BB's Toolkit

[redrat9595]

Interface-wise, I guess there could be a key. Getting it to respond to said key in a fashion that would have some human interface is a whole other story though, right? However, UFOExtender did add stun attacks to most of the guns, but I imagine making a turret for the Chryssalid and basically doing the same thing would be a different type of coding, correct?

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat.

[Bomb Bloke]

Given that at least one "glitchy" turrent exists, I would assume there's an array of turrent "features" that gets called on. This would contain such information as the type of bullet image to use, whether it was explosive, the damage amount and type, and perhaps a few other things.

 

For example, the Celatid fires like a mortar, and the Launcher HWP fires in the same way as the Blaster Launcher.

 

It may be that the Chyssalid's special attack can be tapped into by finding this array and messing with it. Another option would be to see if it can be created as an actual item; though this would lead to sillyness in that you could mind control the creatures and make them effectively drop their own claws, plus new Chyssalids (freshly hatched from zombies) wouldn't have new claw objects (which wouldn't stop them from attacking: it'd just stop you from accessing their attack).

[redrat9595]

Well if nothing else, thanks for the education. Perhaps when I finish learning C++ I can actually look into this in some detail, but for the moment, my time is taken up by that. Anyway, goodbye for now, and thanks for the wonderful editor.

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat.

[redrat9595]

Hello again. I absolutely LOVE your editor. I think it's the single most useful program I've ever come across. So when I moved to a new computer, I wanted to bring it along. When I tried to run it, however, I got a problem. When I went to run the map editor, a white screen came up and stayed up. I did the same thing as last time; I then tried every key on the keyboard in a fashion that would not overwhelm it. I then minimized the window, and in the Command Prompt Window, I got this:

 

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IlleagalArgumentException: Color parameter o
utside of expected range: Red Green Blue
            	at java.awt.Color.testColorValueRange(Unknown Source)
            	at java.awt.Color.(init)(Unknown Source)
            	at java.awt.Color.(init)(Unknown Source)
             at Pal.getPal(Pal.java:174)
            	at Text.loadText(Text.java:43)
             at Text.(init)(Teaxt.java:33)
             at LoadGame.chooseSlot(LoadGame.java:88)
            	at MapEdit.main(MapEdit.java:28)

 

The only difference between this one and that one is that the indentations in the Command Prompt Window were composed of a single press of the tab key as opposed to a ton of spaces in this one. So, I'm going to be honest. I have absolutely NO idea what this is, and any help you could provide would be met with the utmost appreciation. Good job on the editor, sir, and (hopefully) thank you for your help.

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat.

[Bomb Bloke]

It's trying to build a palette (using geodata/palettes.dat) and failing miserably. That probably means there's an issue with that specific file; though others could also be corrupt - this just so happens to be the very first game data file that the editor tries to load.

[redrat9595]

Hello again. So I've gotten another new computer, running on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit with a grafics card built into the processer. After struggling for some time and fruitlessly searching for a solution, I eventually managed to get the game running. Excited, I wanted to get my old joke maps up again so I could mess around with them some more. But alas, there was an issue. The editor runs in a small square in the corner! It's fullscreen (no window) but it's only about an inch square in the top left corner. The rest of the screen is black. Any idea what's going on? The command prompt shows no errors. Is there a config file I can tinker with, some other magical solution, or will I just have to use my XP computer to run this? Perhaps it's possible that the lack of ability to turn off DirectDraw Acceleration is an issue? By the way, I've already tried a clean install with both your Toolkit and X-COM, something I learned to do from last question.

 

Also, slightly off topic, but this IS where I'm supposed to be asking questions, right? Not some other board or thread?

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Redrat

[zaimoni]

The editor runs in a small square in the corner! It's fullscreen (no window) but it's only about an inch square in the top left corner. The rest of the screen is black. Any idea what's going on?

Go into the control panel for the display, and set the screen resolution to as low as it will go. Reset it to where it was, when done.

[Bomb Bloke]

This is indeed the best place to ask.

 

As zaimoni hints, your screen resolution isn't being set correctly. This likely has less to do with your operating system and more to do with the capabilities of your display - the editor asks for 320x200, and if for whatever reason it doesn't get it, it just carries on (that is to say, it renders the low-res editor display on top of whatever your standard resolution is, and so you get the thumbnail effect with most of the display unused).

 

It's vaguely possible tapping the S key would've kicked it into submission (doing so attempts to go into 640x400 so it can use Scale2X), but odds are your screen won't accept that mode either.

