Ángel Eduardo To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 7:22 AM Hi! Just as says the title of this post, I need some help :) I'm working on a 3D Model Viewer of the props, but I've found one or two problems. I've decyphered the workings of the bin format with the help of the SD editor, but now I'm trying to load some internal models of the game (planes and scenery parts) and I've found some things I can't reproduce with the editor. It's hard to explain. What I need is that if any of you can tell me about any website where I can download any props and the file with the editor can load (not only the bin, I've TONS of it ;) ) so I can find out what are for the missing commands, or if any of you have any props that can send to me (it doesn't matter what props, even if your prop is only a dummy cube ;). What I'm searching for could be in any file). Secondly, I want to know if anyone know (and have tried) the meaning of some commands of the editor (and how to make it work, of course ;) ): First, the SETGND in the PT/LN section. It's supposedly to set the ground point of a prop, but it doesn't seem to work for me. In this section too, the MARK and UNMARK buttons. When you have the points marked, what are you supposedly to do with them? The DELETE button in this section: It doesn't seem to delete anything :S In the CONTRL, the TRYHARD, SETREJ and BLKADD buttons. Ok, it's a long list. So long is my ignorance :). I'll be so helpful if anyone can help with any of the questions. Thanks in advance, and happy editting! ----- Dean Newbury To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 4:23 PM Hey Angel, I have 100s of props for you if you want them. I'll send you a file with some of the actual SI props I recreated a while back. Is it the detail elements that you're having trouble with? Someone was working on a converter that turned SI props into 3D Max files a while back and he said things like circles and spheres and such wouldn't convert, probably because they are a graphic element and not an actual constructed polygon element? SETGND has always worked for me. Pick a single point at the bottom of your prop and it will put your prop on the ground at that point. MARK and UNMARK are not quite useless, but..... The only use I ever found for them was to mark a few coordinates that were at an odd angle and blending in with other coordinates when I was trying to make polygons. DELETE will only delete coordinates that aren't part of anything. If you have any loose coordinates that aren't part of your polygons or details and aren't part of midpoint creation or similar then you can delete them, all delete able points will turn yellow when you click DELETE. They may have intended for it to have more capabilities but that's all it does in the version of SITools that we have. TRYHARD is a command you use when SITools is having trouble displaying your creation. It adds additional math to the display calculations and even adds a few invisible polygons to the object to help SITools understand what it is supposed to be displaying. SETREJ is a mystery command that I would recommend not messing with. There are several of these things in SITools and if the SITools help file doesn't tell you what they do then it's probably a good idea to not mess with them. The problem is this version of SITools is not quite complete. BLKADD same as SETREJ is a mystery command that probably should not be messed with. There are quite a few commands in SITools that are either useless, do not do what they are intended to do, or just don't work at all. Like I said above, SITools is not quite complete. We know they used it to create their objects but there was also a lot of additional things that they did outside of SITools to finish an object like placement of machine guns. The fact that no object created with SITools can be put into the #1 Prop Slot tells me that SITools, in its current state, was at best a test prop creation program and not meant to create finished props. Dean. ----- Ángel Eduardo To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 5:41 PM --- In sifa@yahoogroups.com, "Dean Newbury" wrote: > Hey Angel, > > I have 100s of props for you if you want them. I'll send you a file with some of the actual SI props I recreated a while back. Is it the detail elements that you're having trouble with? No. The problem is that I've found some "commands" (the binary files are made by commands that tell SI how to draw them, such as "draw a sphere with radius X, add 2 points and a line between them" and so on) that I haven't see in my own models, but it could be just because my models are not complex enough. Also, I'm with you on the matter that many objects of SI weren't created by the editor. >Someone was working on a converter that turned SI props into 3D Max files a while back and he said things like circles and spheres and such wouldn't convert, probably because they are a graphic element and not an actual constructed polygon element? Disk and spheres can be converted, with a little more work. In my viewer I haven't added disks because I've to deal with vector maths, and I'm too young to die :P, but I've added spheres with a