Following latest OBoE update, monster graphics are not displayed properly

[Prince of Kitties]

Observe this screenshot:

 

http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051240381280x800shy4.png

 

Other monsters are also shown with a pure white background, though player graphics are displayed fine. It looks like the latest modifications to the graphics code broke something.

[Prince of Kitties]

Update: also, the wrong monster graphics are displayed in messages, e.g. a dialog message that's supposed to show an official may instead show a beggar. Monster graphics in general are very messed up.

 

(Does anyone have a copy of the previous version of OBoE? This really sucks.)

[Prince of Kitties]

And more evidence of screwed up graphics:

 

http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051312051280x800shp7.png

 

Those cave wall squares really should not look like that.

[Prince of Kitties]

Yet another update: more terrain graphics problems:

 

http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051333281280x800sje4.png

[keira]

Perhaps the bladbase used to make the scenario is wonkers. I can't think of anything else, other than a fearsome bug.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

It's not the bladbase, since those are all screenshots from pre-existing scenarios (On A Ship To Algiers, The Za-Khazi Run, and New Market City, respectively).

[Ishad Nha]

Certainly in Shadow of the Stranger there are problems with custom item graphics having white backgrounds. But the creature graphics seem to be the usual ones from Monst1.bmp and Monst2.bmp.

 

In the second screenshot it looks like the wrong graphics are being displayed. You could take a look at the terrain#.bmp graphics, but most likely the fault is in the program.

 

I could upload a previous version, this will take about ten minutes.

[Prince of Kitties]

Hmm, that might also prove problematic... It looks like the names of image files have changed since the last version.

[Ishad Nha]

I have compressed the program only, if the fault is in the program it should go away when you use this program. (Back up your old version first.)

Edit:

Dead links removed.

[Prince of Kitties]

The alt-D + Enter thing doesn't work... You using IE?

 

Edit: N/M, using wget works.

[Prince of Kitties]

Yeah, the graphics work fine in the old version... It's a bug.

[Ishad Nha]

Yes, I am using IE. I downloaded the latest version of Open BoE and set it up in a new folder well away from my current install of BoE. That white - as - a - sheet background is behind every person and monster in Fort Talrus. Terrain seems okay so far. Then again there is little custom terrain in Valley of the Dying Things.

 

Send a message to Ormus. This following is taken from the changes.txt listed on his site.

"13:47 2008-11-04

 

Removed code that was responsible for memory managment of graphic objects. That simplified the code a lot and helped me understand how it is all being displayed.

 

Some graphic files changed their names or were merged.

 

Startup graphic returned. It can be turned off in blades.ini by setting "fancy_startup" to 0."

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

Yes, I am using IE. I downloaded the latest version of Open BoE and set it up in a new folder well away from my current install of BoE. That white - as - a - sheet background is behind every person and monster in Fort Talrus. Terrain seems okay so far. Then again there is little custom terrain in Valley of the Dying Things.

That bug sometimes happened in the old BoE if you ran it in greater than 256 colours.

[Prince of Kitties]

I don't think it's that bug, though. Or at least, another bug would have to be present as well, for stuff like the cobblestone-edge graphics to be off.

 

(One of the issues is that some tiles showing two kinds of terrain, e.g. diagonal edges of cobblestone areas, display as completely different terrain such as runes or crystal pedestals... See the third screenshot.)

[Ishad Nha]

I ran the new version in 256 colors, the cure was worse than the complaint. All backgrounds disappeared but the color arrangement was bizarre.

 

Looking at the game directories, I notice that Ormus has joined all the ten monster graphic sheets into just one large sheet. Ditto there is now only one graphics sheet for terrain. This might explain what the problem was in the second graphic Miramor posted at: #115223 - Nov 5, 2008 12:13 PM.

 

What scenario was that meant to be and what town?

Edit: the creature graphics problem is also visible in the Scenario Editor. But no sign of any terrain mix ups.

[Celtic Minstrel]

If Ormus is reading this, I honestly think it's not a good idea to join graphics sheets together.

 

Ishad, those are all the Windows graphics sheets you uploaded?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

What scenario was that meant to be and what town?

As I said, the screenshots are from On A Ship To Algiers by Alcritas (the town is, as the text box shows, The Shore, where the scenario starts), The Za-Khazi Run by Jeff Vogel (Slime Pit, as also shown by the text box), and New Market City by Milu (the main market town; there's only three towns in the scenario IIRC).

[Ishad Nha]

Yes, all graphics are from the Windows version.

Is the mixed-up terrain graphics problem found in the game only or is it found in both the game and the scenario editor?

[Celtic Minstrel]

Nothing to see here. Move along, folks.

[Prince of Kitties]

FWIW, the Slime Pit is in Algiers, not Za-Kazi.

[Ishad Nha]

Town 23 in Algiers is a Slime Pit. I was able to rapidly draw up a list of the towns using the Scentext.txt file, which I opened in Word. (What I did was draw up a table of contents listing all the town names, the latter were found by a search for "Town:".)

 

In the editor, town 23 looks quite okay, I can see no problems. I don't know about how it looks in the game itself.

