[TOOL] Breckfest v1.5.0 - BMaps made tasty

[Errol]

Errol,

I did a pull request for the following new features:

* Added -norename and -nr commandline option (so that when doing conversions you can have it be the original name)
* Added Overrite checks for bmap conversions (added better overwrite checking, so that if there is a file that is named the same thing it prompts you, this does not happen if the force command line is added)

Can you take a look at do a compile?

Sorry chap, completely forgot about this! Having read through your code and the various posts on the forums I'm going to merge in your pull request but then rejig the flow so you need to use a "-safe" parameter to do the current functionality and your "-norename" approach becomes the norm. The whole .x.bmap thing was more a carry-over from development anyway and really should've been dropped.

So, yeah, I'll get this done and roll-out v1.6.0 in the next few days.

 

[Axarator]

Excellent stuff, first thing I've tried it on is editing the file 'ai_set_default.aist' which is list of what car each AI will use in SP. I set the AI to use Sedans only.

Will you consider writing a short tutorial for it? I am very interested in closed-formula races.

Just use the dump command line and edit the car name next to the player number in notepad. Make sure you hex edit any car names with different length to the original.

 

[The Very End]

I don't quite understand. So well, tried to open the file with notepad. This is what I get:
http://postimg.org/image/3udgtqict/ - picture

Again, sorry for stupid question.

Edit: Then I tried using a hex editor, is this the right aproach? Or is command line the way to go? Never did much with command line before sadly :/

 

[Axarator]

I don't quite understand. So well, tried to open the file with notepad. This is what I get:
http://postimg.org/image/3udgtqict/ - picture

Again, sorry for stupid question.

Edit: Then I tried using a hex editor, is this the right aproach? Or is command line the way to go? Never did much with command line before sadly :/

Yes, notepad is the best for this in my opinion. See where it says european_02? Change that to whatever car.

 

[Mazay]

The windows notepad is buggy and corrupts binary data so that's why it can't recommended for editing files.
Notepad++ or notepad2 seems handle binary data so I think they could be used.
Hex editors are the tools build for the editing files with gibberish/binary data inside so they're quaranteed to do the work right.

 

[The Very End]

I don't quite understand. So well, tried to open the file with notepad. This is what I get:
http://postimg.org/image/3udgtqict/ - picture

Again, sorry for stupid question.

Edit: Then I tried using a hex editor, is this the right aproach? Or is command line the way to go? Never did much with command line before sadly :/

Yes, notepad is the best for this in my opinion. See where it says european_02? Change that to whatever car.

Will try with notepad++, when doing that with normal notepad the game would not load. I suspect it's because the file got corrupted.

Thanks for advice

Edit: Tried with both notepad2 and notepad++, allways get this picture:

If I try to change anything, to lets say 01_american it crashes. Any idea how to fix it? Or even better, maybe you could just upload an file that works (the AI file), and I can put it into my folder?



Edit: link: http://postimg.org/image/5a3fou1dz/

 

[MamieNova]

Possibly a UTF/ISO-8859 format conversion problem (or similar)

 

[Axarator]

I don't quite understand. So well, tried to open the file with notepad. This is what I get:
http://postimg.org/image/3udgtqict/ - picture

Again, sorry for stupid question.

Edit: Then I tried using a hex editor, is this the right aproach? Or is command line the way to go? Never did much with command line before sadly :/

Yes, notepad is the best for this in my opinion. See where it says european_02? Change that to whatever car.

Will try with notepad++, when doing that with normal notepad the game would not load. I suspect it's because the file got corrupted.

Thanks for advice

Edit: Tried with both notepad2 and notepad++, allways get this picture:

If I try to change anything, to lets say 01_american it crashes. Any idea how to fix it? Or even better, maybe you could just upload an file that works (the AI file), and I can put it into my folder?



Edit: link: http://postimg.org/image/5a3fou1dz/

try just change the first car to let's say 04_european

 

[The Very End]

Tried, still crashes :/ seems that if I even touch the file everything goes shit :/

 

[WorldofBay]

sadly there's only 16 skin slots for the AI and not all of them are filled.

so for a 24-car one-model races you have at least 8 skins twice and maybe some missing ones (background color exists but damage results to purple because of missing damaged skin)

could make a race with 12 teams of 2, using the same paintjob, but then you always have to use the same skin

anyways, if you don't have a problem with different cars looking the same in offline mode breckfest works fine to decompress and recompress the ai_set_default.aist file

 

[WorldofBay]

.gmpl files get compressed wrong. the original version is smaller than the version breckfest recreates after simply using -dump and -compress without edit in between.

