Spain-Morocco-Portugal Theatre

[Closter]

Making a theatre from the beginning is difficult. Thank to SM we have here the guidelines to start and finish a theater. I have helped in making a theatre based around the Gibraltar Strait, mostly in texture creation, but now our project is a bit stalled and it is necessary to help in other areas. I have read all the tutorials and I think am able to share efforts with Joe Labrada and Ermes.

We have now a Beta 0.3 that is installable in SP3-SP4.2 and with some tweaks in Falcon AF. We can fly Instant Action, but we have problems with TE's and campaigns. We have tried to install it under BMS 2.0 but there are problems when converting textures to DDS. So our current beta is unable to be installed under RV or OF. That is a serious problem!

Firstable, we want to fix the problems with converting textures. The problems seem to be the differences between texture.bin and texture.zip. I have tried to fix it through this procedure:

1.-Unpak our v0.3 texture.zip in a directory
2.-Erase all M*, L*, and T* pcx
3.-Use Pathmaker as per the docs to make a new texture.bin

That is malfunctioning. The texture sets are made bigger than 16 textures and pathmaker is crying in anger (it is its own fault!)

First question: what am I doing wrong?

Not all is lost, I say, I can take another path; and I leave apart Pathmaker and use the terrain scripts. I need to create a big texture.txt with the list of sets, ... that is long! It is much time but I am patient. I am trying to keep the paths from the old texture.bin, and keep the order in textures and sets, trying to make it compatible with our actual L2 tiling.

In the future, perhaps we can redo our tiling, I have some ideas for bitmap CATE tiling but I am not in that step today.

So, second question: Is it better to forget L2 tiling and start from the beginning or is it of no importance?

Thank you in advance for your answers and I will try to keep this thread alive posting here, until SM think it deserves its own forum.

[Snake Man]

You could use placeholder tiles so you can fill up the gaps to make seasonswitcher to run the DDS tiles.

[Closter]

Of course, Snakeman. That was the first direction in wich we explore.

But we still had problems, it seems we had holes in our texture.zip, meaning it lacked e.g. H0000001.pcx, M0000001.pcx, L0000001.pcx, T0000001.pcx what it was present in texture.bin. I will call it : error type 1.

That is solvable unpacking texture.zip, copying with that same names another files from the same set (same palette), and repacking texture.zip

But we had problems with texture.bin, some times there are files in texture.zip that are not present in texture.bin, and season switcher still have problems. I will call it: error type 2

So I had chosen to remake texture.bin from the textures we had. Firstable, my plan is make a new texture.zip and a compatible new texture.bin, that be usable with our present L2 file. But I want to know your wiser opinion.

[Snake Man]

Well use the scripts to convert texture.bin to texturebin.txt, then edit away all the missing tiles if you can without breaking the tile-offsets. Then re-check that all H tiles are accounted for which are included in the texture list and that there is no additional tiles (if you said seasonswitcher crashes on those too). Then just make new texture.bin and texture.zip - all should work fine.

However... if you had to break up the tile-offsets (in which order the tiles are in the bin) then you're shit outta luck and have to re-tile the terrain. If you end up in this point, I would highly recommend you just use existing bin and placeholder copy-paste tiles... or then do everything from scratch and use CATE to tile the terrain.


Btw: So how to break tile-offsets? By removing tile-set. You can remove as many TILES as you want, but if you remove or add TILE-SETS, then the tiling will get broken assuming you added/removed sets in the middle.

[Sherlock]

Closter,
you say above that you didn't have the M, L or T tiles. Did you run the "RUNTILES.bat" to create these (M, L and T) tiles once you had all the H tiles? Then you can do a directory listing (writing it to a file) to build your basic texture.bin. Then you can build your texture.zip with the H, M, L and T tiles. Then you can use pathmaker to act on the texture.zip and the texture.bin to make the paths along the roads and put in the different types of terrain entries in the texture.bin file.

[Closter]

Sherlock,
I have said that I erase M, L and T tiles. This is needed to build that directory listing that you say. One of the problems I try to address is that there are differences between listings of H, M L and T tiles, so I erase them cause I know it is easy to recreate them with runtiles.

I know the common way is simply add sets to a working texture.bin, but mine is not working so I try another approach. My first try was to use Pathmaker with the H tiles directory and the directory listing, but as I have said, Pathmaker created sets bigger than 16 tiles, and with different palettes, and then it was unable to read the texture.bin that has been created before. Has anybody any experience on working with Pathmaker on this issue that could share?

[Sherlock]

Sherlock,
I have said that I erase M, L and T tiles. This is needed to build that directory listing that you say. One of the problems I try to address is that there are differences between listings of H, M L and T tiles, so I erase them cause I know it is easy to recreate them with runtiles.

