Development progress – we’ve made a breakthrough

While we at times may appear quiet, we’re actively researching and developing on our side. Over the past few days we have made some exciting breakthroughs in the tools we have developed, and the frameworks we have built to work with our tools.

Any of you who have messaged us in the past about the VTTA limitations are well aware that previously we used in-game features to enable this VTTA – yet the tracking box only displayed when a target was within a certain range (defined by your weapon) and the game thought it was visible enough for you. The VTTA still provides powerful advantages in countless situations, but it could be better. We’ve had some interesting hurdles in trying to build our own:

  • Locating all players on the map.
  • Determining which players are enemies.
  • Retrieving the 3D positions for all enemy players.
  • Retrieving the 3D position of your own player, as well as any perspective vectors.
  • Rendering on-top of the game’s own content.
  • Borderline crazy maths.

There is a lot of information already out there. The difficulty here lies in that the version of Call of Duty 4 available for Mac is very different to the Windows version in the way it works. Copy & paste won’t work here – we have to do all our research ourselves. We have to build all our tools, ourselves.

Both retrieving players from the game and rendering on top of the game’s content, are beasts on their own. Last week we made some powerful breakthroughs in retrieving information of in-game players, and this week on rendering. Some of the vital player details are still to be found and the maths is still a hurdle we’re working to overcome. But here is a preview of one of our first working prototypes:

[youtube]GbEVaUDI_U4[/youtube]

We’ve marked a 3D coordinate as a target on this map, and have designed the prototype to render “TARGET” on this location. It seems to be working in some of our tests, but only in one resolution (maths…never a strength). There are other bugs, so there may still be some time before you’ll start to see this in the tool you all use and enjoy.

In the meantime we’ll keep you updated on any other interesting breakthroughs and progress updates. To the players with active tool subscriptions: keep an eye on your inbox, we may have beta test invitations coming to you soon*. Stay tuned!

James

*depending on progress with the crazy maths

Update 2.0.0.278 released – sporradic crashes addressed

Several members have sent in crash reports over the past 2 weeks. These seem to have occurred primarily when the tool detected single player. While the tool normally detects that it is a game version it cannot calibrate to, an exception occasionally caused the tool the crash.

This update addresses this issue, among several other improvements and fixes.

Update 2.0.0.278 is now available for active members from the download form:

http://www.callofduty4machacks.com/members

For any questions or concerns, contact us using the support form on our site:

http://www.callofduty4machacks.com/contact

Thank you to those who submitted these crash reports with details on what you were doing at the time. When you submit a crash or bug report, please include as much detail as possible on what was happening on the time.

For example: you opened the tool, then single player to get to multiplayer, and the tool crashed. Details like these provide a very useful context.