118 replies to this topic

[jcompton]

^^^ Try that thing above. I'm guessing it would actually be more beneficial to have the individual polys broken out by file, so here, I'll attach them as a zip.

The attachment has the same data as the above .xml file, but instead of all being in a single file, each "wallgroup" is a separate, stand-alone file. The numbers are the upper-left coordinate of the bounding box around the wallgroup object.

Attached Files

•  occlusions.zip   2.93K   373 downloads

[Miloch]

I was just thinking it would be great if this could interface with DLTCEP somehow. Though I'm trying to see what value Triangle adds exactly. I read the docs and it seems to be primarily an earthquake modeling tool, with other applications obviously but they all seem related to triangulation. That may not be that useful if you need to map out, say, a tree, a coastline or some other irregular "wall". Ideally, it'd be nice to draw out the walls right on the area and have it map their coordinates automatically. That might require some "dexterity" but it beats plotting them all by hand. Some sort of "magic wand" function that selects similar RGB values or the like (as in PSP) would be even better, but perhaps that's asking too much.

[jcompton]

Though I'm trying to see what value Triangle adds exactly.

Triangle is the foundation of the process--it is an automated way to "trace shapes" in an image. (or, a little more accurately, "how to fill a shape up with triangles.") The entire bmp2polylist "suite" includes other applications Wes wrote in order to finish the job and return results which are of more interest to game makers than mathematicians. The process works like this:

- 3D Area artist creates area "myarea" in 3D package of his/her choice. This already has a number of deliverables (light map, height map, actual backdrop, etc.) But the one we care about is a new one for bmp2polylist, which we'll call the "silhouette map." This consists of turning off everything but solid, standing objects which a sprite can "be positioned behind" and which must provide occlusion--walls, tables, etc. The render is done in black and white--white for the walls, black for everything else. (It can actually be delivered as a PNG or a BMP, despite being called "bmp2polylist.") This process gives us the file myarea-occlusion.png , just like the one you see me attaching on page 2.

- Artist or modder runs
bmp2polylist --many myarea-occlusion.png .

The bmp2polylist programs chew on the image for a little while and figure out all of the convex polygons required to describe each of the shapes in the silhouette map.

(The --many switch tells it to give us an XML file for every distinct object in the map, as seen in the attachment on page 3. I suspect this would be preferred for WED importing.)

- XML files are returned, each with polygon vertex lists which describe how to rebuild the objects in the silhouette map. With --many, you get one XML file for each distinct object. So for the sample map I put on page 2, you will get eight XML files back. Each has all of the polygons necessary to make up one of the objects.

- What I am suggesting is that this data provides virtually all of the information a WED file needs in order to populate the "Wallgroups", "Polygons", and "Vertices" sections of the WED. You'd need to keep your "hovering" occlusions separate, but that too is fairly easy for area artists to do in the silhouette mapping pass.

So, yes, using this method you can also draw shapes freehand in a paint program (such as in a translucent layer above the backdrop in Photoshop/PSP/Gimp/etc.), export them as white-on-black PNGs, and then bmp2polylist them. Most polygon objects you need in a game are already represented on silhouette maps, however--the major exceptions would be for areatriggers (traps, summon points, secret doors, etc.) Avenger mentions that DLTCEP does this type of thing as well, but not having attempted it I can't offhand tell you how much easier or more difficult it is than drawing in a paint program and then saving a PNG.

Edited by jcompton, 23 May 2008 - 10:55 AM.

[Miloch]

So, yes, using this method you can also draw shapes freehand in a paint program (such as in a translucent layer above the backdrop in Photoshop/PSP/Gimp/etc.), export them as white-on-black PNGs, and then bmp2polylist them.

Sounds very useful in that case.

[leahnkain]

I still haven't given up. I think it is of more benefit to have the entire maps for all modders to use. (look how many map request go unanswered) Hopefully someone can help out. I agree it is useful to have the pieces of the map but my purpose is much different. I want to save time by using maps which are already made. When I make a map it takes weeks. If I need some interiors or a town the group will be at only for a short time having these maps would be great.

