Looking to assist
Moderator: Skyfaller
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If you are writing a guide please do not post it here! Post in the Dev FAQ section please.
If you are writing a guide please do not post it here! Post in the Dev FAQ section please.
- ecpeterson
- I.S. Baby
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:15 pm
Re: Looking to assist
If it were taken from the MW2 source, I'd be in plenty trouble on my own, heh. :) You're welcome to use it, and you have my word.
@ Archon: No, I'm not (currently) a professional programmer, you won't find my name on anything commercial. I do K-theory, so the best you'll get are incomprehensible journal articles.
@ Archon: No, I'm not (currently) a professional programmer, you won't find my name on anything commercial. I do K-theory, so the best you'll get are incomprehensible journal articles.
- Skyfaller
- Clan 1st MechWarrior
- Posts: 1017
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- Location: Germany
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Re: Looking to assist
Thanks again. The code looks pretty nice and clean.ecpeterson wrote:If it were taken from the MW2 source, I'd be in plenty trouble on my own, heh. You're welcome to use it, and you have my word.
- Skyfaller
- Clan 1st MechWarrior
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- Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2008 2:58 am
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Re: Looking to assist
Interesting, we could certainly use that. Are you thinking of a separate editor, or could you see yourself contributing this to MechVM? While working with other people's code may be more challenging, MechVM already has much of the required functionality in place, like opening and changing MW2.PRJ.ecpeterson wrote:I suspect that an honest map editor will be an equally noble goal.
Thanks.ecpeterson wrote:Ah, another thing, I know a guy that worked with me on this a couple years ago. He's a far more competent programmer than I am, and he might be looking for a fun project. I'll point him this way.
- ecpeterson
- I.S. Baby
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:15 pm
Re: Looking to assist
I'm not afraid of working with other people's code, but I've never looked into MechVM and have no idea what it's all about. My laptop is currently suffering from some power issues, but a new supply is in the mail and when it arrives I'll have a look and see what's what.
(By corollary, this means that my post about the mission objective tables will be delayed, but I promise I'll do it soon.)
(By corollary, this means that my post about the mission objective tables will be delayed, but I promise I'll do it soon.)
- Skyfaller
- Clan 1st MechWarrior
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Re: Looking to assist
Your code works nicely, much better than before. Almost all files play correctly. Very few glitches remain, for example, star2a1.sfl in MW2-Mercs (DOS/Windows/Titanium) is a little garbled. Is that due to an error in the way I use your code, or is there some other cause? Anyway, the important files appear to play correctly.
Thanks again for your contribution!
Thanks again for your contribution!
- ecpeterson
- I.S. Baby
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:15 pm
Re: Looking to assist
I would guess that my decoder is incomplete and that I got something wrong. I'll have a look at it (and the mission tables), I promise; I've become pretty bogged down with work. :/
- Col.Kell
- House Steiner Archon
- Posts: 868
- Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:44 am
- Location: An Isolated Tennessee Valley.
Re: Looking to assist
Been there before. I know what you mean.ecpeterson wrote:I promise; I've become pretty bogged down with work. :/
Skyfaller, will you by any chance make a new MVM version since the .SFL fix?
MechWarrior 2: 31stCC
- Skyfaller
- Clan 1st MechWarrior
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Re: Looking to assist
Kell: Don't worry, there will be a next release , but this is probably going to be a busy month. Also, I wanted to put in some more fixes, in particular for MW2 mech textures, and some minor stuff. However, if you really need it, I could provide you with a test version. Each release needs some amount of testing, and I'd prefer to have more added functionality to justify the time taken for the tests.
ecpeterson: Like I said, the glitches concern very few files, and it's possible that the errors are in the files. While it would be nice to see a fix, if one is needed, there is absolutely no reason to hurry.
ecpeterson: Like I said, the glitches concern very few files, and it's possible that the errors are in the files. While it would be nice to see a fix, if one is needed, there is absolutely no reason to hurry.
- ecpeterson
- I.S. Baby
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:15 pm
mtbl chunk and more promises
As promised, here are some notes on the structure of the MTBL chunk: http://mw2.jjaro.net/mtbl.h There are a couple fields that I don't understand and there's a potential to be missing some of the flags, but by and large everything's there.
