|
| Thread: Heroes 1 appreciation and modding |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
posted February 03, 2017 03:18 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 15:21, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Quote:
I guess it shouldn't be that hard to "fix" the cursor
It's a hardcoded feature. Once I've managed to bring color cursors back to the game, but their palette was correct for Windows 95 only. So you need to change it as well.
Quote:
Also, has anyone ever fixed the "flying backwards" problem? Units "turn" to attack things, it would be pretty cool if they also turned to walk/fly backwards. It's funny I know, but it's just too silly
There was an alpha version of TE Patch with this feature: H1 TE Offline 1.04 f4 Alpha
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 03:58 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 16:01, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Yay, I manually edited the tent.ico to put the heroes back in! I have to say, they look much better than the tents, lol.
AlexSpl said:
Quote:
I guess it shouldn't be that hard to "fix" the cursor
It's a hardcoded feature. Once I've managed to bring color cursors back to the game, but their palette was correct for Windows 95 only. So you need to change it as well.
I'd be glad to do it. It's both the map and the combat cursors!
Any idea about where I would find the palette, or where I should put it? Or rather, how exactly does the program pick the black, empty cursors, I can't seem to find them anywhere?
Unless they're the pink ones and get changed due to pallete screwups, in which case, what do I do? Just copy the whole batch of proper cursors, rename them into what the pink ones are called and fiddle with the colors until they fit? (Which isn't a problem, I'm just asking if there's a more inteligent way to go about it.)
Quote:
Also, has anyone ever fixed the "flying backwards" problem? Units "turn" to attack things, it would be pretty cool if they also turned to walk/fly backwards. It's funny I know, but it's just too silly
There was an alpha version of TE Patch with this feature: [url=http://handbookhmm.ru/forum/download/file.php?id=490]H1 TE Offline 1.04 f4 Alpha[/url]
What went wrong? What's "alpha" about it, how is it different than the latest one? (I see it's f4 compared to f8, so, what happened to the feature? Also, why aren't the heroes instead of tents mainstream?)
____________
|
|
Baronus
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 04:20 PM |
|
Edited by Baronus at 21:26, 03 Feb 2017.
|
You must find. But if I changed cursor in MMIX collors collapsed. It may be the same beware.
And here is extremly rare FIRST DEMO! Cutted from french magazin. Mayby it will be possible extract rare stuff!
First demo
....
Edited. Its not first demo. Corrected. Exe dated 17.01.1995. Files even 1994!
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 04:44 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 16:46, 03 Feb 2017.
|
The very strange thing is that the cursor for spells in this windows version is the same ghastly black and white thing, but when you actually cast the spells and its a buff on creatures, the colors are fine 
I can't find any full black (with pixel or so of outline) icons that resemble to cursor, but there's a bunch of full pink ones. Are those what the game uses as the cursor?
If so, the game uses a cursor adjusted for a pallette different than the icons in the game, lolwut? I mean you just told me this, but it's still ridiculous. Actually, what's ridiculous is that this goes on in the later version of the game, while the earlier version of the game can only be identified at a glance because it has a more sofisticated-looking cursor 
Let's see if I can fix this, it's silly.
Also, how do I translate the outside menu for the TE? Like the window drop down menu? Are those also hex-editable strings in the exe somewhere?
Also, I think I got all the buttons and labels related to the graphics back to english. I've a question about hex editing the TE exe. If I change the length of the strings, like, make them larger, won't that mess everything up?
I mean, I once saw a guy take out all text out of an old game and transport it into .txt files which made it way easier to edit and localize. I think he did sorta-kinda reverse engineer the thing to some degree before, but the whole thing would be way easier to fiddle with if all the texts were external to the exe. And I know H2 was reverse engineered at some point, so how hard could it be? Just saying.
____________
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 05:33 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 17:37, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Quote:
If so, the game uses a cursor adjusted for a pallette different than the icons in the game, lolwut? I mean you just told me this, but it's still ridiculous.
