Mod Tiles and sprites?

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CatsAreFuclingEpic
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Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by CatsAreFuclingEpic »

Is there an easy way to get access to the sprites and tiles from the TUIT mod trilogy? i want to have them saved as PNG but can't find them anywhere online. :dead any help is much appreciated. If anyone can tell me how to do it, is there an easy way to convert the files to png directly?
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Quillax
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by Quillax »

I'll provide a step-by-step process that should answer your question, assuming you're using Windows (things might be different with Linux). For this example, we'll use The Keys of Krodacia:
  1. Download ModKeen. Copy-and-paste the program (modkeen.exe) to where the TKoK files are located.
  2. While in the TKoK directory, created a folder called "BMP". This is where the graphics will be exported to (makes things more organized).
  3. In Notepad, type:

    Code: Select all

    modkeen -episode=4 -export -bmpdir="BMP"
    Save it as a batch file called "export.bat" in the TKoK directory.
  4. Run export.bat, go into the BMP folder, and voila! The graphics should all be exported! Note that they're all BMPs, but that can easily be fixed.
  5. Open up any of the graphics of your choice in an image editing program (e.g. MSPaint). Save it as a PNG file (e.g. for MSPaint click File > Save As, then type in the name of the new file, select the PNG type in "Save as type:", then click Save).
NOTE: If ModKeen is unable to export the graphics, you may need CWSDPMI. Just copy-and-paste CWSDPMI.EXE to the TKoK directory. Then run export.bat again.
NOTE 2: If you do Dead in the Desert and Battle of the Brains, use -episode=6 and -episode=5 respectively in place of -episode=4 in export.bat.

I've always used this process when exporting graphics from mods (minus step 5), and it works nice and fast for me! I hope this was very helpful! What do you plan to do with the sprites and tiles?
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by Benvolio »

I haven't modded Galaxy in a long long time but I'm guessing that exporting with Modkeen will be quick step. Sprites have masking and in Galaxy so does a lot of the tileset. So you'll want to process the images after exporting, which can be done fairly easily in decent software.
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by proYorp »

Modkeen is actually really outdated by now. You'll probably want to use ModID, which is basically an update to Modkeen. They work the same for the most part, and ModID doesn't have to deal with the confusing separated colors and black/white masks (which is a lot of hassle to deal with, and if you just want to look at the images it's really not great). ModID also does not seem to need CWSDPMI. (Plus it also doesn't corrupt the hitboxes for Galaxy sprites which KeenGraph unfortunately does.)

Download ModID here: https://files.shikadi.net/keenwiki/tool ... -02-28.zip

Keep in mind that with ModID you have to specify a "definition file", but this is instead of Modkeen's "episode=" parameter. So you just give the program a file to tell it which game you're trying to get the graphics out of. ModID already has all the definition files you'll need for this, located in the folder called "def".



So, if you put a copy of modid.exe in the folder of the game you're trying to get graphics out of (similar to Quillax's guide), your command would instead look something like this:

Code: Select all

modid -export -gamedef='C:/keen/tools/modid/def/keen4_ega_apogee_14.def' -bmpdir='C:/keen/mod/keen7/bmp'
Note that with ModID you'll need to create the folder to put the graphics into before trying to export them into it, or it won't work. Additionally, you may wish to copy the definition file you need into the game folder you're using to make it easy to navigate to.

Side note, I'm running on Linux so I can't test if this command example works verbatim on Windows (which I'm assuming you're using). Feel free to ask further questions if you need to, and someone will be able to help. (I've written this pretty quickly so there might've been something I missed.)



Using ModID, all you'll need to do is export the graphics and you'll be able to see all the tiles and sprites as they appear in the game. They will have a background color, but with some basic image editing you'll be able to replace it with transparency if you need to (and it's a color that's not used by the actual graphics so it's easy to separate). Then you'll be able to simply save these images as .png and you'll have them. (The older program Modkeen has an extra step of having to splice the colors and shapes together to see them how they actually appear in game.)

(I highly recommend everyone to use ModID for future projects. It's got all the best parts of both Modkeen and KeenGraph and handles both Vorticons and Galaxy graphics really well.)
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CatsAreFuclingEpic
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Helpppppppp

Post by CatsAreFuclingEpic »

Okay so, after what I've tried, neither ModKeen, nor ModId seem to work, the third one didn't either. I'll repeat my steps, so yeah...
1. I downloaded the newest version of TKoK from here: https://keenwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/The_Keys_of_Krodacia
2. I unzipped the .zip file and added the BMP folder.
3. I added the software. I ONLY ADDED THE .exe FILE, maybe that was the issue?
4. I added the extract.bat file, tried every script you guys gave me...
5. i ran the .bat file. a window popped up for a split second when i used ModId and the thrid one, for ModKeen it just said it was unable to run during not being compatible with 64x.

