[v2.11.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Utilities for editing Keen:Galaxy and Keen:Dreams levels.
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

Certainly, here you go: Keen Dreams Modette and Candy Dreams. The latter was a bit tricky - it looks like the levels are unmodified, so I supplied the default levels along with the ADEPS. Also, something weird is going on with the graphics loading which may or may not be a bug in FleexCore2 (further investigation is needed), but for now I just had it not try to load the last two foreground tiles. Hopefully these will be enough to get you started.
levellass
Posts: 3001
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:03 pm
Location: Ngaruawahia New Zealand

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by levellass »

Aaah yes, both of those had small tweaks that break most extraction programs. You know, I think I have something that will lock graphics extraction, even from Abithar... I may just be mischievous and add it to my next mod. (It has two sets of graphics anyway so...)
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

Upon further investigation, I think Abiathar/FleexCore2 is in the right - the EGAHEAD in Candy Dreams is missing the last couple offsets. The next offsets (left unpatched) are quite far away from the end of the modified KDREAMS.EGA, so I'm pretty sure the actual game wouldn't be able to show the last tile, and possibly not the second-to-last either. This doesn't cause any visual weirdness in-game because the last two tiles are supposed to be part of the animation cycle for the left edge of the base of the flames, but for some reason that series isn't actually animated, and neither of the last two are placed in any level. In any case, the graphics in Candy Dreams are gorgeous - maybe it can be finished up now that we have Dreams level editors?

As far as I can tell, FleexCore2 has no trouble with the Modette.
Levellass wrote:You know, I think I have something that will lock graphics extraction, even from Abithar... I may just be mischievous and add it to my next mod.
Hehe, I like a challenge :) Fun fact: Abiathar is the only editor that can handle certain GAMEMAPS strangenesses, like the compression used by CK Guy's Keen 5 level pack. I am curious to see what kinds of things can be done to graphics files to make them tricky.
User avatar
Nisaba
Posts: 320
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 11:15 pm
Location: patch.pat
Contact:

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Nisaba »

hey @fleexy, thanks for the files.
with your help I was able to update the wiki, nicenstein.

Modette looks fine, but Candy Dreams is a wired case. first of all, I cannot fire up the game within DOSBox. well, technically I can but it crashes immediately after entering the difficulty screen. does this only happen at my side? (Looking at you Levellass.) next I extracted the graphics via KeenGraph. the 7TIL-16-UNMASKED.BMP looks like a big colour swap: https://s19.postimg.org/mdj45bhdv/7_TIL ... MASKED.png
but Abiathar seems to ignore this file and instead print things differently. how was this mod meant to look like?! plus KeenGraph isn't able to extract the foreground tiles. that might be caused by the things Fleexy mentioned earlier, I assume.

I'm confused...
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

Ah, I should have mentioned that extracting the package I provided for Candy Dreams will break the ability to actually play the game - the KDREAMS.MAP file I supplied (so that Abiathar has levels to open) doesn't match the original MAPHEAD and MAPDICT. Running a clean copy of the mod works for me.

I'm not sure how KeenGraph was compiled - it's possible that the missing two chunks in the EGAHEAD led to some kind of memory corruption, but that's just speculation and it's strange that you got a plane shift rather than garbage or a crash. Abiathar only succeeds here because I tweaked the EGA Layout settings to assume two fewer foreground tiles, otherwise it would give up when it hit the EGAHEAD's end too early.
levellass
Posts: 3001
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:03 pm
Location: Ngaruawahia New Zealand

Re: [v2.9.2] Abiathar: the superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by levellass »

Keengraph is flexible, it attempts to detect how many of each type of graphic there are when extracting and can import any number as well. This very, very rarely fails since all Id games use the same order of graphics. (It can however import the graphics out of order, creating an EGAGRAPH even it can't open.)

Fleexy wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:25 pm Hehe, I like a challenge :) Fun fact: Abiathar is the only editor that can handle certain GAMEMAPS strangenesses, like the compression used by CK Guy's Keen 5 level pack. I am curious to see what kinds of things can be done to graphics files to make them tricky.
Well this will be interesting. Certainly I'm not sure it'd handle the two sets of graphics (Same HEAD and DICT, differing GRAPH content.)
Post Reply