Keen 4 glitched after importing

ModKeen mods Tiles and Sprites in all episodes of Commander Keen.
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Plasma Captain
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Keen 4 glitched after importing

Post by Plasma Captain »

Hello everyone.

I've used both ModKeen2 and LModKeen2 with an unaltered copy of Keen 4. I can export all the graphics and other files from Keen and edit them, and I can even import them back in using either version of ModKeen.

The problem is, when I try to start up the game in DOSBOX, it won't work. Starting from KEEN4E.exe just gives me the loading screen indefinitely, and starting from GO4.BAT just instantly crashes (the window appears then disappears).

In case it matters, I'm running Vista 64-bit. I can run all the Keen games fine with it. Also, in specifics I am only trying to edit some sprites and tiles, and yes they are 16-bit, I'm quite sure.
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

If you edited levels, you MUST have this command in the patchfile:

%maphead maphead.ck4

And just in case:

%egahead egahead.ck4

And possibly:

%ckmhead ck4mhead.obj

And did you remember to carmackize the levels? Did you UNLZEXE KEEN4.EXE? Doing these should help.
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

...I thought you had to UNLZEXE it first. In any case, I did.

And like I said, it's an unmodified copy of Keen 4. Not sure what you mean by Carmack-izing the levels, but in my other copy of Keen 4, which I have changed some levels in, it works fine without anything like that. What I'm trying to do right now is just change the graphics on an unmodified copy of Keen 4, though.

I did go ahead and put in the second two lines you wrote there (first one was already there); this had no effect on things.
Mink
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Post by Mink »

Welcome to the boards!

In order to properly use imported graphics, you need to run the batch file rather than the executable. If you've only edited graphics, then you should only need "%egahead egahead.ck4" in the patch file. Make sure it's between the "%ext ck4" and the "%end" commands like so:

Code: Select all

%ext ck4

%egahead egahead.ck4

%end
If that still doesn't work, perhaps the error has something to do with the version of Keen 4 that you're using. Do you know which one it is?

And don't worry about Carmackizing. It's simply a process used to compress levels made with TED5 (one of the three Keen Galaxy level editors).

If this doesn't solve your problems, or new ones pop up, just let us know and we'll do our best to help you out. We're all looking forward to some neat projects from you. :-)
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Oh hey... I just understood the meaning of GO4.BAT after opening it up in a notepad.

Anyway, I replaced what was in PATCH.PAT with what you put, and ran CK4PATCH with the parameter PATCH.PAT, and everything worked fine. Thinking this was strange, I decided to open up GO4.BAT to see what exactly it's supposed to do... and found that it basically does exactly what I had just done. All I had to do was change the line

"ck4patch patch4.pat -nowait"

into

"ck4patch patch.pat -nowait"

since I renamed PATCH4.PAT into PATCH.PAT after revising it.

Anyway, it all works now. Hopefully in the future people with my situation will now be able to learn from my easily-avertable mistake. In that sense, I guess my frustration was worth it since it led to me posting here.

Thanks for your help!
Mink
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Post by Mink »

Glad it's working for you now. Interesting that the -nowait parameter seems to be the cause of it; I've never heard of it doing that before. Perhaps the patchfile I put up works because it doesn't have a "%version" command. What's the version you're using (you can find it on the blue and purple startup screen) ?
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

It's version 1.4.

Now that I think of it, I don't really know what was the problem in the first place. I didn't save a backup of what the patch file looked like before I replaced all of it. In any case, the -nowait parameter is still present.

This is probably what the patch looked like before:

Code: Select all

%ext ck4

%gamemaps editmaps.ck4
%maphead maphead.ck4
%egahead egahead.ck4
%ckmhead ck4mhead.obj

%end
Mink
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Post by Mink »

Plasma Captain wrote:In any case, the -nowait parameter is still present.
Ah, so it is. I wonder what the problem was. If you place "%version 1.4" one line after "%ext ck4", does it still work correctly?
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Yeah, still works like that.

Whatever the problem was, at least I know the solution now.
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