.lvl files -

***Wil*** · #**661** 03-28-2010, 05:49 AM

Did he, or did he just claim it? What evidence did he supply?

Jango · #**662** 03-28-2010, 07:41 AM

Well, in >this< thread that is five years old, 'SligStorm' did claim that he was 'nearly done'.

Whether or not he actually was 'nearly done' is unknown. He said that he was using 'Game Maker' to build this supposed level editor.

So I sent him a PM, asking if he was finished or if he had worked on it at all, and he said that he scrapped the project years ago. Why would he do that? I don't understand why he would stop if he was 'nearly done'.

It seems that he was probably lying about it, but why would he want to get our hopes up like that?

If he is actually telling the truth about him being 'nearly done' (that seems somewhat unlikely) why did he stop? So many people want a level editor. If it is possible, then I would give it a go myself, but I have no idea on how to do so.

Gretin · #**663** 03-29-2010, 01:12 AM

That level editor was more like an imitation engine done in Game Maker with which the intention would have been to make it versatile enough that you could build your own levels with it and it would play more or less like the original game.

Essentially SligStorm was trying to make a completely new engine that looked like the old one but added the ability to load custom levels. That is a pretty tough project though, especially with the difficulty of getting graphics etc, so that would be why he scrapped it.

But making a good level editor for the actual game is pretty much impossible since, as many above posters have said, the engine just isn't versatile enough - there's too much stuff which is hard-coded into the game. I think the idea of trying to actually create new levels for the original game was scrapped a long time ago, the work that's gone on since then is to try to create a replica engine (pretty much what I described above) which would use the original data while adding on a bit of customization ability.

But of course, the first step in doing that is reversing the original data formats, which is quite challenging as you can see by reading through this topic

Hope that helps

Jango · #**664** 03-30-2010, 10:18 AM

Thank you for explaining it to me.

Just one more question though (and I think I already know the answer). I know it sounds completely ridiculous but would it be possible to get the level editor from, for example, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 1 and then modify it to be able to create Abe's Oddysee levels? That game was made around the same time as AO.

It is just an idea that flickered into my mind.

Varrok · #**665** 03-30-2010, 10:03 PM

Well... its much more impossible than making it from scratch :P

Namida · #**666** 03-30-2010, 11:26 PM

Very few games can be edited by other game's editors, even with heavy modification.

Crashpunk · #**667** 03-31-2010, 02:25 AM

What i don't it is how come the Source Engine was modded quite easliy and the A.L.I.V.E is near impossible.

I don't know much about Game Engines but surely a 2D side scrolling engine would be easier to mod then a 3D on?

Anyway Paul, I still have compleate fath in you. You'll crack the code soon

Phylum · #**668** 03-31-2010, 02:35 AM

The ALIVE engine has too many hard-coded events (i.e. time before sligs turn, and I wouldn't be surprised if walking distance was as well) whereas the source engine was made avoiding these situations. AO probably wasn't originally!

Gretin · #**669** 03-31-2010, 04:07 AM

Yeah, Source is easy to modify because that's how it was designed - Valve purposely made it easy to mod. Whereas with Abe's Oddysee /Exoddus, as Phylum said there's too much hard-coded and it wasn't really designed to be modified.
Also, as far as I'm aware no one had to reverse engineer anything to mod Source, Valve released official tools to create mods with

Jango · #**670** 03-31-2010, 08:49 AM

:

Well... its much more impossible than making it from scratch :P

Yeah, I thought so.

:

What i don't it is how come the Source Engine was modded quite easliy and the A.L.I.V.E is near impossible.

I don't know much about Game Engines but surely a 2D side scrolling engine would be easier to mod then a 3D on?

Anyway Paul, I still have compleate fath in you. You'll crack the code soon

I agree with you, but since everyone has said before; the ALIVE engine has too many hard-coded events.

I just find it quite strange how it is nearly impossible to make new playable levels for a game that is over 12 years old.

How difficult really is it to crack these codes? What does it involve? Is there any other possible way to make a level editor? I really don't have a clue.

Varrok · #**671** 03-31-2010, 11:42 AM

Somebody can rewrite the whole game engine and then modify anything he/she wants, including levels... but its muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch work

Jango · #**672** 04-01-2010, 07:47 AM

:

Somebody can rewrite the whole game engine and then modify anything he/she wants, including levels... but its muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch work

What does it involve? Would I be able to do it? I would love to give it a go.

And by 'much work', do you mean that it takes alot of time or that it is really difficult? Or both?

Varrok · #**673** 04-01-2010, 09:28 AM

:

What does it involve? Would I be able to do it?

I doubt it - it requires a lot of (by "A lot of" I mean more than you can think of) knowledge about programming, and even If you had it, you still wouldn't be able to do it because of no knowledge about reverse engineering (which propably nobody'll teach you, you would have to learn it by yourself)... not to mention deep knowledge of game structure/files

:

And by 'much work', do you mean that it takes alot of time or that it is really difficult? Or both?

Both. Some says that more time and work than it's really worth...

Paul · #**674** 04-01-2010, 12:24 PM

Jango if you REALLY REALLY REALLYYY want a level editor then...

