Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure II: The Humanizer Thread

Anything related to Keen Modding.
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levellass
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Post by levellass »

I bow to your superior knowledge. This is the guy you're after.
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

Uh oh... :< I don't like that. (Cosmo's game engine hasn't been examined as thoroughly as Commander Keen's. Only the files that contain the game media.)
Dr. Kylstein
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Post by Dr. Kylstein »

levellass wrote:I bow to your superior knowledge. This is the guy you're after.
I just looked at the relevant section in a hex-editor and know how C-strings work. I'm afraid I may not be of much more help.
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

It seems as though this time, we DO need lemm's help if this is ever going to get off the ground. :< (And no, I'm not planning on implementing a new SB sound engine. I'm completely done with that. This is at least much simpler.)
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

Well, even lemm can't help in this instance again. This is going to be hard if there can even be a self-contained story. (Or edited text windows, for that matter.)

I found one of those great B800 Text editors -TheDraw- that apparently has also been covered on the Modding Wiki.

I wanted to put Cosmo's mug on the exit screen, but with ENDOOMER, the one I used before, that wasn't possible. I was going to have a VERY hard time because of the fact I was using a hex editor, then going back into DOSbox and checking the results. (VERY SLOW)

Now with TheDraw, I can draw it quicker and make the exit screen better, if not on par with the original text screens. :D
levellass
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Post by levellass »

TheDraw is indeed the tool of choice for B800 screens. It's a pity people here are too lazy to make entire new screens.
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

After finding a Wario Land character (Namely, a giant gray frog in Wario Land 3 and Dr. Mario 64) being used in levellass' "Valo Keen" mod, it sparked a giant surge of creativity, not only do I have a new one-level character (and ally group), but I also have a new level, with a new gameplay mechanic (One I hope I can change a bit so it doesn't harm Cosmo in the game.): a group of giant gray talking alien frogs I'm calling "Pallorwogs". XD

Unfortunately, I put too much faith in my copy of a converter I got from Svezzy. (I think the program got corrupted after 6 years of disuse and transfer from one computer to another.)

It was to convert the modified sprites for Cosmo, the various enemies and hazards, and the various items that he will encounter, into data that the game engine could understand, but I have no way to use the program anymore.

This is really important because Wombat game tools does not accept any image format other than the specially formatted version made for the game.
Can someone help me with this so I don't have to use a hex editor? :P

Oh, and even though I have no real way of modifying the internal story strings yet, I'm still working on this mod. :D
Dr. Kylstein
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Post by Dr. Kylstein »

You could still change the story if you can fit it in to the same line lengths. It would be a challenge, but it may be worth doing if nobody drops a commented disassembly on our doorstep.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

After the weekend (I'm building a garden and will be busy.) I shall look into making a dedicated Cosmo Graphics editor and possibly hex utility. (I already have a 'find text patch' program for Cosmo to hunt down text strings.)
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

Stand by. I may have found the proper program Svezzy gave me to convert the sprites into the proper format.

I think he gave me two programs to help back in 2008, and I used the wrong one yesterday, which was meant only for Cosmo's sprites.

Edit: Never mind. It didn't work quite as well as I had hoped. :-(
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Malvineous
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Post by Malvineous »

FYI Camoto can already modify the Cosmo graphics, so if you can't compile it yourself you're welcome to send me your graphics and I can import them for you until the Windows version is ready. Here is a proof of concept where I just drew randomly over some tiles in my image editor, and imported them back into the game:

Image

Here are the source images to modify: solid tileset, masked tileset and sample backdrop.

I haven't yet added support for the actors. There's an additional file that controls how some additional 8x8 tiles are assembled to produce actor sprites, so I need to implement that before those images can be edited.
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

Malvineous wrote:FYI Camoto can already modify the Cosmo graphics, so if you can't compile it yourself you're welcome to send me your graphics and I can import them for you until the Windows version is ready.
I haven't been able to compile the source on my Mac, even when I installed Git.

Importing the tile-based graphics, backgrounds, AND the music is actually not a problem, thanks to Svezzy, and the kind people at the WinWolf3D website. I have a copy of Wombat Game Tools that I used to import the tiles and backgrounds, and a copy of IMF Creator to make the music for the game, with WGT to overwrite the Ad Lib music data. The problems lie in Cosmo's sprites (player.mni), and the special sprites that make up the actors. (actors.mni) Those are not possible to replace due to the, well, the reason which you described. (and I know that, thanks to Svezzy.)

Szevvy did help me before he retired from modding, though, because he wrote for me two cobbled-together programs that covered all the special sprites in the game, but those don't work anymore.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

So need I do anything, or may I rest on my laurels?
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

levellass wrote:So need I do anything, or may I rest on my laurels?
Well, I DO need a converter program to be able to test the sprites for my new one-level gameplay mechanic in episode 3.
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T-Squared
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Post by T-Squared »

I just thought of something. Didn't Doom and Doom II have the same problem with the text strings? (and wasn't that solved a few times?)
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