Look, I didn't mean to be rude or anything, I just think it's pointless that BlackVenom is thinking of stopping his current variation (that looks really really good so far), purely because there is a tiny chance that he will be able to edit the Exoddus levels. It's like, us completely destroying all of our power plants/sources, then waiting for Nuclear Fusion power to miraculously come along and save us. BlackVenom might as well finish off what he has made so far while he waits for something better. And besides, Paul said it is pretty much impossible to change the CAMs in Exoddus, so BlackVenom would be waiting (effectively) for an unlikely miracle, if he decides to do so.

Sorry to go off on a rant there, I just really really want to play the amazing level that BlackVenom could easily make! :)

It's because i got a infraction from Splat.

If BlackVenom stops his oddysee variation. He will send it to abe's exoddus by using a not implemented feature in pauls editor.

What's the point with IDA PRO?

Not without greeters and glukkons!!!

Well, it doesn't matter anyway, because making Exoddus levels is impossible, so BlackVenom will be forced to finish the Oddysee one. And I'm not going to rest until I play that variation! :)

I will test BlackVenom's game if it is any good without greeters and glukkons.

Look, The only reason why I don't want to continue it is because it's only a test series of maps, to get a feel for the editor. Nothing serious was to be made from these maps I have currently made.

And my opinion for why I'd prefer exoddus is because I can add more challenges like what novaman said. Greeters, Flying sligs, Slam doors and much much more. If I could remove the quicksave I would and just leave the checkpoints in there. It's just abe's oddysee is actually quite limited to the amount of challenges you can throw at the player. at most it's just sligs, slogs, mines. Not too much of a variety in my opinion.

Also, could we stop with the arguments? There's no reason we should be fighting over why I should or shouldn't continue my maps. In the end it's me that makes the choice that changes that fact and there's not much that opinions can do could change that.

What would happen if i first take the invisible checkpoint. Then rescue some mudokons in random secret rooms. Then die before next invisible checkpoint. I will get angry if so happens!!!
I prefer quicksave in this case.

Its just a struct, as I mentioned in previous post..

Nope the game code loads compressed cams, whats done it done it can't be changed unless you use a proxy DLL as I already said which would unprotect the code section in memory and overwrite it (EXTREMELY dangerous thing to do).

No free time so looking at months if ever :(

Exactly how is the workflow too slow? The only thing that takes time AFAIK is moving objects into teh correct screen to load in.

What does this mean "point of IDA PRO" don't understand.

April?

You said earlier that it is hard to move collisions. and more things slows the workflow.

You know. There is too many noobs out here = who is going to learn IDA PRO?
The IDA PRO tutorial movies is not fun for me to see!
I am more a gamer instead!
I will not learn IDA PRO! because it is too hard to properly use!

Someone should inject knowledge to my brain :fuzgrin:
Or else i will still be a regular noob!

NovaMan, you're being an idot. Stop posting.

Now, back to this editor...

No!!!

Yes and i must always say something everyday!

NovaMan a lot of your posts are rather pointless and add nothing.. whats the point in saying you won't learn IDA PRO? Whats that got to do with this thread? Whats its even got to do with encoding CAM images for that matter :|

They make no difference?

I failed at gamemaker scripting many years ago.


Nothing.


Nothing.

I have read the rules many many times before.
Please don't destroy my future.

He keeps posting uselessly. I think we should call an admin.

Reading the rules is less important than following them. I hope you like your infraction.

You do know that all mods can give infractions, right?

Hm... is the format described anywhere?

Yeah, sorry, by the word 'admin', I meant: generally anyone in power, not Administrators specifically.

Hm, wondering if you got what I meant...
I'll use the Commander Keen format as an example here.

The way it's compression works is that a byte of A7 marks a "near" reference, and a byte of A8 marks a "far" reference. Should either of those bytes actually be part of a word, the word is replaced with 00 Ax xx. However, someone had a genius idea of writing the most inefficient (but thus quick and simple) algorithm ever - no compression *at all*, it just puts the 00 in so A7 and A8 aren't interpreted as flags.

So... why couldn't something similar be done? (ie: the only modification from the uncompressed file is "escaping" (to use MySQL terminology.. xD) the flags) Of course I'm guessing there *is* some reason, but I'm wondering what it might be?

Because it uses CUSTOM compression, e.g there is a function that would look something like:


void LoadCam(void* camPtr)
{
LoadVlcResource(camPtr); // Grab the "Bits " block
DecodeVlcBlocks(camPtr);
WriteVlcBlocksToVram(camPtr);
DestroyVlcRes(camPtr);
}

Apart from that's a very high level example, since its actually assembly.. and each sub function is doing tons more stuff. It can't be changed. The only thing I can do is this:

Write a injection hook dll that OVERWRITES the call address of "LoadCam" and do something like this:

void MyLoadCam(void* camPtr)
{
if ( IsMyMagicSpecailNoneCompressedCam(camPtr)
{
DoVeryNastyHorribleEvenMoreDangerousHack();
DoExtremelyDodgyHackOfWritingToVram();
}
else
{
LoadCam(camPtr);
}
}

Which I've managed to do, apart from what would be in DoExtremelyDodgyHackOfWritingToVram() dosen't really work too well at the moment since it trashes the games heap.

Edit: All right chumps I reversed the load image function which makes the DoExtremelyDodgyHackOfWritingToVram() less dodgy and easier to implement. Screen shot of my redirection dll clearing the screen to white ;D

Edit again: And as expected it causes the steam version to explode due to that binary have different function addresses since its packed. Which means there will only likely be ONE version of AE that this will work with.

Will you guys please get back on track, and start posting some more level variants?
I wonder if someone could modify the entire game, first screen to last? :D

Just add water.....

Yeah, I agree, can people just please make lots of variations to post on this thread?

And yeah, I'll probably edit the whole of RuptureFarmsII soon. :)

Did you just ask people to post in your thread?

I don't exactly know what you mean by that, but I asked people to actually make some variations to post onto here (which is the whole point of this thread in the first place), instead of posting things about making levels, which should be posted onto other threads, e.g: Chubfish's help thread. :)

I might ask an admin to get rid of all of the posts that are totally irrelevant to the thread actually, as it just clogs it up. Most of the things people have said are about making levels, but not posting actual levels themselves, which is why I asked people to make some levels to post onto here. Thank you.

So you asked people to go out of their way to edit levels so that your thread can survive?

It seems that the thread is surviving without people posting edited levels. Jango's concern was that many of the recent posts belonged in a different thread.

It's fair that he wants people to stop posting things that could be in another thread, but asking people to make levels so that his topic survives is just odd.

And so now the thread is spammed up by people discussing whether it's legitimate to restrict this thread to its actual topic. How meta.

I'm not asking people to go out of their way to make levels. I thought people liked making levels. If level editing wasn't interesting, then no one would care about Paul's and LIJI's editors...

I'll make a level soon, then post it here to get this thread going again. :)

Can't wait... I've played all the others, and I'm too busy making levels elsewhere. :p

What do you mean by 'elsewhere'? Out of interest. :)

Also, what do you think of my previous variations?