The thread that started it all

[killer.ip]

The current 2D fix is at best temporary, once the SCM is ready and savegames are implemented we'll be starting to drive through the city around the clock, so it's going to become a lot more obvious that the light data's missing.

 

There's possibly two way's left to fix the issue:

 

Simple way - change the render flag of an object to allow textures to be displayed on both sides of poly's face. GoDK's done some fantastic research in this area, for more info check out this thread. As the effect is seen throughout VC the engine should be capable of this.

 

Not so simple way - add the reoriented faces as a separate object at the same coords as it's parent object. Fair bit of work with this one, but it would just be a matter of time to get it done. Works a treat, there's plenty of room in the map files, but I can't pin down why LC's crashing after I add more than 20 custom .dff's into the gta3.img.

 

Most of R*'s original model's will need to be reintroduced at some point as we can't replicate the original light data. Hopefully by that time we'll have found a way to address the 2D issue conclusively.

Edited February 24, 2004 by killer.ip

[Blunted1]

Roger1079 and I have just finished doing all of the unused HUD icons at this point.

We can redo a couple depending on the final decision for weapon slots.

 

 

They are a little rough, but they can be touched up if we use them.

[Craig Kostelecky]

@Craig: No. Nomad v3b's only difference in terms of vehicles is that 3 RCBarons are enabled where the Dodos go for testing purposes.

For me it was different. I had changed my main.scm so it spawned the right cars. When I downloaded nomad v3b, it went back to your spawns. So that's why my Yakuza Stinger was black. And I had the Stinger model copied over my Hotring as well, so I hardly noticed the difference.

[Demarest]

I treat this like I treat decisions in life: when faced with the choice of 2 things equally agreeable, I go with the one that's more reversible. So I say we keep the authentic bugs in. Not only does this cut down on the work load, it give people the opportunity to come up with an unofficial add-on that corrects them. That way every has the option of which way to go. This will be true of most "authentic or not" changes. For this reason, we should really consider taking out the bikes, helis, skimmer, and packer for the official release and then make an official vehicles add-on. Hmmm...

[Demarest]

Thats brilliant. That way they could still look like gta3 weapon HUD's but a different color like red will make them easy to tell apart

 

I know a few good artists. I will pass the idea along and see what they can do, cuz I haven't had much luck so far myself

 

 

[EDIT]

 

How does that look?

No, THAT's brilliant! Quite stunning and at lightning speed! You have my vote

[karlneil]

ok another one , this time a 2d bug , the railings are missing.

http://www.hot.ee/karlneil/bug2d.jpg

Edited February 25, 2004 by karlneil

[Demarest]

Thanks goes to ..::WHAT!? for our first rotator. Following is a table of 5 images and then one rotator. Every time you refresh the page, the rotator pic could be any one of the 5 pics and is totally random.

 

 

		rotator

To use the rotator, just use the IMG tags as normal and enter your URL as

http://www.azupload.com/displayImage.php/setid19.png

 

...or do it manually by just copying and pasting

[img=http://www.azupload.com/displayImage.php/setid19.png]

 

Edited February 25, 2004 by Demarest

[Demarest]

Okay. Change of plans. Until further notice, the GXT will be off limits. If you have updates that need to be made, post a chart here of what those changes need to be. I'm assuming control over the GXT because I figured out that if I update it as I code, it will have the entries that I need and will help me to code that much faster. If there are any objections to this, please voice them. Thank you.

[Demarest]

As discussed before, the cutscenes from GTA3 are off limits to VC's engine. As a result, there are going to be a lot of cutscenes that will need replaced. Cutscenes always take place at the beginning of missions and sometimes also in the middle and at the end of them. For this reason, we're going to have to discuss and come upon an agreement as to how we are going to receive mission.

 

Initial thoughts:

Phone missions will be no big deal as they were done in VC and can be immitated that way. Missions received by people however are going to have to be done differently. I could possibly (once the peds are done) have simulated cutscenes which would most likely consist of 2 people standing around making motions as they talk like you see in many spots in both GTA3 and VC. This will be mildly boring, but will remain close to the original. The down side is that the coding of that would be time consuming and get to be somewhat inflated.

