[Gambini]

I was trying to look for a thread where my question would fit and noticed there was no one. So, I´m starting this thread that may live decades and should be a sticky, so everybody that has a simple question can use it instead of creating a new thread.

Ok, here´s my simple question:

Is Dukeres fucked in the ass when it comes to applying offsets to tiles?

It´s driving me crazy, it has all kind of cool tools to measure and compare prev/next tiles so you can safely apply offsets (for example on monsters) without the need of checking the tiles in game a million times. But when you go and check them in game nothing is alligned as Dukeres shows you! WTF?

[Bloodshot]

I seem to recall DukeRes having some strange issue where the horizontal axis was reversed. i.e. left was right and right was left.

When I was editing the sprites I had to keep checking them in game while using it.

[Gambini]

Well was about to edit my OP saying that just out of weariness, inverted all X offsets and it worked! Glad to know it´s not a coincidence since we´re two already

[Jimmy]

I would personally and expressly recommend not using DukeRes.

[Gambini]

Why not? I use BastArt for inserting tiles in the art files. As it is simple and supports BMPs exported by Photoshop with "automatic transparent purple color". Then I animate and edit offsets with DukeRes. Both have their drawbacks, BastArt for example is terribly slow and Dukeres can´t import my bmps, i don´t know why. But they are quick and easy to launch and don´t require a master in IT engineering for using them.

[Bloodshot]

I used the same two tools when I was editing the sprites to add gloves a while back, this is mainly because I could find fuck all but those tools for doing stuff like that.

I managed to find a pack download to them, but most other links for almost everything I found were dead.

Discovering you can use external .PNGs for sprites has made this a lot easier for me, though It's still a little confusing as to how Eduke handles stretching/scaling the sprites in game (and how you must deform them to accommodate for it).

Since this thread is titled "those simple questions thread" I figure I'll drop one of my own. How would I give a weapon such as the shotgun more frames? I want to make smoother firing and pumping animations, sort of like what was done for the Brutal Doom weapons.

[Hendricks266]

Bloodshot, on 17 April 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

How would I give a weapon such as the shotgun more frames? I want to make smoother firing and pumping animations, sort of like what was done for the Brutal Doom weapons.

That seemingly simple question has an exceedingly complex answer. It would involve reprogramming the weapon display routine to display the extra frames. weapons.con.sample in the samples directory is what you would use as a base. If you add its contents to the CONs of your mod, it will replace the hardcoded weapon display code with an exact port to CON that you can begin to modify. kickback_pic only has a granularity of 30 frames per second, so if you want an evenly-spaced animation with some fractional number of frames, you would use totalclock which has 4x the precision. This is a high-level description; such a project would require in-depth modification of display calls and their surrounding routines, not to mention finding spaces in the art tiles for them and keeping some semblance of HRP compatibility if that's your thing.

Are you planning to make smoother frames of the original weapons or of your mod's custom weapons? If the former, shoot me a PM.

[Danukem]

Gambini, on 17 April 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Is Dukeres fucked in the ass when it comes to applying offsets to tiles?

In DukeRes, the left/right offsets are reversed, due to a bug. So if you move a tile to the left in DukeRes, it will actually move to the right in game, and vice versa. The up/down offsets work correctly, however.

[Jimmy]

Gambini, on 17 April 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

Why not? I use BastArt for inserting tiles in the art files. As it is simple and supports BMPs exported by Photoshop with "automatic transparent purple color". Then I animate and edit offsets with DukeRes. Both have their drawbacks, BastArt for example is terribly slow and Dukeres can´t import my bmps, i don´t know why. But they are quick and easy to launch and don´t require a master in IT engineering for using them.

I wouldn't use BastArt either, personally. Both programs are just pretty shitty and I would expect them to end up fucking your .ART files.

[OpenMaw]

DOSbox + Editart all the way, oh yeah!

[Gambini]

That´s the most awkward option. Dosbox is slow to launch, too much typing: "keyb this", "mount this", remembering folders by their short~1 name etc. Editart is another issue, I´d have to learn lot of hotkeys, plus I need all tiles in the folder, not only the ones i want to use. plus I need the files i want to import in the same folder too, and there´s no undo. Let´s face it. It´s a 16 years old program!

BastArt and DukeRes just do their work fine. I have given them stress-testing with all the shit I import/export, remove, edit, etc and never of ever had any of my files fucked up by them.

[OpenMaw]

Really?

Loading DOSbox is instant for me.

Mount c c:\games\duke3d\

C:\

editart

having a subfolder in duke3d called "art"

go into the sub folder, import the art as needed. Using tab on the proper transparent color and hit C on any images with the required fix. Done.

It may be 16 years old, but it works.

[Gambini]

That´s instant for you man?

The programs i use work like:

click click

Done!

[Spirrwell]

You could always mount everything using your DOSBox configuration file. You could also change the video output, I forget what the default is, but you could change it to ddraw or opengl. Tinkering around with settings always seems to help.

[OpenMaw]

You can even setup the equivalent of an auto start up procedure so it does all of that for you. Not that hard at all. Really.

[Jblade]

I've used Dukeres for over 10 years and have no real problems with it. The only annoying one is the horizontel offset being reversed.

[Hank]

Gambini, on 18 April 2013 - 09:06 PM, said:

That´s instant for you man?

The programs i use work like:

click click

Done!

I love DukeRes, and also used it since 1999. Still, I need(ed) Edit Art to define the pink colour.
My solution for click click and forget setting up my euro key board with DosBox, and other shit ==
http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/
It opens any given DOS program using DosBox as an engine. You simply import any game or program and click on Run.