 

In any case I've just uploaded a new version that shouldn't have this problem. Your screen will go into a 4:3 aspect ratio (probably 640x480) - this doesn't quite match what the original game uses (8:5), so the pixels will probably look a little distorted, but it should at least work.

[redrat9595]

Ok, just wanted to make sure. I was a tad confused because the support forum seemed to be a bit of a jumble.

 

Thanks a bunch! Seems like the new version works just dandily. I'll look a tad more into it tomorrow night. Also, I could barely tell about the "distortion". I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I wasn't looking for it. Now I can finally continue my work on my "Reaper Clubhouse" map!

 

Thanks again,

 

Redrat

[redrat9595]

Finally got time for further review of the new version. Just figured I'd put this up for you, even though neither of these are more than the slightest of nuisances. The first screen, where you select the save, seems to have issues with the cursor. It's sort of laggy is all, but once the actual editor opens it's smooth again. The other thing is that it seems as if it can't poroperly cover the taskbar, so there's this rapidly flashing bar (like a strobe light) across the bottom, but only a couple pixels tall. Also, it will turn whatever color your cursor is if you move your cursor around on it. It's hard to explain. I just fixed this by opening the OSD of my monitor and moving the vertical position down one. 6 second fix. Other than those two things it works perfectly, as always. The Reapers and their clubhouse are forever grateful to you! Also, these don't seem to appear at all if it doesn't have to change screen configuration.

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat

[Bomb Bloke]

I'd rather have it working "properly", so any gripes are appreciated.

 

I'm not sure what would be causing the mouse issue. Only thing I can think of is that the load screen is missing the timer code built into the main editor (which stops the scroll/animation speed blasting off to infinity on fast computers), so it just sits there trying to update the screen as fast as it possibly can until you're done with it... Perhaps if a computer is too fast then things start going pear-shaped? I've tried enforcing the same frame rate cap on it, so let me know if that sorts it.

 

The bar down the bottom is due to a rounding error in my screen-stretching code (that being that I allowed it to rely on rounding at all ). The program ends up drawing "nothing" along that last row of pixels (... unless you put the mouse over it). I'm not sure what you mean about changing the "screen configuration", do you mean if you run it on your old computer that can handle 320x200 res? In any case I'm pretty sure I've nailed this one.

 

Update is at the usual link.

[redrat9595]

Ok then. The main screen is working properly again, and the bar at the bottom is gone! Also, I meant exactly as you thought I meant, apologies for not being more clear. Thanks a bunch, I don't see any more problems at this point, though I'll give it a shot on my old computer Wednesday-ish. I don't want to be the cause of it messing up for others with older systems, though I don't see any issues cropping up.

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat

[redrat9595]

Ok, here I am, as promised, Wednesday-ish. Everything's working fine and dandy here on my old computer, just as before. Many thanks to you for your patience and cooperation through this whole thing and good luck in whatever endeavors you may follow.

 

Thanks,

 

Redrat

[Bomb Bloke]

Good to hear, have fun with it!

[prune]

Hey, I've just come across your custom uniform manager but it does not seem to work on W7 64 bit, is there any way to get around it? I've seen the screenshots and it looks really nice, just another level of immersion that i'd love to have!

 

I can run the generation process, but in game an error comes up saying 'this program is not compatible with a 64bit system etc etc'.

[ufonaft]

hi guys, do y know any way to convert GEODATA\ .dat translations to txt and reversa?

[Bomb Bloke]

Updated with a fix for a TFTD crash, courtesy of kyrub.

 

Hey, I've just come across your custom uniform manager but it does not seem to work on W7 64 bit, is there any way to get around it? I've seen the screenshots and it looks really nice, just another level of immersion that i'd love to have!

 

I can run the generation process, but in game an error comes up saying 'this program is not compatible with a 64bit system etc etc'.

The executable code for BBMod is compiled twice, one 16bit version and one 32bit version. DOSBox can't run the 32bit version and 64bit Windows can't handle the 16bit version. So the BBMod batch (or BBMod addon batch for XcomUtil, if you're using that) is supposed to work out which BBMod EXE to use according to your OS.

 

Two possibilities - either you're using an old version (if what you've downloaded is actually called "custom uniform manager" then yeah, it's old - use BBMod from my toolkit!), or I messed up. The old releases only contain a 16bit compilation of my code and 64bit Windows won't touch it. They're also only compatible with outdated versions of XcomUtil.

 

I gather you're wanting to use BBMod via XcomUtil, so assuming I messed up, I've also made some changes to the plugin that will probably solve the problem. Download and extract the new version of my toolkit, no need to run the setup scripts for either it or XcomUtil again, it'll likely "just work".

