Level Viewer for KEEN VORTICONS and GALAXY (and more...)

[Fleexy]

Here's a PowerShell script that clips the 32-pixel-wide borders off all PNG files in the current folder:

Code: Select all

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing
gci *.png | % {
 $img = [System.Drawing.Bitmap]::FromFile($_.FullName)
 $clipped = [System.Drawing.Bitmap]::new($img.Width - 64, $img.Height - 64)
 $g = [System.Drawing.Graphics]::FromImage($clipped)
 $srcrect = [System.Drawing.Rectangle]::new(32, 32, $clipped.Width, $clipped.Height)
 $g.DrawImage($img, 0, 0, $srcrect, 'Pixel')
 $g.Dispose()
 $clipped.Save($_.FullName.Replace('.png', '-clip.png'), 'Png')
}

You can paste all of that right into the PowerShell console. For purposes of getting to the right folder, the "cd" command works exactly as you'd expect.

[Nisaba]

@Fleexy splendid! gonna batch it for the ease of use.

[K1n9_Duk3]

it seems to me that the VorticonsViewer v.1.3 stopped displaying the level title in the window-manager header...

Yeah, the BlitzMax libraries won't let me change the title of the main window after it is created, so I wouldn't be able to change the title (without having to close the window each time). Version 1.0 was able to display the level file name because you couldn't change the level while the program was running.

The only thing I think it could need is a way to remove the borders when exporting them (so people wouldn't have to do it manually), but that's just a minor thing.

It would have been possible to do that, but since the viewer has to support multiple games, I decided against it. Some games (Shadow Knights and maybe Dave 2) use "holes" in the border to indicate where the player can leave the level. In Rescue Rover, the border is only 1 tile (but still 32 pixels), and DDICI, Slordax and Hovertank don't even have a border.

[Quillax]

I used this for many other mods, and it's still working pretty great, although I did come across a few issues. Here's a list of them (along with a couple suggestions):

• Some Vorticons levels don't seem to really like VorticonView. When I open those, the program says the level is in an unknown format, and then closes. This includes most levels from The Fastest Gun in the Universe, some levels from IceKeen, some levels from the Keen 1 Level Competition Level Pack, and some levels from the Keen 2 Level Competition Level Pack.
• A few Vorticons levels seem to be missing some sprites when viewed with VorticonView. This includes the secret level (level 14) of Tom Bailey's 1st Levelpack (Keen and many Gargs are missing) and the level in Airefresco's Keen 2 Levelpack (the bottom-left corner of the map is missing Keen and many enemies).
• I tried to open Keen 59 with GalaxyView, but while the levels loaded quite well, the graphics loaded as gibberish. I'm assuming that this might have to do with the file size of the EGA files of the mod.
• It'd be nice if transparent graphics were viewed like how they are in-game, rather than just not being seen. For an example, the Slops from Keen 58 are just seen as a black outline in GalaxyView, although they are seen with green on their inside in-game.
• Since the palette in Vorticons and Galaxy mods can be changed, it'd be great to at least have the ability to make the level viewers display different color palettes.

[K1n9_Duk3]

Thanks for the kind word. It's good to hear that I wasn't just wasting my time when I wrote these programs.

I'm not too much into Keen mods (especially not Keen 1-3 mods) myself, so that's probably why there are some issues regarding mod support. Just keep in mind that mods using CKPATCH or hacked executables could change pretty much every aspect of the game. This means making sure that my tools support every mod ever made would be a huge amount of work, so that's most definitely not going to happen.

It would have been nice if you had included a few screenshots to show the actual issue (not error messages, but for things like "missing" sprites, it would be nice to have a screenshot of the level viewer and another screenshot directly from the game for comparison). And it would also be nice if you could include download links for the mods you mentioned. I was able to find the mods on the Keenwiki, but I'm not sure if they are identical to the files you were using.

• I'll look into the "unknown format" issues. I'll be use the "Fastest Gun in the Universe" mod for testing, but I noticed the mod uses some low-level patches. I don't know if the patches change the way the game reads the level files, but if they do, there probably won't be any support for this in the viewer.
• I had a look at Airefresco's Keen 2 Levelpack and the viewer seems to be displaying the sprites at the same position as the number icons (when sprites are disabled), so this issue might be related to the level fomat itself, like the previous one.
• The automatic chunk type detection appears to fail for Episode 59's EGAGRAPH file. This is the first time I've seen this happening. Passing the correct values via a GFXINFOE.CK4 file or a modified GalaxyView.ini might fix this.
• The "fake transparency" effect only works properly with the EGA tile drawing routines used by the game. Since the level viewers draw the tiles using the OpenGL or Direct3D API, it is pretty much impossible to draw the tiles exactly like they would appear in the game. But it would be possible to make the "transparent" parts visible in the viewer by using other features of the API such as alpha blending.

[KeenRush]

Hi, just noticed this convo by accident. Due to a bug in akeen 0.1 (the first version), levels saved in that editor aren't supported by most - if any - other Keen editors (akeen 0.1 was used to make The Fastest Gun In The Universe). Except for the old KeenEdit for DOS, if I remember correctly. The game, however, reads the levels perfectly. Any bugs went unnoticed for a while because despite using and testing the level editor extensively (I made at least two level packs and one full mod before noticing it), the actual game never had any problems with my levels, everything was always in game just as displayed in my editor, so I never encountered the problem. I can't remember what the bug was; I simply wrote the entire level-write operation again while perusing the level format more carefully, and then other editors began making sense of my levels.

