Sweet!!!
thanx bro!
Sweeet! can u teach us that?!?! plz

About the sprite replacing thing it doesn't seem to work on vista because if anything goes slightly wrong it just quits the program! >:( But using an old os (I used Windows 98 on a virtual machine!) it makes it able to continue running because old os' does not have the auto safty shutdown! So, you can continue with the sprites in the wrong place. XD

How about turning UAC off, running it as an admin or use Windows XP?

Windows 98 is a bit excessive like.

I have vista! and i ALWAYS Run it as admin! and it works fine! without any crashes!!!
BTW. i am looking for a easy way to replace levels/sprites using CE

I never really tried turning UAC off but it's not my PC so I can't. :( I managed to run windows 98 in a vpc, so I still have vista! Although, my Camtool is glitched I must get to it I know how it works but it crashes. Maybe it's the auto crash system. :(

Umm... Chubfish when r u going to put that vid.? :fuzsmile:

Soon, hopefully. Seeings as he intends on leaving here in a month or so.

Huh?
 

Who's leaving? :confused:

Chubfish apparently:
http://www.oddworldforums.net/poll.p...lts&pollid=702

Mudokon!!
 

Nooo not chubfish!!!:(

Anyway, I'm fixing my files for the mo' I broke them whilst editing!
I don't know if it's just my pc but if I leave Abe's Exoddus in the background running it crashes. Also, I found a mudokon position code. It says: Mud01 x245 y16. I'm going to see if I can delete the mudokon.

Edit: Don't delete the mudokon because the game super glitches. However you can move the mudokon!:)
Edit: What I mean by super glitches is the colours go funny.

I just started reading this thread and I just found out that these games are editable.

This may sound like a nooby question, but how can I create my own cams using the CamTool? Can you tell me or give me a link to somewhere please?

Wow this thread is STILL going?

Oh Paul, you should have contacted us to help you access your existing account instead of creating a new one. I'm going to reset your password for you, because we don't like users operating multiple accounts.

And YES this thread is still going. You drove people crazy when you promised so much and then disappeared!

If yer could switch it over to the email this account is on that would be cool. And my broken promises where due to some seriously badly and hackily enginnered game engine known as A.L.I.V.E :( .........

However! After looking on here at some guys 3D renderings of Zulag One of Rupture Farms I think ripping the orignal sprites as place holders and writing a new engine is fairly decent idea.

I have merged the two accounts. You should receive an email. If not, let me know.

Yes, I expect the A.L.I.V.E. engine is highly convoluted, being as it was never really meant to be unraveled. Especially AE's engine, which was probably built up like a shanty town. But you know how much I'd love the backgrounds from AE? Like, from the very bottom of my beating heart. =P

Oh thank god Paul returned.

I was actually still working on the guide.

I only put that I would leave in one month to see who actually cared. /whore

ps: i'll never "leave"

Cool I really wanna see that guide.

A guide?

Guide for Odd editing.

Its just bad in every sense of the word, anyhoo I started reversing the few functions that decode the AE background files a while ago but gave up.

I think it uses MDEC compression which is some piece of hardware in the ps1. But on a PC it seems to be emulating some massive lookup/matrix table that would have been there via hardware on PS1.

So you have this massive amount of data for decoding the compressed background image segments, where it came from and what exactly it is I don't know and will prolly never know.

But there are open source MDEC decompression libs that are used in EPSXE and the likes, since its likely not *exactly* MDEC (its prolly MDEC with a twist) its not trival to figure out. What I was doing was trying to rip the massive hard coded array and then use that as a guide to figure out how it was being used to decode the data.

That part is possible but then it gets very hacky because there is ANOTHER massive array of hard coded magic, only this time it has unrolled loops and junk which makes it even harder to understand.. oh and that function is recursive as well just to top it off :(

Sheesh. Maybe you could find one of the programmers and get them to help you. I believe Killy had support from Michael Bross when ripping the Munch's Oddysee soundtrack.

Really? Im sure that would violate their NDA? I have asked them before, basically they said that all the coders are dead and gone :/

Is it actually possible to change the backgrounds in game properly yet?

In abes oddysee you can change them yeah, not sure what you mean by "properly" though.

Edit: If its any use to anyone the game copies the AE background data segment into buffer prefixed with "VLC " I think this means "Variable Length Code" which means that it is actually using Huffman compression which makes me more conviced that it is MDEC format image. Maybe that insane array of data is the VLC table?

I'm not sure how to get the bmps back into the game.

1. Extract the files from the lvl archive
2. Use cam tool to get the orignal bitmap from the cam file you're trying to edit
3. Edit the bitmap to how you want it
4. Use cam tool to replace the background image in the cam file with your new bitmap
5. Put that cam file back into the lvl archive
6. Play the game and go to the cam/screen you edited
7. Pray it works

Not too sure how.

If you check the readme I wrote it should be in there.

Oh the Cam Tool I downloaded didn't have a readme.

if you get the one in this thread it will do

Just contains CamTool.exe.

if you run it without any arguments then it must tell you the usage options?

Just shows up for a split second.

You need to open it from the command line instead of windows explorer. Go to the start menu, then click run. Type 'cmd' and then enter. Then type 'cd' then the path of the folder the camtool is in. Then press enter. Then type camtool.exe and then enter again.

Is this right?

yeah?! lol

Possibly. It's up to the individual programmers, who you're right haven't worked for Oddworld Inhabitants in many years. You would have to try contacting them as individuals. More than likely they wouldn't have the memory to provide much help, and I can't at all guage how interested they'd be in helping if they could.

Well that Mike Case guy was a *slight* help (basiclly told me what I already reversed) and also that the game scripts where built up from a demo and so are some what hacked together (which I already found out too :().

You can tell some of the characters are heavily scripted. One example is in AE, the first Slig that you see walk up to a Mudokon. He walks forward and beats the Mudokon, during this time he doesn't respond to pretty much anything the player does.

Not to mention the random few; "deaf Sligs". - The ones which dont respond properly to speech.

I hate to be a pessimist... but if nobody has made a level editor in all this time, it's pretty much a fruitless venture. Sorry to dash everyone's hopes, but even if you COULD edit levels, you'd still have to resort to really picky scripting code for the Mudokons and Sligs anyway.

Whatever happens is better than nothing. Worst comes to worst, we're left with every background from AO and action sprites.