 

As for Za Khazi, it is reportedly corrupt and I don't have a copy of it currently.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Oh, I see. It's been a long time since I played Algiers. *remembers that it's a snake pit with a slime monster in the middle, not a slime pit, in ZKR* *facepalm*

 

EDIT: Actually, now I'm not sure. What is in the pit with the Malachite Idol in ZKR? Is it snakes?

[Nioca]

Snakes, with a Wyrm Queen in the middle.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Damn.

 

I never did figure out how to get that idol out of there. I looked in the walkthrough after I beat the scenario and found out that way.

 

Anyway, to make up for my bad memory, here's ASR and ZKR from my original, uncorrupted, purchased-before-open-source copy of BoE, zipped up:

 

ASR

ZKR

[Ishad Nha]

The distorted terrain in New Market City is not ocurring when the scenario is examined in the Scenario Editor. But then it shows up in the game itself, that should isolate the fault clearly.

 

Send a message to Ormus.

 

Edit: I opened the scenario in the Editor and I changed all the type 83 terrain to type 76, there is a lot of type 83 in the town. Thus the aberrant Vahanatai terrain is hard to explain, some of it is type 83 in the editor. But most examples of type 83 are correctly displayed in the game. Currently I can't see any rhyme or reason to the terrain aberrations.

[Ormus]

Whoa! That's really strange. It all works perfectly on my computer. However, I've just tested it on another PC and truly there is a bug with displaying monsters! In that case I'll upload previous version of BoE on Monday. Sorry for that weird thing but it really helped me understand what's going on in the code.

 

By the way I am working on new scenario editor. I'm just starting, so I don't have anything to show except this:

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/161843686/boe_new_se_test.fbr

 

(Video file. Open with: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/FlashBackFreePlayer.aspx)

 

At this point it loads and saves scenario files correctly in both windows and mac format and allows to edit scenario and outdoor text. (Btw, sorry for weird colors on the recording. These come from my Windows. The editor will be looking like a normal windows app.)

[Celtic Minstrel]

What are you writing it in?

[keira]

OK that is really neat. I especially like the new outdoor selection mabob.

[lampshade]

Ormus you might want to gather a number of people to help beta test your stuff.

[Ormus]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

What are you writing it in?

C++, VCL (Borland C++ Builder). I know that it would be better if I used some portable GUI like wxWidgets or QT but I wanted to try some concepts quickly so I used C++ Builder. My goal was to try using X-Macros to deal with data structures that are used to make scenario files. It works great and saves me a lot of work!

Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna

OK that is really neat. I especially like the new outdoor selection mabob.

In the future I am going to display thumbnail images of each outdoor section.

Originally Posted By: lampshade

Ormus you might want to gather a number of people to help beta test your stuff.

Sure! I'd like to use some help, but at this point I have to do some things myself. The code I created is very bad written and it is possible that I will make some things from the scratch.

[Prince of Kitties]

Ormus: trying to download the new BoE packages gets a 403 error... I think the permissions on your site are set wrong.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Ormus

Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna

OK that is really neat. I especially like the new outdoor selection mabob.

In the future I am going to display thumbnail images of each outdoor section.

That is awesome.
Related: Maybe a town thumbnail could appear when you mouse over the towns list

Originally Posted By: Ormus

Originally Posted By: lampshade

Ormus you might want to gather a number of people to help beta test your stuff.

Sure! I'd like to use some help, but at this point I have to do some things myself. The code I created is very bad written and it is possible that I will make some things from the scratch.

*raises hand*

Originally Posted By: Miramor

Ormus: trying to download the new BoE packages gets a 403 error... I think the permissions on your site are set wrong.

I put the '12:51 2008-06-02: Blades of Exile [FULL PACKAGE]' over here a while ago in .zip format.

[Ormus]

Originally Posted By: Miramor

Ormus: trying to download the new BoE packages gets a 403 error... I think the permissions on your site are set wrong.

Thanks for information. Fixed.

Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna

Maybe a town thumbnail could appear when you mouse over the towns list

That's great idea! It must be done! :-)

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Ormus

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

What are you writing it in?

C++, VCL (Borland C++ Builder). I know that it would be better if I used some portable GUI like wxWidgets or QT but I wanted to try some concepts quickly so I used C++ Builder. My goal was to try using X-Macros to deal with data structures that are used to make scenario files. It works great and saves me a lot of work!

Yes, wxWidgets and/or Quicktime are good choices. Don't use something non-portable, please, unless you have access to a Mac and will port it yourself.

Remember that this is a Mac game ported to Windows, not vice versa.

VCL may be somewhat portable, at least more so than MFC or .NET ...

[Niemand]

I think he means the Qt toolkit, not Quicktime. One point that is worth noting is that Jeff's method was to have shared core code but to use different platform-specific libraries for the two versions. As long as you're careful, you could continue this way, and it would save you from having to do a total rewrite of all graphics code, and so forth.

 

I am curious to learn what you choose to use in the longer term and how well it works, as the BoA Editor has any of the same stumbling blocks, and I personally have no experience with any of these cross-platform toolkits.

[Celtic Minstrel]

...Right. Qt is good too.