With the help of _A_ in the IRC channel (we discovered I'm not competent enough to use my browser :) ), I got MechVM compiling; it's pretty neat and pretty useful. I need to make some revisions to a paper later tonight, after that's taken care of I'll see if I can figure out what's missing from that SFLX decoder.
I wrote out an SHP and an FNT decoder some time ago, I'll see if I can clean those up and post them as well (dunno if you guys have already figured them out or not, but they belong on mw2.jjaro.net anyway). Any other requests, or clarifications I can make about the MTBL data above?
-- edit --
I see someone else started on an UNWASM, but I'm not in a position to see what all it can do that I've already covered above. Hopefully at least some of this information is still fresh. ;)
-- edit, may 13 --
Posted the FNT ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/fntutil.c ) and SHP ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/shputil.c ) decoders on mw2.jjaro.net. FNT is a pretty simplistic format; there's a header which gives some basic information about the font and then an array of pointers to effectively raw bitmaps. SHP is a little more complicated; it also allows multiple shapes to be stored i none file for animations' sake, and each individual bitmap is compressed using an RLE-variant.
With the help of _A_ in the IRC channel (we discovered I'm not competent enough to use my browser :) ), I got MechVM compiling; it's pretty neat and pretty useful. I need to make some revisions to a paper later tonight, after that's taken care of I'll see if I can figure out what's missing from that SFLX decoder.
I wrote out an SHP and an FNT decoder some time ago, I'll see if I can clean those up and post them as well (dunno if you guys have already figured them out or not, but they belong on mw2.jjaro.net anyway). Any other requests, or clarifications I can make about the MTBL data above?
-- edit --
I see someone else started on an UNWASM, but I'm not in a position to see what all it can do that I've already covered above. Hopefully at least some of this information is still fresh. ;)
-- edit, may 13 --
Posted the FNT ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/fntutil.c ) and SHP ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/shputil.c ) decoders on mw2.jjaro.net. FNT is a pretty simplistic format; there's a header which gives some basic information about the font and then an array of pointers to effectively raw bitmaps. SHP is a little more complicated; it also allows multiple shapes to be stored i none file for animations' sake, and each individual bitmap is compressed using an RLE-variant.
- Skyfaller
- Clan 1st MechWarrior
- Posts: 1017
- Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2008 2:58 am
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
Re: mtbl chunk and more promises
ecpeterson wrote:As promised, here are some notes on the structure of the MTBL chunk: http://mw2.jjaro.net/mtbl.h There are a couple fields that I don't understand and there's a potential to be missing some of the flags, but by and large everything's there.
ecpeterson wrote:I see someone else started on an UNWASM, but I'm not in a position to see what all it can do that I've already covered above. Hopefully at least some of this information is still fresh.
We have a thread for discussing BWD tags/chunks here:ecpeterson wrote: Any other requests, or clarifications I can make about the MTBL data above?
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=406
Please add any new knowledge concerning these data structures to that thread and I will add it into our list at the start of the thread. If you look at the list, you will find many question marks ...
Thanks, glad to hear it.ecpeterson wrote:With the help of _A_ in the IRC channel (we discovered I'm not competent enough to use my browser ), I got MechVM compiling; it's pretty neat and pretty useful. I need to make some revisions to a paper later tonight, after that's taken care of I'll see if I can figure out what's missing from that SFLX decoder.
MechVM supports SHP files, but in some cases, you need to select a palette first (see PAL directory in any MW2.PRJ).ecpeterson wrote:I wrote out an SHP and an FNT decoder some time ago, I'll see if I can clean those up and post them as well (dunno if you guys have already figured them out or not, but they belong on mw2.jjaro.net anyway).
-- edit, may 13 --
Posted the FNT ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/fntutil.c ) and SHP ( http://mw2.jjaro.net/shputil.c ) decoders on mw2.jjaro.net. FNT is a pretty simplistic format; there's a header which gives some basic information about the font and then an array of pointers to effectively raw bitmaps. SHP is a little more complicated; it also allows multiple shapes to be stored i none file for animations' sake, and each individual bitmap is compressed using an RLE-variant.