little work. It can be done ;) > > SETGND has always worked for me. Pick a single point at the bottom of your prop and it will put your prop on the ground at that point. > Really, I haven't tried it in SI yet, but the BIN file doesn't seem to reflex my changes, so this is what I said that. I'll have to look it again... > MARK and UNMARK are not quite useless, but..... The only use I ever found for them was to mark a few coordinates that were at an odd angle and blending in with other coordinates when I was trying to make polygons. > I've read a document that came with the SITools that explained it just after sending my message. Sometimes I'm really stupid :P. It can be used to add a groups of points at once. > DELETE will only delete coordinates that aren't part of anything. If you have any loose coordinates that aren't part of your polygons or details and aren't part of midpoint creation or similar then you can delete them, all delete able points will turn yellow when you click DELETE. They may have intended for it to have more capabilities but that's all it does in the version of SITools that we have. > > TRYHARD is a command you use when SITools is having trouble displaying your creation. It adds additional math to the display calculations and even adds a few invisible polygons to the object to help SITools understand what it is supposed to be displaying. > > SETREJ is a mystery command that I would recommend not messing with. There are several of these things in SITools and if the SITools help file doesn't tell you what they do then it's probably a good idea to not mess with them. The problem is this version of SITools is not quite complete. > > BLKADD same as SETREJ is a mystery command that probably should not be messed with. > > There are quite a few commands in SITools that are either useless, do not do what they are intended to do, or just don't work at all. Like I said above, SITools is not quite complete. We know they used it to create their objects but there was also a lot of additional things that they did outside of SITools to finish an object like placement of machine guns. The fact that no object created with SITools can be put into the #1 Prop Slot tells me that SITools, in its current state, was at best a test prop creation program and not meant to create finished props. Yes. I've found out that the editor, in one stage or another, could even deal with *.SEQ and *.FLM!! I don't know how or for what, but it would have been interesting... > > Dean. > Lot of thanks, Dean. I'm looking right now your props. Hope I'll find anything!! Thanks again!! I'll maintain you informed ;) ----- Dean Newbury To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 6:30 PM No. The problem is that I've found some "commands" (the binary files are made by commands that tell SI how to draw them, such as "draw a sphere with radius X, add 2 points and a line between them" and so on) that I haven't see in my own models, but it could be just because my models are not complex enough. Also, I'm with you on the matter that many objects of SI weren't created by the editor. It occurred to me after reading this that part of the problem may be that you're analyzing props that have sub-objects attached to them. SI props have a polygon limit of 200 polygons so some of the props like the 747 with Space Shuttle have extra objects attached to them to complete the prop. Sub-objects are also the only things that can be truly animated(landing gear and propellors). The 747 with Shuttle has a lot of sub-objects. The Shuttle, all of the engines, and the landing gear. The hangglider has the pilot as a sub-object. There are lots of other examples but the point it there are A LOT of sub-objects on SI props and I'll bet you'll get some screwed up numbers if you try and analyze them. If you look at the TIE-Fighter prop you'll see a good example of sub-objects. I used sub-objects to turn the TIE-Fighter into a single prop rather than three. > SETGND has always worked for me. Pick a single point at the bottom of your prop and it will put your prop on the ground at that point. > Really, I haven't tried it in SI yet, but the BIN file doesn't seem to reflex my changes, so this is what I said that. I'll have to look it again... Yes that makes sense, it's a change that shows up in Stunt Island, nothing changes in SITools either. I'm going to send you another ZIP, it contains all the files I got from Adrian Stephens himself. There's a lot of interesting things in there. Primarily he was sending me all of the airplanes in their SITools form but there's a lot of cool extra stuff thrown in there that I'm sure can help you. I think Dave Palmowski used these files to figure out the SPRITE routines in Stunt Island If I remember correctly, Dave? Talk to you soon, having fun talking about SI again!!! Dean. ----- Ángel Eduardo To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 6:39 PM Dean Newbury escribió: No. The problem is that I've found some "commands" (the binary files are made by commands that tell SI how to draw them, such as "draw a sphere with radius X, add 2 points and a line between them" and so on) that I haven't see in my own models, but