OK Loopix, I did a few experiments with my altitude radar using c_trace with either USE_BOX or USE_POLYGON. Also found the info on the matter of a "thick" beam (USE_BOX). Got a few interesting results...
The setup used for the experiments is a freely movable user controlled player model that does vertical c_traces in a while loop in order to continuously keep track of its ground altitude (above terrain surface) and sea level (set to z = 0). Everyones passable is off.
When using my original tracing method (using USE_POLYGON) every other c_trace consistently gave result = null and every other c_trace gave a result >= 0. The null results were filtered out using this code snippet:
Code:
c_trace(trace vars, USE_POLYGON);
if(result){//use the result}
The altitude values (filtered results) were consistently 0 when the player model moved along the terrain surface, whereas the sea level altitude changed as expected when moving up the hills down the valleys etc.
Now, when using USE_BOX instead, every c_trace (unfiltered) gave a valid result as predicted and as you said but something odd happens with the result value in that it is fluctuating between -3 and -200 when the player model is moving along the surface of the terrain. Very odd. The result should never be negative if the actual terrain surface is the target of the scan. Somehow the "thick beam" scan does not seem to be accurate, or at least not as accurate as I need it to be.
JazzDude did you get yours to work?