I know the common way is simply add sets to a working texture.bin, but mine is not working so I try another approach. My first try was to use Pathmaker with the H tiles directory and the directory listing, but as I have said, Pathmaker created sets bigger than 16 tiles, and with different palettes, and then it was unable to read the texture.bin that has been created before. Has anybody any experience on working with Pathmaker on this issue that could share?

I'm confused on how Pathmaker created sets bigger than 16 tiles? Did you use the create set command in Pathmaker?

The texture.bin file must have the set header (after you get the directory listing). You could define the sets within the texture.bin file manually, before pulling into Pathmaker. Unpack the korea texture.bin using the perl script and look at how those sets are defined. You must do the same thing for the header of each tile set of 16 tiles. I know there is a create set command in Pathmaker but I have never used it. I prefer doing it the manual way which , I know, takes longer but there is less chance of a mistake. The problem you might have encountered is that the directory listing may not be the same order that Pathmaker "sees". Doing the texture.bin manually should get around that problem hopefully.

[Closter]

I'm confused on how Pathmaker created sets bigger than 16 tiles? Did you use the create set command in Pathmaker?

Yes, I did. Well, I tried, but it not worked as expected. There were strange characters at the end of each line, sometimes.

I used too the Generate New Texture.bin as per the manual

Building a New Texture.bin file
This feature is for used to build a new Texture.bin from a folder of tile images (pcx files). Use the Add Tiles or Add Sets features to add new tiles to an existing Texture.bin file.

Setup
- Unzip the Texture.zip file into an empty folder. Delete all the files except those starting with “H” (h*.pcx).
- Open up a MSDOS window and change to the folder where the H*.pcx files are located.
- Type and execute this command: dir /B /ON > tiles.txt This command creates a list of the new tiles in alphabetical order. The file must be named tiles.txt.
- To stay with the convention of making the shared tile (an ocean tile ‘shared” by all the L2 ocean tiles) have the Offset number of zero, cut and paste the shared tile name to the top of the list and rename it to match the other tiles in the first Set. If there are already 16 tiles in the first Set, move a Set with fewer tiles to the top and place the shared tile in this Set. The Set are distinguished by the first 2 Hex digits in the last 3 digits (e.g., FARMD34 is the 4th tile in the D3 Set. Originally the Set number was actually the number of the Set, but that convention was abandoned sometime during the development of Falcon 4). The “shared” tiles “Water” Cover Type is defined by placing an area circle around the tile.
- The builder function takes the Sets as they appear in the list and numbers them sequentially. The order of the tile Sets is not important until the tiling of the theater begins, at which time the tile that goes at X,Y is identified by the Tile ID (Offset) in the Texture.bin file.

Building the File
- When the above Setup procedure is completed, select Generate New Texture.bin file from the File menu.
- Point to the folder with the H*.pcx and the tiles.txt files.
- After the Texture.bin is built in memory, you will enter the texture.bin file name and location.
- The function gives all Sets the Terrain Type of “Water”. You need to select a tile from each Set and use the Change Set Terrain Type function to change the Set’s type to a Cover Type that best describes the tile in that Set.

But it not limited the sets to 16 tiles. Sometimes it created sets with two or three different basic names or/and more than 16 tiles.


I am choosing by now the long way. I am making a texturebin.txt with the H tiles directory listing, reordering them to generate the same tile ID, putting my own set and endset marks, and importing the paths from the old texture.bin in order to not creating them again. I will tweak them (paths) later 'cause they are faulty or nonexistant sometimes.

I will use then terrain scripts to build the texture.bin and then runtiles.bat to build texture.zip.

That is my schedule, but if someone could help with pathmaker, I could take a shortcut!.

[Phoenix711]

Just a reminder to keep every SET with the same palette...

No palette change in SET or bad/funny things happen.

Cheers...

[BaldEagle]

PathMaker uses part of the tile file name to determine the set it belong to and its tile number. For example:

HBASE3D7.pcx
3D7 = Set # and Tile #
Set # = 3D = 61 (file name values are in hexidecimal)
Tile # = 7 = 7

PathMaker worked on the older theaters before the makers started using their own tile names.

BTW, if you look at the Features with Tacedit, you will notice that many of the Feature names use the same hex extension as the tile name's hex extensions. These Features are designed to go on these tiles.

[ranger822]

Maybe a good idea is to locate all the tile names and the associated features? (are reading this Rod?). Another reason to identify the tile sets complete or not and go from there.

@Baldeagle - can we add new feature names and will they be recognized.