 

[Mazay]

I have occasional problems compressings files.
I get System.IO.IOException: ...File already exists
It usually works once you rename file and try compressing again.

Edit: The problem seems to be that .bak backup file needs to be deleted everytime. This feels like more complicated than it should be.

 

[WorldofBay]

I have occasional problems compressings files.
I get System.IO.IOException: ...File already exists
It usually works once you rename file and try compressing again.

Edit: The problem seems to be that .bak backup file needs to be deleted everytime. This feels like more complicated than it should be.

the best way for testing is a batch file either way. and with batch file you have a pretty easy workaround:

erase ai_start.scne
rename ai_start.scne.bak ai_start.scne
Breckfest -compress ai_start.scne

just change filename to what you want and rename the .raw file you dumped first to .bak
then always work on the .bak file
after changes start the batch and the .bak file will be exactly the same as before, while the actual file is now your modded version (needs of course backup before like always).

 

[Mazay]

Thanks for tip WorldofBay.
Have you had success with custom start points?

 

[WorldofBay]

not really

the file seems to contain AI information and starting point offsets. however many values just spawn a car in a fully grey area. some little changes spawn the car miles off the map, some set it below the map whilst no value there can set them above in the air. strange things, i found nothing that made sense. it seems to be little-endian, is that true? still no idea what to do there.

at AI information there is a value that makes the AI just turn left all the time, other values make them drive across the map heading for some invisible target on the left they never reach and i also found a value that invalidates the track so that you can never finish a lap...
ah and you can make the AI to forget that it has brakes, then they go flying so often. would be of course more funny if reset didn't spawn into grey area. so the AI won't ever reset. and some camera changes also can make the screen all grey which is the strangest of all things i saw.

comparing ai_start.scne from sandpit6 and sandpit6_rev showed only differences in the AI section (or whatever this is) and no difference in starting point section at all. also AI section has some patterns that stay the same on both files (look at x3, x7, xB and xF columns) but changing some values that differ between those two files didn't change anything at all.

 

[WorldofBay]

i'll just leave that video link here...

before anyone asks: music in background is Korpiklaani - With Trees (finnish metal), forgot to turn it off before recording :-[

 

[dekay1981]

been doing some modding, will add soon

 

[Errol]

Sorry chaps, I've been up my own arse on another project for the last few weeks. I promise I'll make breckfest less shit in the next update!

 

[Purple44]

I have occasional problems compressings files.
I get System.IO.IOException: ...File already exists
It usually works once you rename file and try compressing again.

Edit: The problem seems to be that .bak backup file needs to be deleted everytime. This feels like more complicated than it should be.

the best way for testing is a batch file either way. and with batch file you have a pretty easy workaround:

erase ai_start.scne
rename ai_start.scne.bak ai_start.scne
Breckfest -compress ai_start.scne

just change filename to what you want and rename the .raw file you dumped first to .bak
then always work on the .bak file
after changes start the batch and the .bak file will be exactly the same as before, while the actual file is now your modded version (needs of course backup before like always).

I was getting error too using World batch file. So i did a little tweaking:

erase ai_start_rev.scne
erase ai_start_rev.scne.old

rename ai_start_rev.scne.bak ai_start_rev.scne.old

copy test.raw test1.raw

rename test1.raw ai_start_rev.scne

Breckfest -compress ai_start_rev.scne
pause

I rename the raw start file to test.raw in Hex editor and then have batch file rename file to test2.raw so Hex editor don't get upset if test.raw file name get change.

I rename ai_start_rev.scne.bak to ai_start_rev.scne.old to stop the Breckfest error when compressing raw file. And I have batch file delete old ai_start_rev.scne.old file before making the new one when I run batch file.

******************************

Using the raw dump startpoints file has made it easier to tweak the car position. I have found the hex number that move the car forward or backward, but using the highest ( FF ) or lowest ( 00 ) hex number only move the car about 4 car rows forward or back. I need to make car move a lot further than that if we going to do cop and robber startpoints. Done testing for now, I got 38 hex numbers to to change and see if change will increase how far a car will move: startpoint22..€?.“Ôžg!¢´....ý.w*..€?..C5....g!¢4..Cµ..€?....œ"¨@nŸ¥@N~‡B..€?....#

 

[WorldofBay]

my hex editor loads the file in RAM and doesn't care about it any more, it just saves it at the specified path, no matter if this is another file now (using hex editor MX), that's probably why my batch works for me and not for everyone.