Mike.nl

In order to allow for units to be transplanted from Forces of Corruption to Empire at War I have created an animation converter that reads .ala files in Forces of Corruption's format and can write them in Empire at War's format. Get it here: http://alpha1.dyns.net/eaw/ http://alpha1.dyndns.info/eaw/ http://mike.ultimate-eaw.com/ The other way (EaW -> FoC) is also possible, but not necessary, as Forces of Corruption is able to read those natively. Mini-disclaimer: The file format is based on the FoC demo, and might change with the full FoC version. So I might need to update the converter when FoC is released.

Yes I did say that. But that will probably just be the case for the demo. Seems like they learned some sort of lesson from the EaW demo and don't want people modding this demo and unlock, say, the droideka. Well, they're going to have to try harder than this And I suspect the reason the dark trooper crashes in EaW is because of the different animation format. EaW can't handle FoC's animation files. So the FoC animation files have to be converted to EaW's animation file format before they'll work (if at all).

Not really. Maybe there is some performance improvement, but I don't know how their engine works. The information in the files is exactly the same, just structured different. Think one-on-one conversion.

I've got good news and bad news The good news is I was able to decypher the altered animation files, so the Alo Viewer now works with the FoC animations. Get it here: http://alpha1.dyns.net/eaw/ http://alpha1.dyndns.info/eaw/ http://mike.ultimate-eaw.com/ I particularly like the droideka. That deploy animation never gets boring Now for the bad news. It seems the demo ignores physical files, and only reads from the Mega Files. I've created an XML directory, put the Campaigns_underworld_demo.xml file in it and modified it so the Underworld would start with 60,000 credits. No luck. Only when I hexedited Config.meg to change the 3 to a 6 would the game change the starting credits. So where does this leave us? If I didn't screw something up and the game truly only reads the Mega Files, we need to put any mods we make in a Mega File. I don't know if there are any Meg writers, but it's not too difficult to create one. It would be a bit troublesome to rewrite the Meg file whenever you change something in a file though, but so be it. However, before everyone goes off overwriting the original Config.meg, it's easier to put your altered files in your own .meg file, and list the file in MegaFiles.xml. Just make sure you put it at the end. For example, I made a micro mod that just gives you 90000 credits: http://alpha1.dyns.net/eaw/downloads/demo_mod.zip Oh, and I don't know if simply plugging the units from EaW into FoC will make them work. The animation file format is different for FoC. Maybe FoC also accepts the "old" EaW format, but if it doesn't they'll have to be converted.

Just to summarize: First, I need to update the AloViewer for FoC. Right now it doesn't look for the FoC Demo directory (it will require another update once FoC is released) And also, the animations in FoC are different. I noticed the droideka is present but my Alo Viewer cannot open the animations because of the new and unsupported file format (I expected this to happen). I'm currently in the process of figuring out how to use these new animations. I'll release a new version of the Alo Viewer once that's done. Second, my MTD Editor and String Editor seem to work just fine. So the MTD and DAT file formats haven't changed. Third, to list what's in the demo: Some (fully textured) models I've seen in Models.meg, but not in the game: [*] Thrawn's ISD (basically a standard ISD, but with a blueish hue) [*] Droideka [*] Dark Trooper (level 1, 2 & 3) [*] Imperial Guard Tower [*] TIE Phantom (TIE Interceptor is present as well, but it's in the game) [*] TIE Defender The models file format appears to be unchanged, so they could be used in EaW, if the animations can be converted (maybe I can write a convertor). The demo contains 9 maps: 2 attract maps, the 2 space maps and 5 land maps. However, besides the two land maps in the campaign (felucia kamino), the other three are just placeholders: http://alpha1.dyndns.info/eaw/screens/foc-map.jpg At least it shows the mappers have a sense of humor And from what I can tell, it doesn't seem that we actually have more control over abilities then we do with EaW. There are more abilities, sure. But I don't think we can just add our own or change images now. Anyway, let's all keep looking

Short, practical answer, applicable for your case: Yes Long, pedantic answer: no http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_code_page

I did find this in the Google Cache: Tutorial on how to create new icons with Mike's tool Maybe someone (Orao himself?) could recreate this topic?

I think I solved it. So if you got this error, just download the editor again.

Just FYI, apparently it is possible to get the following error when you try to start it: "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem." This originates from the Visual C++ runtime and highly depends on the computer running the program (as neither myself, nor anyone else that has tried it experienced the error). So if you get this error, don't worry, I'm looking into it.

Well, after having finally finished my String Editor last wednesday, it turned out Evaders99 decided to twiddle bits in PFF's database and make the whole thing come down faster than a brick who thinks it can fly. (Don't even get me started on how the latest backup is apparently from four months ago. Sigh. Goodbye previous posts, hello re-registration process) Ah well, as the saying goes... it happens Now then, on to the reason you all clicked on the topic link: As some have 'complained' that the existing DAT Editor is a bit too simple, I've created my own version. StringEditor v1.0 is done, beta-tested (thanks to Fynbos from Ultimate Empire at War) and released. Get it here: http://alpha1.dyndns.info/eaw/ Some features: Multiple languages (maintain one master file with all languages) Versioning (trace back what you did from the beginning) Set operations (Union, Intersection, Difference) Copy & Paste into and from Excel (and others that follow the same scheme) Support for the CreditsText files Oh, and I called it StringEditor to distinguish it from the current DATEditor. Can't have people being confused, now can we? As usual, post problems and/or questions here, or mail me at my brand new Gmail account (see the site) for anything personal: declarations of love, threats to my life, breast enlargement treatments, or, much, much more likely, wondering how the @$!$ the command line version works