Posted by Turbo Pascal on May 03, 2000 at 13:47:54:
In reply to: Porting TR1 to TR2/3 posted by BitShifter on May 03, 2000 at 07:05:42:
: I see no prblem in making several passes ovef a source file in TR1 and extracting with various programs distinct set of data for later insert into the Destination TR2/3 file.
: We do that at the office every other day with the CSV format. Since the levels are simple binaries "chuncky" files, it could be done. Could even be a group effort where one does export the rooms and someone else export the enemies and other and the last export the meshes animations.
: This is what i ma trying to do for textures with the TextureAssign.
: After this is finished, I'll take up that library-type of file. I guess a simple binary file with only one moveable/enemy per file (including a texture tile for its "outfit" would be nice.
: Thinking of it, it could be done rigth now by just copying the block of data in separate files and then making a simple file manager that would insert the selected file into the proper places in a new but empty level. Let's see, you would need the meshes, the texture list and the special animation that goes with that moveable/enemy.
I think it is not just "cut and paste" chunk binary data from one file to another, that is the ease part, but you will need also to UPDATE ALL REFERENCES;
for example, if we want to extract the TRex and include it to another level
we will need to extract ONLY for the TREX the texture data, meshes, movable, mesh tree, anims, state change, anim dispatch, anim command and the frame.
Then after "paste" all chunk to the new file, the meshes now reference to
invalid textures (the new textures injected has different value now), the movables reference to invalid meshes,invalid frames and invalid mesh tree, etc etc etc,
that is because the data came with references from his original arrays in the file, but now in the new file the data has different position in the arrays, so need different references to point to the correct index array.
Turbo Pascal.