Vega$: Make It Big! Forum: Editting Things

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Vega$: Make It Big! Forum : Game Development

Topic: Editting Things

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piphowell
Groupie

Joined: 02 November 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 47

Posted: 12 November 2003 at 2:16pm \| IP Logged

Hi People,

I thought the other day, you could bring out a edittor so you could change the lamposts and bins and decore and make your own maps and stuff.

One thing i could think of to save space on the maps is Unisex Toilets, they could be a little bit bigger then the single toilets but it will save alot of time for the cleaners and money, and space on the game.

Pip

Judge
Newbie

Joined: 28 August 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 9

Posted: 13 November 2003 at 5:37pm \| IP Logged

Hi Pip - during development we actually had an underground unisex toilet. It was very small! We changed it for the individual ones as this is a more common format and creates more gameplay oportunities. (In case you hadn't noticed, the gents is a lot smellier, but the ladies take longer to powder their noses. Pretty close to real life, right!)

There's no reason why we can't bring back the unisex - it'll be put on the list of cool things to do!

Edited by Judge on 13 November 2003 at 5:37pm

beavious
Senior Member

Joined: 09 November 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 165

Posted: 19 November 2003 at 8:31pm \| IP Logged

Yeah! Cool things! I like cool things!

Bellagio
Groupie

Joined: 08 November 2003
Location: France
Posts: 49

Posted: 26 November 2003 at 6:06pm \| IP Logged

i'd like to change the color of the building, it may will be nicer , no ?

Black Gas
Newbie

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Joined: 26 November 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 28

Posted: 10 December 2003 at 4:52pm \| IP Logged

so how do we add new textures and models?

any program to convert .lwo, .obj, 3ds, etc to LUA?

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"It takes a big man to cry... And a bigger man to laugh at him."

Ropes
Moderator Group

Joined: 09 October 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 240

Posted: 10 December 2003 at 6:41pm \| IP Logged

Well it'll take a bit of explaining and we still need to release some sort of tool to allow you to do some of this right now.

What we do currently is make a .X model (via Maya) but you can use lightwave or max if there is a suitable exporter. We then load in this .X model into our utility where we apply all the effects you see. When that's saved out its in a .tm format (our own custom format) - if you look in GAMEDATA\GAMEART\OTM Files you will see all of these.

It also converts all tgas used on the model to a compressed DDT format.

We then use a LUA script to bind in game functionality - LUA is a really useful scripting language, more details can be found at www.lua.org

Just check out GAMEDATA\Scripts\Objects\Buildings\Source to see what i mean - something simple like a lamp is a good example.

Anyway if/when we ever release these util we will show you how to do some of this stuff but right now its all on hold unfortunately :(

You can of course change the LUA scripts so some customization is still possible.

Will try and see if we can get a small util out that will convert a TGA file to a DDT file and also display what DDT files a model uses. This way you can still customize models to a large extent by just changing the textures - no promises though.

regards

Edited by Ropes on 11 December 2003 at 8:25pm

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Vega$ Make It Big
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Ropes
Moderator Group

Joined: 09 October 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 240

Posted: 10 December 2003 at 6:51pm \| IP Logged

I found this link a minute ago..

http://www.strategyplanet.com/startopia/modtools.shtml

At the bottom of the page is a TGA/DDT converter - now this isn't guaranteed to work as I haven't tried it but worth a shot if you fancy trying to edit some of the game textures. Don't forget to make backups just in case.

95% of the game textures can be found in GAMEDATA\GAMEART\DDT Files

If it doesn't work i'll have a word like i said before to see if we can release some small util to do this.

regards

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Vega$ Make It Big
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Black Gas
Newbie

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Joined: 26 November 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 28

Posted: 11 December 2003 at 9:54pm \| IP Logged

thanks for your quick and clear response!
I look forward to the release of a model/texture util.

unfortunately, the graphics conversion utils you linked are for '.tga.ddt' files, not '.ddt'

renaming vega$ ddt's to .tga.ddt doesnt work either.

thanks anyway

Edited by Black Gas on 11 December 2003 at 11:08pm

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SlipperyPenguin
Newbie

Joined: 07 January 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1

Posted: 07 January 2004 at 3:36pm \| IP Logged

Hi Guys..

Yep.. I'd be very, very interested in making new objects.. casinos etc..

In effect all I need is something to convert max or lightwave (3ds, lwo, dfx.. even just one format would be good) files to Vegas' file format. Any util would be good (command line or other that takes an object filename and converts it etc..)

That's all I'd really need and the fun could start.

Without this kind of util the game will die. I've seen it happen time and time again. If you want proof that editing keeps a game alive just look at the sims. So please release a converter (no matter how basic) so that we can keep the game alive and not let it die.

thanks

Slippery

Alias
Newbie

Joined: 21 October 2003
Posts: 2

Posted: 08 January 2004 at 9:47am \| IP Logged

The graphic files in Vega$ are stored in an internal format. This format is essentially the same as the Microsoft DDT file format but with a new header and with some of the restrictions of DDT files relaxed. The actual pixel data is stored in DXT5 format. Maybe Ropes could post the header format for some kind person to write a reader?

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John White
Lead Graphics Programmer
Vega$ - Make it Big.

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