[oloneDat]

Sorry guys (hi everybody by the way), I didn't read all the topic, but I got some information. I'm making a mod right now and I worked with resources.

Lionheart is using Granny SDK. So all the 3d models are converted using this SDK. Granny SDK isn't free ($12500 US). You can download a Granny Model Viewer (it's free) to see the models. I saw somewhere a fan-made tool "MDL16 > 3ds" but it didn't work.

Thanks to some files and map extension .zax I think we should find some information about "ZAX" game.

Sorry for my English. Not a native language (

[leahnkain]

It is great info, hopefully we can get those maps. Welcome to Spellhold!

Edited by leahnkain, 14 July 2008 - 01:13 AM.

[Miloch]

You can download a Granny Model Viewer (it's free) to see the models.

Interesting, thanks for the information. Are you modding Lionheart or another game?

It looks like the Granny viewer is here. I'll take a look at it. It might help with mdl16 viewing, but we'll still need to figure out how to assemble them into a map from the .zax files. This is what I wrote about that:

ZAX files contain the map definitions (sounds, models, properties). This file specifies where to place various graphic elements on the map, but not any actual graphics. For example, in Temple District.zax, it indicates there is a Cathedral model (mdl16) at X35, Y878 on the map. It does the same for trees, houses, walls and so on. Toward the end of file is a list of background frm16 textures (grass, water, etc.). However, this is not like a BG tileset since it is just the texture without the overlaying models. Also near the end of the file is a height map (elevations) and light map (light overlay). This is somewhat like an ARE file in the Infinity Engine.

Basically, to translate the big maps, we'd have to figure out the mdl16 format. Then we'd have to come up with some sort of automated routine that would be able to place the multitude of mdl16s overlays and frm16 underlays on a larger map as defined by the zax file. And although I could conceivably figure out former the same way I hacked the frm16 minimaps, it's way beyond my skill to handle the latter. That would probably require some sort of automated tool the likes of DLTCEP or Near Infinity... it'd need someone who knows a programming language like Java or C++ (which is what NI and DLTCEP are written in).

[oloneDat]

I'm modding Lionheart.

Granny is used in many games: http://radgametools..../customers.html
NWN2 uses .mdb - format. I didn't find tools for Age of Empires III.

Sorry, but I've lost the mdl16 converter's code But I don't think this would work. One fan wrote a converter using only granny2.dll from Lionheart main directory. I'm searching for the converter now, but I suppose it'll be impossible to find it.

Can't help you with .zax light map. I'm working with scripts (dialogs, npc, perks, skills, inventory). There's no problem with adding new characters, dialogs, perks, skills, items.

Now I'm thinking about Modding Documentation or tutorials to share my experience with other modders. I've totally changed the magic system and added "spirits' perks". At the moment I'm adding companions' inventory, patrol radius and working with NPCs' data.

Lionheart was made in the last moment. There are some files from "ZAX", one piece of staff message, lots of garbage. I'm trying to optimize that (such things as "Leonardo DaVinci"-race, don't you know what Galileo's race is "Leonardo DaVinci?). I just have no time for this work, that's why I need to save my experience somewhere.

Reflexive staff says we must contact Interplay to get source code, modding tools etc. I don't believe they'll give us anything.

Edited by oloneDat, 14 July 2008 - 12:18 PM.

[Miloch]

Reflexive staff says we must contact Interplay to get source code, modding tools etc. I don't believe they'll give us anything.

Heh. No, I don't think that's likely. I doubt they even have it still, if they ever did, since they've reformed several times. Which is too bad, because Reflexive mentioned a modding tool that would've been released with the game, but I guess that never happened.

If you do your documentation, let us know the link (or just post it in this forum ). Sounds like you're doing sort of a fix/tweak pack, which might actually make the game playable.

[oloneDat]

Ok, I'll try. No news, still working on manual.

Edited by oloneDat, 11 August 2008 - 05:18 PM.

[Sam.]

I know it has been a while, but there is still interest in extracting usable areas and other files from Lionheart. I have been checking out the game and it's various files, and while I really haven't made considerable progress, I have found some information that someone might find useful.