 

Failing that, the quick fix is to go into the XcomUtil\Addon\BBMod\ folder and copy BBReset32.exe from there over the BBReset.exe file in the root of your game directory. If BBReset.exe also exists in the XcomUtil addon folder, replace that with the 32bit version too.

 

hi guys, do y know any way to convert GEODATA\ .dat translations to txt and reversa?

I've added Str2TXT.exe and TXT2Str.exe into the bb_tact folder. The first dumps the DATs to TXT files, the second converts the TXT files back into DATs. Just double click them and they'll automatically stick their results in place within the GeoData folder.

 

The actual files they convert is determined by TXT2Str.ini. If you want to use extra DAT files with different names, go ahead and add them to that file. Remember filenames should be eight characters or less (excluding extensions).

 

They don't make backups, so be wary of running the wrong one by accident, or make sure to create backups of your own.

 

Another tool you might find useful (though it's not a new one) is "ConvMisc.bat", which is command-line based. If you run:

 

ConvMisc /toGif lang

 

... then it'll convert the LANG*.DAT files to GIFs (these are the ones that deal with the GeoScape sidebar in alternate languages - again, they're dumped directly into GeoData). To go back the other way:

 

ConvMisc /toGame lang

 

Same tool deals with just about all the other "odd" graphics, pretty much anything in the games that isn't a traditional SPK/BDY/SCR/PCK. Run it without parameters for the full list.

[Munkeylord]

Just double tapping. I noticed that pck2gif conversion is 32x40 while xcom's image frames are 32x48.

[Bomb Bloke]

Just to clarify, only BigObs uses 48 rows, the rest have 40. If the PCK set you're dealing with has the title "BigObs" it'll automatically adjust.

 

Anyway, I've updated the PCK converters somewhat:

• Can now deal with files that aren't in the bb_tact directory. If you don't specify a full path, it'll first look in bb_tact, then if they don't find them there, the UFOGraph/GeoGraph/Units/Terrain folders will be automatically checked. Results go where ever the source files are found.
  
• When converting to PCK, you can now use the "/ignorepal" parameter to stop the tool from attempting to fix the palette for you. This means that the palette in the source images MUST match the palette of the PCK set you're attempting to convert to, or you'll get weirdness; if you don't get what this means you probably won't want to use it.
  
• When converting to GIF/BMP, you can now use the "/sheet" parameter to have the results dumped into a single sprite-sheet image instead of separate files. You must also specify how many images are to be rendered per row (eg, "/sheet 16"). If you wish to convert from a single sprite-sheet file back to PCK, you must specify the full title of the source file with the extension (eg, "gif2pck sectoid.gif").
  

Did I mention the PCK converters now support BMP, as of a couple of months ago? I lose track. GIF2PCK automatically grabs either format, while you can use PCK2BMP for bitmap output. Files must be 8-bit and colour 0 is treated as transparent.

[darkporter85]

Hi everybody .I have a question to Bomb Bloke. I' m having a trouble with the command pck2gif of any pck files from units folder. I get something like "java is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file". I have windows 7 x64bit.Before it worked well on my older Vista 32. Is it a compatibility issue, or may be Im doing something wrong.

[Bomb Bloke]

Long story short, your operating system can't find your Java install.

 

This seems to be a bit of a "thing" for 64bit users. I recommend installing both the 64bit version of the Java VM along with the 32bit one before rebooting and giving it another go. Failing that, a web search on the error will give you quite a few ways around it.

[darkporter85]

Thank you Bomb Bloke. I fixed the problem by setting the path manually. Anyways thanks for the great editor!

[Bomb Bloke]

Good to hear, well done!

[ShadowBlade]

Hey there, BB. I don't know if you're still around, but I could use your help extracting .GIFs out of your recoloured uniforms, so I can adapt them individually to OpenXcom.

 

So far I've only worked on the black Power/Flying Suit, and I've been able to extract the main battlescape sprites and the inventory "paper doll" sprites. However, the corpse graphics (both BigObs.pck and FloorOb.pck) have been making me tear my hair off.

 

I can't open BigObs at all, with neither PckView nor extract it with Pck2Gif even if I copy-paste the relevant .tab file from the UFOGRAPH and UNITS folders. I can barely extract FloorOb as a .bmp using PckView, but it doesn't seem to process transparency the same way as .gifs, and I'm not sure that'll work for OpenXcom.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[luke83]

i dont use the toolkit very often but i tried on those 2 files for you, colours are very strange.... Most likely not very helpful for you but here it is.

 

https://openxcommods....-storage.html�� (At very bottom of link)