The thread that started it all

[killer.ip]

I think as soon as the SCM & paths are updated we can release all these files in one go... but until those are made available just moving the map via the IPL's is going to be fairly limited, although watching cars drive into the sea can still be very amusing.

[AndrewT]

Could you make an option so that people who have GTA3 could point to their GTA3 directory and it would load the audio files from that?

 

Also, excuse my ignorance, but why are the GTA3 cut scenes impossible to reproduce in VC? I thought VC's cut scenes were just as complex as GTA3's. Or are they hard coded into the exe? (I don't mean to sound pushy or anything, I'm just curious)

[MajorOutage]

The moved city should be the first official Compiled Release, that way we can flag or remove links to anything that won't work with it, hopefully that will elminate any confusion.

 

Also, don't forget, we'll need to update the radar and pause maps as well.

Edited March 17, 2004 by [4D]Outback

[Demarest]

Agreed. This should be our #1 priority as moving the city renders the old compileds obsolete and makes us almost unable to offer support until everything is in line again.

[Demarest]

No you couldn't call upon the cutscene data for the same reason you couldn't call upon the cutscene data VC considers models differently. GTA3's cutscene data does not have all the data that the VC engine is looking for and therefor would crash because it wouldn't know how to use what it was given.

[Craig Kostelecky]

How and where can I help to speed up this process?

[Demarest]

Honestly? Start from a fresh install and get everything up to date. Pile on all the updates and set it aside. As all the realigned files hit, put them all together. Then ZIP up every file that was modified from an original install and post it for us. Then Smithers2 or whoever's willing can turn it into a handy installer and we can have our 1st official release! It's a large task, so I can understand if you'd rather not.

[Luke]

Ok, i just made a little program to move the paths.ipl, i need to add a little error handling to the program etc, but i can upload a moved paths.ipl very soon

 

THE MOVED PATHS

 

EDIT: Yeah, im workin on an installer.

Edited March 17, 2004 by Smithers2

[Knaxia]

AFTER THIS PART, ALL DISCUSSIONS ARE FOR THE MOVED CITY PATHS ONLY

 

ok, here's the update

 

MOVED CITY FULL PATHS:

CLICK HERE

 

This convertion has been made by Smithers, who did a small program to move the paths, I tested them, and they are fully operationnal.

[karlneil]

the moved map screws up the water map , someone could fix it

[MajorOutage]

Link isn't working. :-\

[MajorOutage]

That'll all be fixed, don't worry.

[Knaxia]

EDIT: host back online, link is working

Edited March 17, 2004 by Knux

[spaceeinstein]

I made a second Liberty City movie.

 

http://www.thegamersalliance.com/videos/spaceeinstein.zip

[Craig Kostelecky]

I was thinking about helping with the moving process. It looks like there's a lot of files that need changing, and all of that work between 2 or 3 people seems like it would be a lot.

 

And wasn't killer.ip (or somebody else) already working on an installer? If not, I suppose I could work on it if nobody else is doing it.

[Luke]

Me and Killer.ip are working on an installer.

 

The moving of files doesnt really have that much left to do. As i write this i am testing out the moved flight paths, so that leaves

 

Water

Main.scm

 

I think.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Good to hear. I thought this was going to be a bigger process. It looks like it'll be done very shortly.

[Luke]

Ok, flight.dat is now done too. And i uploaded the paths to my server because Knux's is down at the mo.

 

Flight.dat

Paths.ipl

 

Should work.

[PatrickW]

Yes, I'm doing the coords manually. Because of the variables involved and the necessity of the tool maker to have intrinsic knowledge of the SCM format, this is the best option for now. It won't take very long since the initial conversion will have to be done on a relatively small SCM and then modified piece by piece as time goes on. Spread out = not that hard.

I missed this discussion before, but i got an idea that would make automatic conversion of scm coords easy. I know dem does it by hand now, but an automatic conversion tool will still be very usefullto convert existing GTA3 scm mods.

 

my idea:

The syntax/wording of the individual opcodes are dictated by vicescm.ini

What if we create a special version of vicescm.ini, where all X-xoords are prefixed with the text "#X".

Than decompile existing scm code with this vicescm.ini. The resulting text should be easy to convert automaticly.

Than this converted text is compiled again with the new vicescm.ini

(or just convert the prefix out also and compile with original vicescm.ini )

 

PatrickW

 

[Mark Pagliaro]

Still radar and pausemap left other than the .scm aswell as flight3.dat as soons as I find the gtaIII equivalent. Smithers can transfer this as he has done the paths and the first flight.dat - Thanks again man.

[Knaxia]

outback: it is up now, was down only a few minutes.

[WHAT!?]

 

No you couldn't call upon the cutscene data for the same reason you couldn't call upon the cutscene data VC considers models differently. GTA3's cutscene data does not have all the data that the VC engine is looking for and therefor would crash because it wouldn't know how to use what it was given.

I thought the main difference was that Vice City called upon higher detailed versions of the games modles for cutscenes?

 

Like for the beginning of the game Roenberg picks you up in a high(er) detailed admiral at the airport, the car has nice seats, dash, ect. Also there are cutscene models for every character. (i'm sure you know all of this) In the GTA3.img file you notice there are character models and then there are the CS_character models.