 

Alternatives:

Simple assignment of a job via text on screen, and audio playing, or something simple like that is possible. While that would be quite generic, it would also be light weight and allow for basic mass production and a faster finished product.

 

Discuss.

[Demarest]

First and foremost, I want to be perfectly clear that modifying the EXE or releasing info and tools to do so violate VC's EULA. As a result, we as of right now have NO guarantees that we will be able to release any modified EXE or any changes to it.

 

Nevertheless, there are things we'd love to be able to do in the EXE if we were allowed to. So we might as well discuss them to become that much more prepared.

 

The single largest hurdle that we would benefit from overcoming is moving the gaming boundaries. If we could move the X boundaries 300 units to the east it would save us from ever needing to move the city 300 untis to the west.

 

Water wake level is hard coded at approx 6 or 7 on the Z axis. If this could be changed, we could enable the water wake graphics again.

 

Save game location. This has been a large topic lately. A little bit ago, I had a wonderful idea. I am not a tooler, so I am unaware as to how realistic this is. Here's the idea: What if we made a standalone EXE? Not the game EXE, but one of our own? If we did, it could/would do the following:

• Check to see if there's a folder inside the GTA Vice City User Files folder called Liberty City savegames and one called Vice City savegames as well as look for an INF that would be created just for this EXE
• If not, it could create them and make the INF indicate that the current save set is Vice City
• It would then move any of the 8 save files FROM the User Files folder into the Vice City savegames folder and move any sae files from the Liberty City savegames folder into the User Files folder. It would also update its own INF to indicate that the current save state is Liberty City.
• It would then launch the Vice City EXE.
• It would sit back and continuously monitor to make sure that GTA: Vice City was still loaded into memory.
• Once it no longer was, it would reverse the above process backing up the LC saves into the LC saves folder and restore the VC saves from the VC save folder and update the INF.
• It would then end itself.

This would subvert the need to even think about releasing a hack to keep savegames separate.

 

Any other ideas to share or opinion on the above?

[Blunted1]

My vote would go towards the alternatives until something better can be done.

As you said, faster finshed product meaning the missions would be available sooner.

 

Whatever can be done to enhance things later would be a bonus.

 

"Just my two cents"

[Stretchnutter]

Well... i have some experience with this..

 

If creating a new exe is out of the question then there are some alternatives.

 

Loader - This would simply duplicate the gta-vc.exe file... make some changes to it, save it and execute it.... ironically its the same as creating another exe, but not distributing it.

 

Trainer - This is probably the most legal method if thats a problem. You would have to start the trainer before the game is started, once it is executed and loaded into memory, changes would be made immediately affecting all future functions ingame, but there are limitations to trainers such as the editable memory space will be capped off at the exact size of the execuatable. I ran into this problem with my camera hack which injects new code into 'free memory' (called a code cave, which is very limited size) and tells the game to use the new functions instead of the old ones.

 

creating a new exe would be much neater and require only a bit of asm/hex hacking on the coders part

 

 

I havn't really looked into the savegame portion of the exe so i cant guess how much modification is needed.

Edited February 25, 2004 by Stretchnutter

[killer.ip]

The way I see it the priority's getting the mission and other important code into the SCM first. The real lure of the game isn't just freeform driving around the city (although that in itself is pleasure enough), it's about the task in hand and continuation of the story, cutscene or not. With both methods I'll be painting a picture of what's being played out in them on my mental canvas anyway...

 

Mission code's the primary objective, the window dressing will be a welcome addition later.

[killer.ip]

 

For this reason, we should really consider taking out the bikes, helis, skimmer, and packer for the official release and then make an official vehicles add-on. Hmmm...

That's not a bad idea, for them to be removed it would be a simple case of a few edited entries in default.ide, an updated SCM with their entries removed and a few edit's to the existing .ipl's. I don't even think it would be necessary to change back the collision file at Kenji's as the old helirock model has it's own.

 

To re-add them it would just be a case of keeping the original files and packaging them for release, no need to even go anywhere near the gta3.img as their files would still be there.

 

Choice is officially a Good Thing™.

[Demarest]

Well JamesSHF has isolated and manipulated that just fine. I was only seeing if there was an external way of handling it to avoid any possible EULA violations.

 

You know I've always admired your work. Any help you can offer--even just in the suggestions you've already--made would be appreciated. It would certainly be an honor.