it could be just because my models are not complex enough. Also, I'm with you on the matter that many objects of SI weren't created by the editor. It occurred to me after reading this that part of the problem may be that you're analyzing props that have sub-objects attached to them. SI props have a polygon limit of 200 polygons so some of the props like the 747 with Space Shuttle have extra objects attached to them to complete the prop. Sub-objects are also the only things that can be truly animated(landing gear and propellors). The 747 with Shuttle has a lot of sub-objects. The Shuttle, all of the engines, and the landing gear. The hangglider has the pilot as a sub-object. There are lots of other examples but the point it there are A LOT of sub-objects on SI props and I'll bet you'll get some screwed up numbers if you try and analyze them. If you look at the TIE-Fighter prop you'll see a good example of sub-objects. I used sub-objects to turn the TIE-Fighter into a single prop rather than three. Jeje, it's kinda hard to explain, but unfortunately, the commands that I'm looking for aren't related with subobjects ("unfortunately" because if it were the case, I'll be able to reproduce it with the SD). I've found the subobject part already, and it's kinda strange ;) but not impossible to reproduce. Unfortunately, I was able to load all your props with mi viewer :( so I think I've added all the commands that the SD can deal with. Oh, and I LOVE your Tie Fighter!!!. Do you made it by hand with the SD?? > SETGND has always worked for me. Pick a single point at the bottom of your prop and it will put your prop on the ground at that point. > Really, I haven't tried it in SI yet, but the BIN file doesn't seem to reflex my changes, so this is what I said that. I'll have to look it again... Yes that makes sense, it's a change that shows up in Stunt Island, nothing changes in SITools either. I'm going to send you another ZIP, it contains all the files I got from Adrian Stephens himself. There's a lot of interesting things in there. Primarily he was sending me all of the airplanes in their SITools form but there's a lot of cool extra stuff thrown in there that I'm sure can help you. I think Dave Palmowski used these files to figure out the SPRITE routines in Stunt Island If I remember correctly, Dave? It would be SO GREAT if you can send this file. I think's going to be like a surprise box ;) Talk to you soon, having fun talking about SI again!!! Dean. ----- Ángel Eduardo To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 3:25 PM Hi. Can anyone enable me to upload files? Or tell me to who I've to send my files to upload them? I want to upload 2 tools for SI: A resource extractor and a prop model viewer. Thanks in advance ----- Dean Newbury To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 3:30 PM Hi Angel, could you tell us more about the tools like what they do and where they came from? If they will be useful to the SIFA community then I'd be happy to put them in the Yahoo Groups file archive. -Dean ----- Ángel Eduardo To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 3:48 PM Sure Dean! These tools come directly from my computer ;). I've coded them from zero to full, (or whatever is said). First of all, I've to thank you, because you send me some files in the past that helped me to tweak a little the viewer. Another guy I've to thank is Neil Halelamien. He tried my viewer in the past and send me some information. Thanks too, Neil. And now, your questions: One of the tools is called "Stunt Island Extractor" (very original, isn't it? :D). It allows you to extract all files inside a .RES SI file, converting sprites to BMP's, extracting props as .BIN files, groups of images as .IFF... and to extract from music and sound files as well. You could read it all in the included README file :P The other tool is called (*surprise*) "Stunt Island Model Viewer". It allows you to see SI props made with the SITools or extracted in-game (It doesn't support 100% of the commands used to make the models, so it can't load all models from ingame, but yes from SITools) Hope this answer all your questions. :D ----- Dean Newbury To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 3:58 PM Wow, I mean WOW! Those sound really cool Angel. You can send them to me and I'll get them into the Yahoo vault for all to use, but not before I've had a chance to play around with them first. LOL -Dean ----- tre4kelly To: sifa@yahoogroups.com Wed, Apr 6, 2005 at 5:12 AM Hi Angel, I have tried thes files and the extractor works well. The viewer uses open GL and gives me an error as I don't use open GL. the .obj files produced by the extractor are readable by other programs so that is good enough for me. I am not the world's greatest user of computers, as my questions must show, so if any one else wants to use these files we will have to find a way of getting them into general circulation. Dean is still not answering emails does any one know anything about his present status? By the way Angel if my Spanish was as good as your English I would be absolutely delighted. If my English was as good as yours I would be more than happy. Cheers Trevor