Yes. It does. It is not a problem with a simple solution.
Quote:
Also, how do I translate the outside menu for the TE? Like the window drop down menu? Are those also hex-editable strings in the exe somewhere?
Yes, you can edit them with a hex editor. I suppose they are unicode strings.
Quote:
Also, I think I got all the buttons and labels related to the graphics back to english. I've a question about hex editing the TE exe. If I change the length of the strings, like, make them larger, won't that mess everything up?
Well, I don't know why OgreGUI doesn't work for you, but generally you can't make strings longer, than they are, just in a hex editor. It will result in a crash.
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:11 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 18:23, 03 Feb 2017.
|
AlexSpl said:
Quote:
If so, the game uses a cursor adjusted for a pallette different than the icons in the game, lolwut? I mean you just told me this, but it's still ridiculous.
Yes. It does. It is not a problem with a simple solution.
What's making it complicated, I think, isn't the pallette, it's the loss of bit depth. Or something like that.
As soon as you rename a proper-looking BMP (ones that look like the dos version cursors), you get loss of color. All colors get reduced to two shades of pink and what I assume is the transparency marker (alpha channel I think it's called). This happens immediately in the browser.
I found a way around it, by opening the proper colored bmp in Paint.net and saving it as the other thing while retaining auto-detected bit depth, and then the thumbnail in the browser looked fine, no loss. But then when I turned the game on, the game reduced it to black and transparent. Which means, I guess, that the game will read whatever you set as the icon in black, white and transparent.
Now for that I have no idea what was on the coders mind. Why make the cursor have to be black and white? IDK what even a non-simple solution for this would be
AlexSpl said:
Quote:
Also, I think I got all the buttons and labels related to the graphics back to english. I've a question about hex editing the TE exe. If I change the length of the strings, like, make them larger, won't that mess everything up?
Well, I don't know why OgreGUI doesn't work for you, but generally you can't make strings longer, than they are, just in a hex editor. It will result in a crash.
OgreGUI works for me, but I don't have cyrilic russian font installed, so it only gets gibberish. The reason I was translating things in the Hex editor was because I found on which could register cyrilic due to it's own internal unicode base or somethig.
____________
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:18 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Now for that I have no idea what was on the coders mind. Why make the cursor have to be black and white? IDK what even a non-simple solution for this would be
Well, I'll give you a link to the version with color cursors on. Maybe you will find a fix.
|
|
Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:26 PM |
|
|
AlexSpl said:
...but generally you can't make strings longer, than they are, just in a hex editor. It will result in a crash.
Unless you change the byte(s) that indicate the length, right?
____________
The last Reasonable Steward of Good Game Design and a Responsible Hero of HC. - Verriker
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:27 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 18:27, 03 Feb 2017.
|
|
There is no such a byte in zero-terminated strings.
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:28 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 18:29, 03 Feb 2017.
|
AlexSpl said:
Quote:
Now for that I have no idea what was on the coders mind. Why make the cursor have to be black and white? IDK what even a non-simple solution for this would be
Well, I'll give you a link to the version with color cursors on. Maybe you will find a fix.
Gladly, but, um, if the colors are on, what's there to fix?
I mean if it doesn't reduce the quality but just mess up the palette, then sure, that's just a matter of pixel jockeying until I find the palette, that I can do.
But what is this version, who made it and how?
____________
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:34 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 18:40, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Quote:
Well, I'll give you a link to the version with color cursors on. Maybe you will find a fix.
It seems that all links are gone. Try to change 00 at address 3DE39 to 01. You have to have this instruction at address 3DE33: C7 05 EC 98 4A 00 01 00 00 00 instead of C7 05 EC 98 4A 00 00 00 00 00.
I've just updated addresses. So check them.
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:50 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 18:51, 03 Feb 2017.
|
AlexSpl said:
Quote:
Well, I'll give you a link to the version with color cursors on. Maybe you will find a fix.
