Perhaps just bare-minimum patches should be included; things that are absolutely essential to any comprehensive mod, such as text strings to edit dialog that is strangely not included in the .DAT file?Malvineous wrote: An internal patch database would be interesting too, but at the speed most patches are produced I'm not sure distributing them with Camoto would be the best way - I'm thinking an online system might be better for that sort of thing, so (like the wiki) people can add and update patches easily. Again, I'm open to suggestions!
Camoto Windows version
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Paramultart
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"Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants"
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Malvineous
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I had actually planned to allow text strings to be edited, but it's kind of a grey area as to where you actually stop. Crystal Caves requires the .exe to be patched to change the background tiles in the level, so do you do that in the level editor or a CKPatch type patch? Do you add text strings to the patch file or change them through the GUI? What happens when advanced patches change so much stuff that some of the offsets are no longer valid, and the GUI presents bad data?
My current thoughts are along the lines of self-contained data in the .exe (like a game level) can be edited, but everything else - text strings and code changes - belong in a patch database.
@Levellass: Resizing individual sprite frames will eventually be ok. The Camoto libraries can handle this for sprites and tilesets (if the file format supports it), I just haven't had a chance to make this functionality available through the GUI. But perhaps a more important issue is what happens if you patch the game to allow different sized sprites/tiles, for those file formats that don't store the size internally? Camoto will assume the old size which means it won't write the file out correctly.
@Lemm: I see now. The sprite format can hold more frames without a problem (again the libraries and command-line tools support adding more frames to the file but the GUI doesn't expose a way to do this yet) so I guess you'll then need to patch the game to actually use these extra frames. On this note, a number of sprites have frames made up of only a 1x1 white pixel - do you have any idea what these are for?
My current thoughts are along the lines of self-contained data in the .exe (like a game level) can be edited, but everything else - text strings and code changes - belong in a patch database.
@Levellass: Resizing individual sprite frames will eventually be ok. The Camoto libraries can handle this for sprites and tilesets (if the file format supports it), I just haven't had a chance to make this functionality available through the GUI. But perhaps a more important issue is what happens if you patch the game to allow different sized sprites/tiles, for those file formats that don't store the size internally? Camoto will assume the old size which means it won't write the file out correctly.
@Lemm: I see now. The sprite format can hold more frames without a problem (again the libraries and command-line tools support adding more frames to the file but the GUI doesn't expose a way to do this yet) so I guess you'll then need to patch the game to actually use these extra frames. On this note, a number of sprites have frames made up of only a 1x1 white pixel - do you have any idea what these are for?
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Paramultart
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In the case of par-times being stored in the executable and not in the .DAT file, another essential patch for modding would be the respective "PAR TIMES". We don't currently know where this information is stored, or if it is entered as minutes, seconds or tics, but that is definitely something worth figuring.
"Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants"
Malvineous wrote:
@Lemm: I see now. The sprite format can hold more frames without a problem (again the libraries and command-line tools support adding more frames to the file but the GUI doesn't expose a way to do this yet) so I guess you'll then need to patch the game to actually use these extra frames. On this note, a number of sprites have frames made up of only a 1x1 white pixel - do you have any idea what these are for?
I would guess that they are remnants of frames that were removed during development.
Recently, I've felt like wanting to make Dangerous Dave levels. I found that there's a newer version of Camoto, which Malvineous didn't post here.
But anyway, can someone please help me getting Dangerous Dave working? Levellass? Malvenious?
I've unlzexe the dave.exe, but when I start a new project and tried to open a level, it says:
There's no help for Dangerous Dave modding. A step by step tutorial on how to be able to edit it will be greatly appreciated.! thanx
But anyway, can someone please help me getting Dangerous Dave working? Levellass? Malvenious?
I've unlzexe the dave.exe, but when I start a new project and tried to open a level, it says:
There's no help for Dangerous Dave modding. A step by step tutorial on how to be able to edit it will be greatly appreciated.! thanx