The following are all of the file formats found in the data.dat file:

• .bik
  
• .can
  
• .CharacterAttribute
  
• .CharacterSlotType
  
• .DamageHitOrMiss
  
• .DamageType
  
• .DerivedCharacterAttribute
  
• .DialogTree
  
• .dificulty
  
• .doc
  
• .Faction
  
• .FOO
  
• .frm16
  
• .GR2
  
• .InteractionSpecifierType
  
• .InventoryAddition
  
• .InventoryItem
  
• .JWindowSkin
  
• .mdl16
  
• .MeleeDualWield
  
• .MeleeSkill
  
• .object
  
• .ogg
  
• .Perk
  
• .Race
  
• .RDS
  
• .seq16
  
• .Skill
  
• .STY
  
• .Trait
  
• .ttf
  
• .txt
  
• .wav
  
• .way
  
• .xls
  
• .zax
  
• .ZGT

The RAD Game Tools primarily consists of 4 different programs. Lionheart seems to use 3 of the four, namely Bink Video, Granny 3D, and Pixomatic (but not The Miles Sound System.)

.bik files are the Bink Video files (obviously used for videos). They can be somewhat modified, played, and converted to other file formats using the free RAD Video Tools.

As mentioned before, .gr2 files are Granny 3D files (used for character animation) and can be viewed using the free Granny Viewer.

Pixomatic seems to be able to do things like fog, zooming, materials, textures, terrain, skyboxes, various filters, set detail of actors, alter mouse lag, set refresh rate, stencels, lightmaps, and precashing (although none of this is necessarily what Lionheart uses it for). So what file types do you think are made / used by Pixomatic?
Edit: This isn't true.

No, think of Pixomatic as a graphics card - it can only see what the game draws (even not even that *really*, since it is all 3D).

Other common file types:
.doc~~~~Microsoft Word Document
.ogg~~~~Open Standard Container Format
.ttf~~~~True Type Font
.txt~~~~Text Document
.wav~~~~Waveform Audio Format
.xls~~~~Microsoft Excel Worksheet


Also, (and while this may be considered common knowledge, I feel that I should mention it anyway as I only just found out myself) if one intends to create areas by taking screen shots, the F2 key hides almost all of the heads up display.


~to be continued~

Edited by Sam., 14 December 2009 - 08:45 PM.

[leahnkain]

Thanks Sam. I was going to bring back this topic myself. Hopefully we can find someway to get the maps.

[Miloch]

Pixomatic seems to be able to do things like fog, zooming, materials, textures, terrain, skyboxes, various filters, set detail of actors, alter mouse lag, set refresh rate, stencels, lightmaps, and precashing (although none of this is necessarily what Lionheart uses it for). So what file types do you think are made / used by Pixomatic?

Possibly some of the ones I detailed on the previous page (post #29) - mainly the frm16 and the mdl16 files are relevant to maps I believe.

The problem with this, as I recall, was that there is no single file or even logical group of files that consititues an area map here, like there are in IE games. So someone would have to write an automated routine that extracts the background (frm16), then extracts/converts all the buildings and other objects which are 3D objects (mdl16) and plot them on that background using the information provided in a text file (.zax file). I managed to write a routine that extracts the mini-maps (described early on in this thread) but I think the rest is beyond my skill. Still, it's doable by someone with the right skills, but you might need to put a call out into coding forums other than this one (or the other IE forums for that matter). It might be worth it if there are a number of maps you want to use, but if you only want to use a few maps, it might be quicker going the screenshot route.

[Sam.]

Pixomatic seems to be able to do things like fog, zooming, materials, textures, terrain, skyboxes, various filters, set detail of actors, alter mouse lag, set refresh rate, stencels, lightmaps, and precashing (although none of this is necessarily what Lionheart uses it for). So what file types do you think are made / used by Pixomatic?

Possibly some of the ones I detailed on the previous page (post #29) - mainly the frm16 and the mdl16 files are relevant to maps I believe.