[JamesSHF]

I think the option without the cut-scenes is the better, 'cause it's easier and doesn't bloat the code.

I skip most of the cut-scenes when I play the game anyway.

[JamesSHF]

Yeah, an external way of handling the save files would definitely be better than possibly violating the EULA.

And if there was a way of modifying the game boundaries the same way, then it'd be a bonus.

[Luke]

I can DEFINITELY make a little program that can load up and swop around Vice city savegames.

 

I presume that it would need to be very easy to use, so i think that having it so that you can run it with a command line instead of click buttons etc.

 

That way people could just change the shortcut on their start menu to the save game switcher, and the command line which says what save games are needed.

 

Sound any good? sorry if its not very clear

 

btw, i can do this quite quickly, its an easy thing to do.

 

EDIT: Im almost certain that we wont be able to alter the game boundaries, i have looked myself, and found various interesting things, but nothing like the boundaries. If someone looked into just how the renderware DFF engine worked etc, maybe that could help.

Edited February 25, 2004 by Smithers2

[JamesSHF]

I think the EXE Demarest described would be better, where you need it to run the VC games, but it is LC by default.

[Demarest]

I was just throwing ideas on the table. You guys are the ones with the magic wands, so I'll trust you to do whatever you think is best.

[Luke]

 

I think the EXE Demarest described would be better, where you need it to run the VC games, but it is LC by default. 

 

Im not sure just why that would matter. But anyways, i threw something together so far:-

 

- The command line works like this '-r PATH OF YOUR SAVE FILES'

 

- There are two other settings that it needs, the path of VC to run, and the location of the save game folder that VC actually loads from, these wont change, so they are in text files

 

- You run it, a dialog will appear (probobly wont see it if youre computer is fast) and it transfers all your savegames accross (i can hide the dialog if anyone wants, or have it optional)

 

- Now i need to make it able to tell when Vice city is running (harder) or find another way of doing it, if there is one.

[JamesSHF]

The directory Vice is installed in is in the Windows registry, maybe you can try and access that.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto Vice City\Path to be exact.

 

For checking whether Vice is open or not, some way of accessing a list of processes, and seeing if the gta-vc.exe process is running.

[Demarest]

Many people copy over their VC so that they can mod one and keep the other intact. The registry might actually mislead the app. Instead, it should be something that is run from the VC folder that LC is installed in.

[Luke]

There are ways of getting window handles, if i can get that, i think i can check when the window terminates. Ill find a way

 

The registry is not a good idea, at the moment it loads up the Vice city user files path from a text file called save.txt in the same folder as the exe, i think this will work ok.

 

Going well, it copies the files that were there before into a folder called Backup just incase too, incase an error occurs and it cant complete all the copying.

 

EDIT: as for the distribution, everyone needs the Visual Basic runtime files (Vb6) for it to work, windows XP i think comes with these, and anyone with plenty of software on thier comp probobly does too, but ill make an installer version too, that includes the runtime files for those that dont. if you already have them then it will simply be a case of putting all the files in any directory that you want, and changing the shortcuts, or making them.

Edited February 25, 2004 by Smithers2

[MajorOutage]

You know, we could always bug Oleg to update the filter....

[Knaxia]

only wanted to do a little update:

 

Icon pickup updates (textures) changed the pink color to the normal GTA3 blue, only the light of them is still pink ( exe?) still looks good

 

HERE

 

small file. (8k)

 

Health, Police Bribe, Adrenaline & Rampage

[killer.ip]

I get the feeling Oleg was done with ZModeler1 at the end of last summer, we were lucky to get the current filter working at all as the first one he released had a real showstopper bug.

 

Wouldn't hurt to ask, but I think he's in ZModeler2 development hell at the mo.

[Knaxia]

Colls update (trash master)

 

HERE

 

tell me is other are missing/bad

Edited February 25, 2004 by Knux

[killer.ip]

Couple more updates from Knux today. An vehicles.col collision file which supercedes the one included in the car pack a couple of days ago, in English... this is the more up to date one, go get it.

 

The other release is a set of new Icon Pickup textures, no more pink health & bribe pickups.

[WHAT!?]

This is great Demarest!

 

I hope to see some pepole using it soon.

 

(I already am) - Thanks again.