It seems that all links are gone. Try to change 00 at address 3DE39 to 01. You have to have this instruction at address 3DE33: C7 05 EC 98 4A 00 01 00 00 00 instead of C7 05 EC 98 4A 00 00 00 00 00.
I've just updated addresses. So check them.
Ok, what was it supposed to do? Is there a thread somewhere where that is explained that you culd link?  (I'd love to see any offset map anyone might have made no matter how tiny)
What it did was that now it registers the alpha chanel or the transparency color or whateverit's called properly. Before it registered something else as transparent, and teal as black. Now every other color but teal seems to be black, and teal is transparent.
____________
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 06:58 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 18:59, 03 Feb 2017.
|
|
If you made it right, you will see completely black cursors. They are actually color cursors with incorrect palette. Check it on Windows 95 if you wish to (they have normal colors there).
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 07:06 PM |
|
|
|
So the problem is that the game uses the native palette of an OS to draw cursors. That's why I said it's not a problem with a simple solution.
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 07:08 PM |
|
|
AlexSpl said:
If you made it right, you will see completely black cursors. They are actually color cursors with incorrect palette. Check it on Windows 95 if you wish to (they have normal colors there).
Yes, that makes sense, and if I go properties - compatibility - run in 256 colors I can see psychadelic blue-ish/purple-ish cursors because the pallette difference is making it wacky. Funny but "running in compatibility with windows 95" doesn't do anything, it's black.
So I suppose I ought to figure the palette out.
____________
|
|
Baronus
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 07:34 PM |
|
|
|
I dont understand. Cant you use tool to extract edit and pack menu? Pallete is in tool. Use it to make menu?
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 08:18 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 20:23, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Baronus said:
I dont understand. Cant you use tool to extract edit and pack menu? Pallete is in tool. Use it to make menu?
It's not the same pallete. The game seems to be using one pallete for the cursors and a different one for everything else.
It think I might have found the other pallete, or at least 256 3 byte hex values for what seems to be a reconstruction of a win 95 native pallete by some other guy who was in the same spot as we are (for some other reason, not Heroes). Apparently it's quite obscure.
Anyone know of a way to punch it in quickly? Otherwise I'll take a few hours over the weekend or something. Then maybe if I unpack the BMP's from the .agg using that palette and pack them using the regular one, it ends up working? Or something? Am I being stupid here?
EDIT: Also, it's an 8-bit 256 color pallete, is that the sort of thing we're lookig for?
____________
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 08:31 PM |
|
|
|
I don't think it will work as 0-255 colors are black anyway in the native palette.
|
|
lujo
Hired Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 08:38 PM |
|
Edited by lujo at 20:46, 03 Feb 2017.
|
AlexSpl said:
I don't think it will work as 0-255 colors are black anyway in the native palette.
Not if you run in compatibility mode for 256 colors. I ran non-reduced-quality icon arts that way and I got "psychadelic" stuff like what you get if the palette took random colors (or like it had the wrong palette). Same thing happened when I unpacke dos heroes.agg with the windows palette, it was all psychadelic, but I turned it right manually just by changing colors.
The question isn't if I'd get all black, i wouldn't, the question is if I would get the right colors that way or another mess.
EDIT: Just to be clear it's completely bizzare, if you run in 256 color compatibility mode, everything looks normal but only the cursor is psychadelic. But if you take a screenshot and pase it into paint.net - everything goes psychadelic.
So if this palette turns out to not be the correct one, I might be able to use that to try to reconstruct the native palette (at least in 256 color compatibility mode). Quite easily, actually, I just make a big ole splash screen with all 256 colors and screenshot it, lol.
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted February 03, 2017 08:41 PM |
|
Edited by AlexSpl at 20:44, 03 Feb 2017.
|
Well, run it on Windows 95, and you'll get actual colors. The only viable solution is to patch the executable. I can do this, but don't want to, now.
You won't make things work without dancing with the executable 
|
| |
|
|