I spent a couple of days talking to several people with RAD Game Tools about Pixomatic. They were really helpful but it turns out Pixomatic can't do what we want at all. It was finally suggested that I should:

think of Pixomatic as a graphics card - it can only see what the game draws (not even that *really*, since it is all 3D)

So, leahnkain's next suggestion was to contact the makers of Lionheart and ask about the modding tools the game was supposed to have. So...

Q: Who is making the game?
A: Lionheart is being developed by Reflexive Entertainment. Black Isle Studios teamed up with Reflexive and is publishing the game. While Reflexive is responsible for the vast majority of the gameplay and design decisions, Black Isle oversees development and contributes wherever possible to ensure that the two companies can bring you the best gaming experience.

Source
then...

The main reason we don't offer them for download or sale is that we don't own anything about the two titles that you mentioned. Both Star Trek: Away Team and Lionheart are completely owned by the publisher who paid us for them. Obviously, Paramount owns the Star Trek IP (and not Activision), but in any case, all code, artwork (and just about anything you can think of relating to the game) doesn't belong to us...thus we can't sell it. The size and content of the games are also different than our usual fare, but figuring what we COULD do with it in our current circumstance is pointless anyway... smile.gif

Source

I also found:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to be asking this, but I was wondering about the game that Reflexive created called Lionheart: Legacy of the Creator. I know that Black Isle was the publisher and is now gone, so I was wondering if it would be possible to contact someone at Reflexive about getting access to either the source or some of the in-house tools that had been used to make the game for the purpose of modding it. Is this something I should be going to Reflexive about or should I try and hound down any employees still left over at Interplay? (Although i think the president is the only guy left at this point...)

that was answered with:

Actually, the contractual obligations that we have with Interplay prohibit us from releasing source code or sharing the engine in any way I believe.

As far as Interplay goes, good luck contacting them...I don't mean this meanly, I truly am wishing you good luck...they are hard to get a hold of...

Source

And even thought this link was provided on a previous page, I thought it would be good to provide it again.

Given this information and the unlikelihood of being able to find anyone from BioWare that even has the ability (much less the inclination) to help, where should we go from here?

Additionally, it seems that the Granny files can be converted to the file formats of other 3D programs.... See this link.

[Miloch]

Given this information and the unlikelihood of being able to find anyone from BioWare that even has the ability (much less the inclination) to help, where should we go from here?

I don't think it was BioWare but Black Isle Studios... pretty much same thing as far as being able to contact them though. Of course, the lack of publisher-supported tools didn't stop BG modders from making things like NI and DLTCEP, so that's kind of what we need here, or at least a primordial tool like IETME or something.

Given that a lot of these files were TGA format in the first place, it should not be hard to convert them to BMPs. The hard part will be putting them all together to make an area map, like I said above. Given that all that data is in a text file though, it's just a matter of plotting them all on a graph, more or less, once they're converted.

Also, it's probably just a matter of grabbing the right frame from the .mdl files, since Lionheart is a 2D not a 3D game if I'm not mistaken. Unless some of those models are animations, then it might be more complicated, but still like how BG maps have BAM animations I'd guess. So then you'd have to convert the .mdl files to .bam files too, unless you just used native BG animations instead.

[Sam.]

Given this information and the unlikelihood of being able to find anyone from BioWare that even has the ability (much less the inclination) to help, where should we go from here?

I don't think it was BioWare but Black Isle Studios... pretty much same thing as far as being able to contact them though.

Yeah, I meant to say Black Isle.

Miloch, the code used in your packaged frm16>bmp converter is different than the code found in Post #4. Which is the current one?

Edited by Sam., 25 May 2009 - 09:05 AM.

[Miloch]

Miloch, the code used in your packaged frm16>bmp converter is different than the code found in Post #4. Which is the current one?

TBH, I'm not sure. The last code I used is the same as what's in post #4 but I was messing around with it to try to get better results and at one point I inserted a couple bytes to get rid of the "skew" you see in some of the earlier posts, but both versions probably have that. You could try both and see which works better. I will say that I only got it to work successfully on the minimaps. The other .frm files would probably require more extensive jiggling to get them into BMP though maybe TGA would be more logical as a first step. IIRC there's not a huge difference between TGA and BMP though. And I looked briefly at the .mdl files to consider making them into BAMs but that is a bit beyond me. Each frame would probably have to be converted to TGA/BMP first or something.