However, I'm not the only one to have made some mistake. I've encountered at least one level that wasn't made in my editor but would not open correctly in my editor but would show up correctly in Keen. I think they did the same mistake I did with akeen 0.1 -- whatever that mistake was.

[K1n9_Duk3]

Update:
galaxyview_17.zip
vorticonview_14.zip

However, I'm not the only one to have made some mistake.

Yeah, I have to admit that my RLEW routines had a bug. It didn't handle run lengths of 0 correcty (which are completely useless and shouldn't be in the level data to begin with IMHO). This RLEW bug was responsible for the missing sprites and icons.

The "unknown format" issue was caused by either too few or too many bytes in the RLEW encoded level data. This prevented the level viewer from detecting the compression type correctly (Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement uses the uncompressed version of the level format, all the other games use RLEW compression). I have improved my compression detection code and also added an option to open the level anyway when the detection fails.

The garbage graphics in Episode 59 were caused by the EGADICT.CK4 file that comes with the mod. The mod doesn't use this file, it uses the one in KEEN4E.EXE instead. Simply remove or rename the file and the level viewer works perfectly fine.

The new version of the Keen: Galaxy level viewer adds support for semi-transparent tiles and sprites. In the editor, they are displayed using alpha blending, which means the graphics will not look like they would in the game. But in the images exported with F3 (or CTRL+F3), the graphics should look exactly like they would in the game.

I missed Quillax's point about palettes earlier. At least in the Keen: Galaxy viewer, you can change the palette by modifying the settings in the INI file. Just have a look at the Rescue Rover 2 settings to see how this is done in the INI. In Keen: Vorticons, the palettes are hard coded. Maybe later versions will allow you to change the palette via the INI file as well.

[Levellass]

Yeah, I have to admit that my RLEW routines had a bug. It didn't handle run lengths of 0 correcty (which are completely useless and shouldn't be in the level data to begin with IMHO). This RLEW bug was responsible for the missing sprites and icons.

If it's useless, pointless, should never, EVER be stumbled across... but is still possible in any way, you WILL have to deal with it, it's an iron law of programming.

[Nisaba]

@K1n9_Duk3
TLDR: missing sprites-layer

I'd like to ask for tool support, in order to extract the Suburb Shenanigans' level images. When I run GalaxyView I get this log file:

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...
GAMEMAPS file is Z:/games/keen/Suburb_Shenanigans/GAMEMAPS.CK5"
GAMEMAPS header is "TOMv1.0 "
EGA graphics found.

Trying EGA Graphics...
Couldn't find "EGADICT.CK5"
Couldn't find "MAPDICT.CK5" (most games don't need this file)
Couldn't find "GFXINFOE.CK5"
Gotta find the right EXE now...
Looking for executables in "Z:/games/keen/Suburb_Shenanigans/"...
Trying "Z:/games/keen/Suburb_Shenanigans/CK5PATCH.EXE" (18320 bytes) ... unknown.
Trying "Z:/games/keen/Suburb_Shenanigans/KEEN5E.EXE" (266032 bytes) ... unknown.
MAPHEAD was NOT loaded!
Looking for executables in "Z:/games/keen/Suburb_Shenanigans/"...

File "CK5PATCH.EXE" has a size of 18320 bytes.

File "KEEN5E.EXE" has a size of 266032 bytes.
This might be the start of a MAPHEAD: 165200
This might be the start of a a DICT: 232068
This might be the start of a a DICT: 233092

looking at the log file I decided to add an EGADICT.CK4 file to the folder and repeated the process. this time around I was able to open all level images. your program gives me a background-, foreground- and tileinfo-layer. Unfortunately it doesn't provide a sprites-layer as well. I suspect that I need to add either a "MAPDICT.CK5" or a "GFXINFOE.CK5" as well... but to be honest, I have no idea. so I hope you can help me with this issue.

[K1n9_Duk3]

I'd like to ask for tool support, in order to extract the Suburb Shenanigans' level images.

The problem seems to be that you have an "unknown" version of KEEN5E.EXE in your folder. Sprite display is only supported for "known" versions or games that provide their own sprite definitions in a SPRITES.INI file in the game folder. Your uncompressed KEEN5E.EXE is 266032 bytes, but I think it should be 266096 bytes for Keen 5 EGA v1.4 (Apogee release). Maybe the file you're using was decompressed by a program other than UnLZEXE 0.8, which means the EXE header is slightly different and therefore the file has a different size and all the offsets are different. Try putting the original (lzexe-compressed) KEEN5E.EXE in the folder.

I wrote this level viewer before I learned how the EXE header for 16-bit MS-DOS executable works, which is why the viewer has these problems.

But you should know that the sprite display probably won't be usable anyway, depending on how many aspects of the game were changed by patches. To get anything usable out of it, you would probably need to write your own sprite definitions for the mod. You can do that by creating a file named SPRITES.INI in the game folder(!) and copying the entries from the [SPRITES_KEEN5] section of GalaxyView.ini into a section named [SPRITES] in the new file. This will override the sprite definition found in GalaxyView.ini and it will allow the sprite display to work even if the viewer does not recognize the executable (assuming that all the vital files, including EGADICT, can be found in the game folder).

[Nisaba]

The problem seems to be that you have an "unknown" version of KEEN5E.EXE in your folder. [...]

Success! the correct 266096 bytes KEEN5E.EXE executable did the job!
thanks for the support. now I can update the wiki with some fresh images!