initiate says 'Yuri' every time he uses his pyrokinesis attack. What an odd little detail!

u/BoffinBrain — 3 months ago