1. Learn how to reverse engineer x86 binaries
2. Use this to figure out how to use the files which the game uses
3. Write something to convert this to a more robust format (means you need to know another programming language which likely means you know C or C++ as this is almost certainly a prerequisite to 1.)
4. Write a whole new game engine that uses these files
5. Write an editor to create new files / levels / sounds / etc for your engine

If you have zero knowledge then you will appreciate even more how none trivial this is to accomplish (assuming you actually give it ago).

Alternatively if you're pretty smart and know how game engines work in general and so on.. you can look at "Path 1" from path file in R1.LVL which I has posted the big image of above and see if any of the numbers make logical sense. I will be updating this image with more information as and when I can so that someone else can look at the level data and the path file data and try to figure out how its been pieced together.

Jango · #**675** 04-01-2010, 02:47 PM

From what you two have just said above, I don't think I would really ever stand a chance of making one.

Thanks for explaining it all to me.

I just really wanted to know why it is so tremendously hard to make one, and how possible it would be to make one.

I think the bottom line is that a level editor is possible, but no one has the time or can be bothered with the effort to make one.

Well done all of you for your huge effort on making a level editor. I appreciate it.

Namida · #**676** 04-02-2010, 05:46 AM

Once the sprites are fully extracted, making a new engine should be a relatively simple task. Keyword, "relatively".

Jango · #**677** 04-02-2010, 09:09 AM

How far are you from extracting all of the sprites?

Paul · #**678** 04-02-2010, 09:29 AM

Sprites are not too much of an issue, the issues are:

1. AE background images, and all PSX back ground images (PSX uses MDEC so its possible to get those)

2. Path / level scripts, this is a big one, being able to convert or at least understand how these work is a must.

3. Other sprite types, there a few more compression types to figure out

4. Sounds.. well nothing seems to have been done on this

The only thing I'm bothering with at the moment is #2. I'm pretty sure its possible to figure this format out, I spent about an hour last noting down the scripts for half of path one in R1 (up to the screen with the bombs in it, but have not done the secret areas or back tracking yet).

Once I've got all of this information I will fix up the data and post it here, then someone else can also look at the data and try to figure out whats going on with it, I've already noticed a few things so far.

Jango · #**679** 04-02-2010, 09:39 AM

Well done.

With #2 though, do you have to do the path/level scripts for the whole game or just for one level?

Also, if all four of those things do get completed, what would be left to do to make a .lvl editor?

mlg man · #**680** 04-02-2010, 06:50 PM

Is any reverse engineering possible in visual basic 2008 or 2010, cause i know a fare bit of .net code, and wouldn't mind researching it. If it is, ill give it a go.

***Nate*** · #**681** 04-02-2010, 07:34 PM

AO and AE both predate .NET.

Jango · #**682** 04-03-2010, 04:00 AM

:

Is any reverse engineering possible in visual basic 2008 or 2010, cause i know a fare bit of .net code, and wouldn't mind researching it. If it is, ill give it a go.

How much would knowing .net code help towards building a .lvl editor?

Phylum · #**683** 04-03-2010, 04:03 AM

:

AO and AE both predate .NET.

Jango · #**684** 04-03-2010, 05:22 AM

What does that mean?

Phylum · #**685** 04-03-2010, 05:47 AM

The games were around before the .NET framework...

Jango · #**686** 04-03-2010, 05:57 AM

Oh, I see. I guess .net is quite useless then...

Scraby · #**687** 04-03-2010, 06:23 AM

i have figured out this R1P15C01
R1-level
P15-second place(once you cross into a different part of rupture farms like from a zulag to a zulag it changes)
C01-the first area (once u move to a nother the number increases)
if this could help

Paul · #**688** 04-03-2010, 07:50 AM

Okay the game was written in C and C++ so knowing .NET is useless. C and C++ code was compiled into x86 machine language which means you need to be able to read that and figure out what it would have looked like as C or C++.

Jango you don't want a .LVL editor because:

.LVL = An archive like rar or zip that contains game "files"
.CAM = Back ground image stored in a LVL file
.BND = Many things in one file stored in a LVL file

One of the BND's will be called XXPath.BND which contains information of what cams to use, where sligs go and all the scripting.

So @Scraby this info was already known, you have level, camera, and part. But you'll notice the file names don't quite match up properly since its done by the id in the file itself..

Also by looking at the image I posted you can see how its laid out as a pesudo array in the file with something strange in the last element.

Once I collect all the file offsets for all of section 1 part 1 scripts then we'll have some real info to look at.

What I've found is that

1. There is a load of sections of info to load glow lights and everything else
2. Each cam just seems to "point" to these, so the game glow light can be used in many screens..

What I don't know is

1. The params for this, does it contain X/Y for a glow light? It appears that it also contains a flag to say what kind of light it is? Green, Orange or whatever else there is..

2. How the offset to this info is calculated (I'm doubting these are all hard coded in)

3. How it knows how many items belong to each cam

4. How the offset in the file for each cam is known or calculated

Edit 5: How the collision info for each cam is known

Edit: Uh to actually finish my point, you want a path editor, not lvl archive editor, I've already created one of those

Jango · #**689** 04-03-2010, 08:00 AM

What does a path editor let me do?

Paul · #**690** 04-03-2010, 08:02 AM

:

What does a path editor let me do?

Change where levers go where, what they do, what sligs are in which screens, what muds are in which screens etc