 

- What I am getting at is wouldn't the cutscenes work if we took all the character models this mod will be using, copy them and then re-name them to somthing the game can draw from in the cutscenes? Like CS_JoeyLeone for example?

 

Or is all the GTA3 cutscene data somthing that can't have file names changed so that Vice can recognize and read it?

 

::EDIT::

 

Damn forums, I was finally able to read what I posted... down time sucks.

Edited March 18, 2004 by ..::WHAT!?

[Hollower]

Nope, it can't be done. Do you want a detailed explaination why or is it enough to say that I'm the person who deconstructed the file format for animations.

 

[MarcelusWalus]

Just so you guys know how far i am, i have my new equation made, and it works like a charm I'm working on the search feature, and its been a pain, cause i havent done something like that before, but i am pretty close to giving you guys the tool you need, I've been really busy with school and other things, so its probably been taking a lot longer than it should. I also have a few bugs to work out, but im also working on an idea to fix that, and it would also solve some SCM problems as well, which is a good thing. I could do a lot of hard coding and give you guys a finished product sooner, but for the 80 some files that need to be changed, it would probably be more work than necessary, but if you would like it sooner then i am willing to do that, and finish after so you can have the tool to change the y-axis data.

 

Marcel

[Demarest]

I made a second Liberty City movie.

 

http://www.thegamersalliance.com/videos/spaceeinstein.zip

That link takes us to that site's general download area. A search for spaceeinstein yields no results

[Demarest]

Good work all. I'll be releasing the updated SCM in a couple of days at the most.

 

@Patrick W: That's a great idea for decompiling scripts, but the main code is being built from the ground up as a text file to keep all my notes and custom labels/variables intact. Decompiling a compiled version of this would kill all such ammeneties. It's not a big deal though. Like I said, the bulk of the coords needed in the code is the stuff that's already there. Once that is done being hand converted, the rest will only have light coords here and there and will be much easier to convert than it would be to track GXT and ped conversions for example

[Mark Pagliaro]

Just so you guys know how far i am, i have my new equation made, and it works like a charm I'm working on the search feature, and its been a pain, cause i havent done something like that before, but i am pretty close to giving you guys the tool you need, I've been really busy with school and other things, so its probably been taking a lot longer than it should. I also have a few bugs to work out, but im also working on an idea to fix that, and it would also solve some SCM problems as well, which is a good thing. I could do a lot of hard coding and give you guys a finished product sooner, but for the 80 some files that need to be changed, it would probably be more work than necessary, but if you would like it sooner then i am willing to do that, and finish after so you can have the tool to change the y-axis data.

 

Marcel

we need only the x axis and possibly the z axis later.

 

It looks like we will only be needing a scm tool as every other thing has been converted. - Sorry but hey the community wouldn't mind tools anyways.

 

Although Demarest would probally prefer/already is converting that manually.

 

 

[Demarest]

Yes I am and as I am, I am continuing to find more and more reasons why the SCM NEEDS to be updated manually

 

For example, GTA3 is hard coded to understand which islands are which. This means that for missions like Vigilante and Firefighter, the target is on the same island and count towards THAT island's accumulation. VC doesn't have this feature, so I had to simulate it in Nomad v4. It essentially check to see if player was in x,y - x2,y2 and if so you're on this island, etc, etc. If we went with ANY generic automated updated, it would see this opcode and adjust both X values as it was told to. But in the case of Portland/SSV, ONE of the X's defines one of the game borders. Moving it would mean that you could put yourself into a place where you were no longer within any defined bounds and you could crash the game. In this case, it requires a human with coding knowledge looking at it and interpreting it in terms of its application to realize that only one X value should be edited. There is simply no other way around it.

 

Most likely such thing will be limited in occurance and could be localized to things that are code-simulated. Since I'm willing to do it, why bother with a tool that can't possibly do everything it sets out to? The reasoning of making the implimentation of SCM mods easier is probably the best reason, but you still risk this dilemna. There's no way around that. Keep in mind too that this is only one such example I've encountered already.

[Mark Pagliaro]

I can only do so much while I am at school:

 

Class is boring so

I planned on moving the radar using gta3's orginal radar rather than the one included in the WO release. I took Demarest's radar map and edited the palette to make the alpha colors (grey, black,white)I need to move the whole map to the left before I split into 64 128*128 images! I have been trying to do the math in which I should be able to do as math is a huge part of my major yet I have been stumped. I could do it trial and error but loading GTA is a little harder to get away with although I have done it before. (Do not worry about my marks as I am in the high 90's in this class)

 

What are the gameworld dimensions?

 

Known data:

1024 * 1024 radar map

64 128*128 tga's make this map up

 

I'd like to know the gameworld boundry's

gameworld moved by 350

 

EDIT:

THANKS DEMAREST! I will try and move the radar later as I have a 1-9 work shift today. Although I have a priority of doing 2d fix 2.0 first.

 

Need to move about 90 pixels I think

Edited March 18, 2004 by MarkPagliaro

[Demarest]

For GTA3, the 1024x1024 pixels equated to about 4000x4000 game units.