.lvl files

[Paul]

Wrong name? Missing files (you can't just throw anything in there, you need all the orginal files / edited verisons)
Thats about all I can think of.. or you're editing the wrong file

[mlg man]

On Topic-what version do you have, maybe the lvl file is a bit different or cam file is different, just guessing, oh, and paul i tested the ps1 abe's oddysee cam files, and they don't convert, there in different format-On Topic

Off Topic-Does Any one know if theres like a psp game file extracter?-Off Topic

[Paul]

Yeah PSX ones are in TIM format, and the AE ones are diffrent, as I've said before its *only* for AO PC version

[mlg man]

do you know anything about the ddv files, the movie files.

[SligStorm]

Hey paul, I know theres been alot of disscussion in this topic lately but what progress have you made on other things? like have you tryed extracting sound and movies etc? Or have you just been experimenting with sprites?

[Paul]

I've not had much time at all, ive been looking at the sprite decompression algorithms, it seems to be a one way process atm
I've also been looking at AE cam files, which ALSO has some lame compression in them

[mlg man]

by lame do you mean bad or something, cause iv'e herd of something called lame mp3 codec or something. something something something something.......

[Paul]

lol no I don't mean "lame compression" I mean lame as in annoying/bad/pissing me off

[Paul]

Checked out the messed up AE cam file

[mlg man]

so i see you have hex edited it without it corrupting, great!
oh, and i see also your cd is working again or something.

[~^_^~]

Haha. Awesome paul.

[Paul]

so i see you have hex edited it without it corrupting, great!
oh, and i see also your cd is working again or something.

Got a new cd, and I didnt hex edit anything, I nop'ed out the calls to fill the "VLC " buffer

[mlg man]

What? English Please. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!

[Paul]

You seemed to know a few posts ago, maybe you shouldn't tell me what you think im doing if you don't understand

[mlg man]

like i mean VLC Buffer, like is that virtual memory or images stored temporarely in the ram?

[mlg man]

I Managed to crack one part of the cam file, i can remove all of those background spirits, the background spirits are in the cam file at the end, delete all the hex at the end after you see a word in the hex, "FG1" i think it means forground 1. delete all of the fg1 and the hex after it, accept for the word "END!", dont leave any text behind it, it will corrupt, now here is proof, the cam file and screenshot. You can see on the screenshot is abe on top of the barrel on the second page of repture farms.

[Oddey]

Wow! I am impressed but do not double post. Hang on a minute? How'd you get that AE backround thing in?

[Paul]

FG1 is also used for the tiles in the main screen and lots of other stuff, VLC is another type which is some strange compression used in AE cam files. Before that there is a NULL, and the length of the segment is before that (check my edited cam file image, its a screen shot of the header struct)
Strange though, because if you remove that stuff in most instances the game will crash because it can't find the data its looking for, every "FG1 /Anim/Bits/etc" has its own resource ID, if its not found then the game goes boom
I've almost figured out how to decode AE type 4 sprites though, type 3 looks VERY strange, and the cam files are just looking impossible atm
I won't be doing much with AO files for a while, since AE's formats seem a lot more matured and stable

edit: maybe you should try editing it out of the main screen where abe says hello or whatever and see what happens

edit again: heres the header FYI

struct TChunkHeader // First thing in the file, the file chunk header
{
public:
DWORD iLength; // Length of the section
WORD iType; // Type of the section Font, Anim, etc
WORD iID; // Resource ID
TChunkHeader()
: iLength( 0 ), iType( 0 ), iID( 0 )
{
// Constructor is empty
}
};

[ParamiteSurprise]

O_o okayy...

[Xavier]

ParamiteSurprise, please don't spam, it's normal to be confused if you never toyed with some code, but it's not a reason to let everyone know you are lost here.

[mlg man]

I Am making an abe's exoddus for abe's oddysee mod, and the floors i got from extracting the backgrounds of the abe's exoddus demo, paul, in the abe's exoddus demo, there are mixed formats, like abe's oddysee formats, and further on like MIP0605 are abe's exoddus formats, kinda confusng.

I will search for more files in the cam files, if you can paul, can you make a program that takes out the FG1 files and can put them in other cam files, or just remove them just cause there in the way, and i'm working on the screen now. An the game doesn't seem to crash, but you can't convert them to BMP.

[Paul]

I can run over all the lvl files and make a list of every "type" there is Anim in cam files too, but if you removed it the game will crash, these are the extra bits I was talking about many posts ago.
The FG1 must also be tiles, square sections of bitmaps that are "pasted" over the top of the cam images, that means that they much also contain x,y coord info for each tile.
Maybe they can have various width/height but I doubt it.
In related news I might have a sprite ripper for type 4 AE sprites in a few days (the gamespeak uses these type of sprites at least..)

[mlg man]

OMG! OMG! I ripped out the abe's oddysee and exoddus song files!!!!!!!!
Here are the abe's exoddus ones. i used seq2mid converter the BNQ Files are seq files! LOL!
IT ALSO HAS THE PROGRAM AND THE ONES I RIPPED OUT

[Xavier]

Sounds nice

what exactly do you have to do to convert them from the game's files?

[Oddey]

I tried them but they don't seem to bear much resembalence to the songs in the game. I beleive you though. It maight help if you could tell which one is what theme or where it plays.
Edit: After listening to the rest of them I can hear that half of them have sound close to those that play in-game. But still number 9 or 10 sounds a bit like the music from Jaws.

[ParamiteSurprise]

number 9 or 10 sounds a bit like the music from Jaws.

In that case its probably the song that plays when your in slog tension perhaps?

[OddYouko]

Which Slog tension? In AO or AE?

[Paul]

They dont sound like in the game because

a. Seq2Mid is buggy
b. You dont have the samples from the .vb file(s)

[mlg man]

How do you get the files out of the VB file, I tryed a PSX vb file explorer but it doesnt work, I thought it would cause the PC version of abe's oddysee is just the psx version being emulated, Like halo!

I was wundering though, the program is in chinese, so is there some reigion code limit so only the chinese games get extracted.

So Could anyone list or give me tips on what to use to make CMD Based aplication, like you paul. I would be happy to make that FG1 program.

[Paul]

the VB / VH files are part of a format called .VAB but sort of split in half, i dont think an app will load them because it has the file chunk header prepended to it so you'd have to hex that out, and for that reason im surprised the seq2mid worked either..

If you wanna make a CMD based app ( a console app) then you can download microsoft visual studio express edition for free, then create a win32 console app with it, you'll need to know c++ to write any apps with it though
But it shouldnt take too long to learn the basics