[Player Lin]

DOSBox never be awkward unless you just don't care the [autoexec] section in the dosbox.conf or even those 3rd-party DOSBox game launchers.

Yeah, it's not as fast as those GUI programs but I don't think it's awkward at all.

[Gambini]

How do i go around editing LOOKUP.DAT?

I want to change a game palette, so when the goggles are activated a different palette is used. I know there´s a way with code, but changing it in the hard side seems more of a solid solution.

[Forge]

not my line of knowledge but would this work? (says night vision palette)

http://www.jonof.id.au/bcs

[Fox]

Gambini, on 20 April 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

How do i go around editing LOOKUP.DAT?

I use OPENGLBT, it is not a good way (i.e. manually edit every color entry) but at least it does the job.

[Hendricks266]

Forge, on 20 April 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

not my line of knowledge but would this work? (says night vision palette)

http://www.jonof.id.au/bcs

I ported this tool to Win32/*nix/Mac (replacing the DOS UI with command line arguments) as part of the Build tools.

[Forge]

what about this? it talks about editing the palette & lookup.dat files

http://lzg.duke4.net/extclut.htm

[Hendricks266]

I think he made his modifications manually or wrote his own tool to do it.

  FORMAT OF BUILD TABLES

I made some reverse-engineering to examine these files. Use this section [to] alter your files using a Hex editor.

The addresses are listed for the extended files, not the original Duke DATs.

PALETTE.DAT:

  Address range        Description                   Size
0x0000  -  0x02FF    BGR main palette (0-63)       [0x0300]
0x0300  -  0x0301    Number of shades (up to 128)  [0x0002]
0x0302  -  0x2301    Shade tables                  [0x0100 * wordptr(0x0300)]
0x2302  - 0x12301    Translucency table            [0x10000]

LOOKUP.DAT:

  Address range        Description                                        Size
           0x0000    Number of pals                                     [0x0001]
0x0001  -  0x8080    Palettes (first byte is the mapped ID, up to 127)  [0x0101 * byteptr(0x0000)]
0x8081  -  0x8380    Underwater palette (BGR 0-63)                      [0x0300]
0x8381  -  0x8680    Night vision palette (BGR 0-63)                    [0x0300]
0x8681  -  0x8980    Duke3D logo palette (BGR 0-63)                     [0x0300]
0x8981  -  0x8C80    3DRealms logo palette (BGR 0-63)                   [0x0300]
0x8C81  -  0x8F80    Episode 1 Seq palette (BGR 0-63)                   [0x0300]

[Gambini]

Thsnks guys! But now I´m even more confused than prior posting that question

Basically what I want is to make the environment look "pal 30" and actors pal 31 when we use the goggles. I use a custom lookup.dat. What line i should edit and what i should put there?

[Metalwolf]

For my 3 questions, does EDuke32 and the High Resolution pack (the modification that allows enemies and things to be 3D and not just sprites) all you to have more sectors and vertices and things like that? I remember the Build editor that came with DN3D had up to a certain amount of these things you could add, and no more. I could create a detailed room with many surfaces, but I couldn't create a whole hallway of them.

I like using a lot of detail and creative use of textures. The limit to vertices and sectors really dulled Build for me, and made it so that after a while I left it to 'collect dust."

The second question is, can you change the appearance of the enemies in the HRP? Say I wanted to slightly alter an enemy's shape to make it look a little more 'realistic' or to remove Duke's jetpack. Would I be able to do that?

The last question is, can I have two different colors of the same enemy in the same level? I know it was impossible in Build, but I don't know if this has been changed or not.

[Jblade]

For the first question - The sector/sprite/wall count has risen yes, that's nothing to do with the HRP however and is just an Eduke32 thing. The amount of sectors has gone up to 4096, and the wall and sprite limit has doubled.

Number 2, I don't think it's possible without access to the original model's files. Eduke32 uses MD2 and MD3 and doesn't use model skeletons, which means that when it's converted it's per-vertex animation. In other words, to delete or change an item on an animated model you'd have to manually edit every frame without the source materials.

Number 3, I'm not sure what you mean so you might have to clarify a bit. If you mean changing an enemy's palette so it's a different colour than that's always been possible.

[Fox]

Gambini, on 20 April 2013 - 10:05 PM, said:

Thsnks guys! But now I´m even more confused than prior posting that question

Basically what I want is to make the environment look "pal 30" and actors pal 31 when we use the goggles. I use a custom lookup.dat. What line i should edit and what i should put there?

Unpossible without CON.

[Mikko]

Fox, on 21 April 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Unpossible without CON.

Yes, but setgamepalette takes its values from LOOKUP.DAT so it cannot be set to what isn't in the dat file. That's the problem.

[Metalwolf]

James, on 21 April 2013 - 12:31 AM, said:

Number 3, I'm not sure what you mean so you might have to clarify a bit. If you mean changing an enemy's palette so it's a different colour than that's always been possible.

By this I mean having two enemies of the exact same type (ex. Trooper Captain) but having different color armor. say a Trooper Captain wearing blue armor in the same room with a Trooper Captain wearing red armor. In the old version of Build you could have one color of their palette (red or blue) per map, but you couldn't have both (red and blue.)

Another question to add, what was the original limit of sprites, sectors and walls? It's been a while (years) since I have touched any version of Build, and since I know now that this limit has gone up, I need something to compare it to.