[Closter]

Baldeagle:

Possibly you are right and I am fooled by the naming of the tiles, but I think this example help you understand what I am seeing here:

Code: Select all

# Start Set 4 has 4 tiles, Terrain type 4
SET 4
HARAB824.PCX 301.PCX 0 0
HARAB821.PCX 302.PCX 0 0
HARAB822.PCX 801.PCX 0 0
HARAB823.PCX 802.PCX 0 0
ENDSET

This is the texture.bin that pathmaker makes, translated into txt

The list of tiles that is generating this behavior is:

Code: Select all

HARAB001.PCX
HARAB002.PCX
HARAB003.PCX
HARAB004.PCX
HARAB005.PCX
HARAB006.PCX
HARAB007.PCX
HARAB008.PCX
HARAB009.PCX
HARAB00A.PCX
HARAB00B.PCX
HARAB00C.PCX
HARAB00D.PCX
HARAB00E.PCX
HARAB301.PCX
HARAB302.PCX
HARAB801.PCX
HARAB802.PCX
HARAB803.PCX
HARAB804.PCX
HARAB811.PCX
HARAB812.PCX
HARAB813.PCX
HARAB814.PCX
HARAB821.PCX
HARAB822.PCX
HARAB823.PCX
HARAB824.PCX
HARAB831.PCX
HARAB832.PCX
HARAB833.PCX
HARAB834.PCX
HARAB901.PCX
HARAB902.PCX
HARAB903.PCX
HARAB904.PCX
HARAB905.PCX
HARAB906.PCX
HARAB907.PCX
HARAB908.PCX
HARAB909.PCX
HARAB90A.PCX
HARAB90B.PCX
HARAB90C.PCX
HARAB90D.PCX
HARAB90E.PCX
HARAB911.PCX
HARAB912.PCX
HARAB913.PCX
HARAB914.PCX
HARAB915.PCX
HARAB916.PCX
HARAB917.PCX
HARAB918.PCX
HARAB919.PCX
HARAB91A.PCX
HARAB91B.PCX
HARAB91C.PCX
HARAB91D.PCX
HARAB91E.PCX
HARAB921.PCX
HARAB922.PCX
HARAB923.PCX
HARAB924.PCX
HARAB925.PCX
HARAB926.PCX
HARAB927.PCX
HARAB928.PCX
HARAB929.PCX
HARAB92A.PCX
HARAB92B.PCX
HARAB92C.PCX
HARAB92D.PCX
HARAB92E.PCX
HARAB931.PCX
HARAB932.PCX
HARAB933.PCX
HARAB934.PCX
HARAB935.PCX
HARAB936.PCX
HARAB937.PCX
HARAB938.PCX
HARAB941.PCX
HARAB942.PCX
HARAB943.PCX
HARAB944.PCX
HARAB945.PCX
HARAB946.PCX
HARAB947.PCX
HARAB948.PCX
HARAB951.PCX
HARAB952.PCX
HARAB953.PCX
HARAB954.PCX
HARAB955.PCX
HARAB956.PCX
HARAB957.PCX
HARAB958.PCX

And another weird example:

Code: Select all

# Start Set 16 has 6 tiles, Terrain type 4
SET 4
HBA01DMF.PCX     0 0
HBA01DMA.PCX ¦ 0 0
HBA01DMB.PCX     ¦ 0 0
HBA01DMC.PCX     0 0
HBA01DMD.PCX     0 0
HBA01DME.PCX ¦  0 0
ENDSET
# Start Set 17 has 6 tiles, Terrain type 4
SET 4
HBA01F1F.PCX     0 0
HBA01F1A.PCX  ¦ 0 0
HBA01F1B.PCX     ¦ 0 0
HBA01F1C.PCX     0 0
HBA01F1D.PCX     0 0
HBA01F1E.PCX -¦  0 0
ENDSET

[Closter]

Here we are, still. We have chosen to remade the texture.bin and texture.zip again and forget those annoying problems.

Now we need to know how to build our theater to work in all three main Falcon branches: RV OF & AF. Specifically we need hints about adapting strings.idx y strings.wch. What are the differences? Please, wisemen, enlighten us!

[Sherlock]

Here we are, still. We have chosen to remade the texture.bin and texture.zip again and forget those annoying problems.

Now we need to know how to build our theater to work in all three main Falcon branches: RV OF & AF. Specifically we need hints about adapting strings.idx y strings.wch. What are the differences? Please, wisemen, enlighten us!

The strings.wch and the strings.idx files form a pair of files that go together. The strings.idx file is used as a pointer file (index) to look up textual entries in the strings.wch file like events output or names of pilots. Use the resource editor to write the .wch file to a text file (ending in .txt). Then simply edit it with notepad in windows. When you are done then use resource editor to rewrite it back to a .wch / .idx pair.