[Sam.]

Miloch, the code used in your packaged frm16>bmp converter is different than the code found in Post #4. Which is the current one?

TBH, I'm not sure. The last code I used is the same as what's in post #4 but I was messing around with it to try to get better results and at one point I inserted a couple bytes to get rid of the "skew" you see in some of the earlier posts, but both versions probably have that. You could try both and see which works better. I will say that I only got it to work successfully on the minimaps. The other .frm files would probably require more extensive jiggling to get them into BMP though maybe TGA would be more logical as a first step. IIRC there's not a huge difference between TGA and BMP though. And I looked briefly at the .mdl files to consider making them into BAMs but that is a bit beyond me. Each frame would probably have to be converted to TGA/BMP first or something.

When I get a chance I'll try them both side by side and see which one produces better results.


Since at this time it?s impractical to extract the map graphics from Lionheart, perhaps we can make composing maps from screenshots as easy as possible?.

Use the ?F2? key to hide the HUD in the game.

The next thing to do would be to see all of the black parts of the map that can?t ordinarily be seen. I sort of figured out how to do this. (To make the game editable, extract all of the contents of the ?data.DAT? into a folder called ?data? in the directory where Lionheart is installed and then delete or rename the original ?data.DAT?.) For an example, take ?[?]\Lionheart\data\Levels\1 Barcelona\Slave Pits.zax? and find Line 25560 (Constant Value=448) and replace 448 with 44800000. Now start a new game. You will notice that the entire map is now revealed. The problem is that the block of code that contains the ?Activity=CAIPushFogOfWar? isn?t in every script. Could a script be written to add the necessary lines to all .ZAX files?

Level Part=CEntityWalking
		{
			Name=fog pusher for start game
			Child List=
			Visible=0
			Collideable=0
			Half Height=0
			Full Height=1
			Tries To Collide=0
			Has Hit Points=0			Stationary=1			Active=1			Is Temporarily Excluded=0			Is Marked For Deletion=0			Activity=Array			{				Item Count=1				Activity=CAIPushFogOfWar				{					Marked For Deletion=0					Publisher=					Push Radius=CConstant					{						Constant Value=44800000					}					YX Ratio=0.712766				}			}			Category=NonInteractiveSequence Actor			Team Number=Nutral			Used In=QuestMode			Current Target=			Publisher=			Model=Editor/Landscape			Position X=1295			Position Y=1551			Rendering Height=0			Rendering Height Float=0			Cur Sequence=Idle			Cur Damage=0			Destroyed Script Action=			Destroyed Effect Action=			Damaged Script Action=			Damaged Effect Action=			Hit Action=			Default Death Type=!None			Has Done Death Processing=0			Play Ratio=0			Aiming Angle=0			Movement Angle=0			Start FacingAngle=0			Current Frame=0			Created By=			BehaviorStack=CEntityBehaviorStack			{				InProcess=0				Blocking Priority=Idle				BehaviorList=Array				{					Item Count=0				}			}			Facing Backwards=0			Last Facing Backwards=0			Upper Body Present=0			Synch Aiming And Moving=1			Frame Index Locked=0			Waiting For Discharge=0			Still Shooting=0			Trying To Move=0			Tracking Updates Since Relocate=0			Friction=0			Velocity X=0			Velocity Y=0			Acceleration X=0			Acceleration Y=0			Home Pos X=1295			Home Pos Y=1551			LastDischargePosX=0			LastDischargePosY=0			LastDischargeSequenceName=			Movement Speed=Walk		}

The next thing would be to remove all of the wallgroups and whatever else blocks the character?s line of sight and movement (increasing the character?s range of sight would be great, too). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

After that, one could remove the people and animations so that they wouldn?t have to be edited out later.

Does anyone happen to know of a good, free program that pastes overlapping pictures into a panoramic view? It would probably be very helpful for the bigger maps?.

Edited by Sam., 31 May 2009 - 09:38 PM.