:drool
any further help?
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by Benvolio »

Well I'm unfamiliar with ModId - it might need tweaking of compatibility settings, which I'm not familiar with doing.

As for Modkeen, are you using Dosbox? As it is an MS DOS program. You will need to do so, there is no way Windows will run it directly.

Also, you need the whole mod in the folder, not just the exe. The images are not in the exe. I cannot remember the names in Unofficial TUIT but in the originals, it would be various ck4, ck5 or ck6 files. The filenames start with EGA this and that.

Maybe later I can make a quick vid recording. However as stated already in the thread, ModID is more up to date
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by Quillax »

So, you downloaded TKoK, and added the ModKeen/ModID EXE file, correct? The program should be able to work, although I'm not familiar with ModID. (I should try it, though; what proYorp typed sounds very cool.) If ModKeen says it can't run on 64-bit Windows, then try running extract.bat via DOSBox. The easiest way to do that is to drag-and-drop extract.bat into DOSBox.

Hope this helps! If you come across any more errors, let us know!
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by proYorp »

If you're trying to use Modid, your Keen 7 folder should have these files:
Image



Then open the Keen 7 folder in a terminal and run this command:

Code: Select all

modid -export -gamedef=keen4_ega_apogee_14.def -bmpdir=bmp
If you run it in a terminal you'll be able to see if it gives an error and that will tell you what went wrong, but if you don't want to bother with a terminal you can just paste the above command into a .bat file that should also be saved to the Keen 7 folder (the same folder with modid.exe). (Make sure that the file extension is ".bat" and not ".txt" because sometimes Windows will hide the true file extension.)



(Modid has never needed compatibility tweaking for me, it runs just like Modkeen. Although it occurs to me that one advantage Modkeen has is that it can be run in DOSBox for easy cross-compatibility, and Modid cannot.)
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CatsAreFuclingEpic
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Big update:

Post by CatsAreFuclingEpic »

Okay, so I've managed to get it to work- partly. I extracted the files for Keen 7 and 8, 9 refuses to work. It gives me an error message that says the .exe file of Keen5e.exe that i used was incorrect. I tried a total of 4 different Keen5e.exe files, none works.
Also, for Keen 7 and 8 I only got the Sprites, the Tiles and Backgrounds and such are missing, is that intentional? Did i do anything wrong? Sorry, I'm really not good at stuff like this

Edit: @proyorp How did you get this small extra message at the bottom of your posts? I'm talking about this "Friendly. Very friendly. Too friendly."
Edit 2: I figured it out, the tiles work now. still idk about keen 9
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Re: Big update:

Post by Quillax »

CatsAreFuclingEpic wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 13:35 9 refuses to work. It gives me an error message that says the .exe file of Keen5e.exe that i used was incorrect. I tried a total of 4 different Keen5e.exe files, none works.
Before extracting, did you decompress keen5e.exe? Keen 9 has a special setup batch file that will do the decompression for you. As you long as you just provide the compressed keen5e.exe and then run setup.bat, you should have a decompressed keen5e.exe. If I remember correctly, the graphics can only be extracted properly if the .exe file is decompressed.
CatsAreFuclingEpic wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 13:35 Edit: @proyorp How did you get this small extra message at the bottom of your posts? I'm talking about this "Friendly. Very friendly. Too friendly."
We call those signatures. To get a signature, click on your account name at the top-right of this page, then click User Control Panel on the pop-up menu, which will take you to another page. In there, go to Profile, then Edit signature, and finally, you'll see a form to fill. This is your signature. When you're done, click Submit.
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by proYorp »

Good to hear you got it working for Keen 7 and 8! It's always tricky to figure these tools out the for first time. (And then the subsequent times when I've forgotten what to do. :dopekeen)

Also the tiles are the last thing that is exported, so if the process is somehow interrupted they won't be saved.

For Keen 9, you're going to want to use the executable from a clean copy of Keen 5 version 1.4 (meaning the executable can't have been directly modified or cracked already, but it's okay if the copy has been played before because that won't modify the executable). As Quillax said, for Keen 9 to work you have to copy "keen5e.exe" from the correct version of Keen 5, put it into the Keen 9 folder, and run the "Setup.bat" that comes with Keen 9. (You can test if it worked by trying to run the game in DOSBox and see if it crashes or not.) Then you'll want to use "keen5_ega_apogee_14.def" for Modid.


CatsAreFuclingEpic wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 13:35 @proyorp How did you get this small extra message at the bottom of your posts? I'm talking about this "Friendly. Very friendly. Too friendly."
Yeah, that's called a signature. It's just a short tag that can be automatically added to the end of all your posts, to give a little personal flair. :) People here often use quotes, or links to things they've made. Mine is secretly both. ;)

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CatsAreFuclingEpic
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Re: Mod Tiles and sprites?

Post by CatsAreFuclingEpic »

thank you two! ill try it out! :D
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