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What TOOL do people need?

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:03 am
by stratman
Hello,

I'm currently looking at around a 20 day break from a project I'm currently looking on going from around mid December to mid January as I'll be traveling. During that time, I've wanted to do a short term development project just to give myself something to do on long days while I'm waiting for my girlfriend to get off work (when I'm not studying Chinese). Going through my list of project ideas, I can't find anything that fits the time frame perfectly. So I thought about it and realized some Myth tool people need, if there is one, might be exactly what I'm looking for.

So if any map maker out there needs a developer to make a tool for doing something specific in Myth, depending on the scope of what needs to be done, I'd be interested in doing it. Either post or email me whatever idea you have in mind. Hopefully someone needs something :)

-Tim

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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:00 pm
by TheHelmet
Are we talking Mac apps or PC apps?

I'm on a PC so.. :roll: 8)

The thing I'd like the most right now is a way to import journal pictures, win/loss screens and those sort of things into Myth..

Re: ...

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:06 pm
by stratman
TheHelmet wrote:Are we talking Mac apps or PC apps?

I'm on a PC so.. :roll: 8)

The thing I'd like the most right now is a way to import journal pictures, win/loss screens and those sort of things into Myth..
I'm a PC person, but since I'll be in HK for that time, most likely I'll have access to both platforms (despite what my profile says, I'm in the U.S. now). Hopefully it would work on both platforms in the end.

What are journal pictures and win/loss screens? You mean something just to import collections? There is already Tahoe that works on PC for TFL and SB. Would this be for Myth III (which I'm unfamiliar with, but definately willing to learn). A better collections editor has been a goal of people for a long time, and every time I've thought about working on one, someone else already was (some time back). Unfortunately, none ever seem to surface.

If this is what you mean by journal pics and win/loss screens that is. If not, explain to me. I am interested :)

-Tim

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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:20 pm
by TheHelmet
I was under the impression you needed a mac to be able to amber the bitmaps for win/loss screens. Have never tried with Tahoe actually, I'll have to look into that :D

I'll get back to you if I come up with something :oops:

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:15 pm
by A-Red
What would be nice to have--though Iron would have to do it, or give the source code to somebody--is an updated version of Antero that doesn't go berserk over the newer mapmaking features and old limits that have been removed (such as 32 monsters in a container).

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:50 pm
by lank
a windows version of amber - or something with the same level of functionality as a collection editor - has been sorely needed for the better part of a decade. if that's a feasable task, even though i don't use windows myself, then that would win acclaim from all sides. :)

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:56 pm
by iron
heh, I no longer have the Antero sourcecode - lost it long ago. It only took a week or so to write so I'm sure a scripter with some programming knowledge could make a reworked Antero without too much trouble. Even better would be having its functionality built directly into Loathing.

I second lank and many others - a Windows or better still, cross-platform collection editor is needed. Melekor and Industry were each working on one, but neither seem to get close to even beta release stage. Failing that, a model importer/editor like Vegas would be good.

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Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:04 am
by TheHelmet
Oh, yeah, I was thinking about some way to simplify Loathing scripting or something but doesn't really rank that high for me..

A model importer editor sounds cool, 's that what Meshworks is as well?

I still have faith in Melekor, he'll come through. 8)

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:13 pm
by GodzFire
I say finding a way to extract stuff from Myth 3 that are unique to that game. Of course it would be for Mac. :-)

Besides that all the Myth tools I have left are mostly updated:

Amber 2.0b6
Mythed 1.0a2
Patchwork
SoundBlighter
Tag Extractor 1.0
UnTag 0.2b

Untag really filled in a big hole working with Myth 1, 2, and 3 tags. For some reason I can't remember what Mythed did even though I used it in the past. I believe it was also used to extract stuff, in OS Classic. The big one pretty much is Melekor and the new Amber aka Oak.

Oh I know! If you really wanna earn some kudos and praise, consider taking on the task of searching for resources to update the size of the Myth 2 interface.

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:50 pm
by gugusm
Yeah, windows version of Amber is what all of us want :shock:

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:57 pm
by Lugas
As well as an OS X version.

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:20 pm
by Myrd
I will soon release a tool for editing Myth II dialog tags, so if you were thinking of making one, think of something else. ;)

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:26 pm
by Killswitch
GodzFire wrote: snip...

For some reason I can't remember what Mythed did even though I used it in the past. I believe it was also used to extract stuff, in OS Classic.

snip...
Mythed was a tag extractor only for TFL for Mac. UnTag basically replaces Mythed and Tag Extractor (for Mac) as UnTag will work with TFL, SB and TWA tag files.

I agree with most: we need an update for Amber. A-1 priority on that one. Classic on the Mac blows and Windows folks are out in the cold.

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:39 pm
by stratman
I would be happy to try to put together something for collection editing. I do currently have access to some Mac machines so in the next couple days I'll go try to see how Amber works (I've never used it). I know Tahoe never really did the job though.

I'm most unfamiliar with Myth III, but I'm guessing for collections, you want something for doing unit sprites, and that would apply to TFL and SB only right?

I think doing something that is cross platform (java maybe) for this might be the best thing. I personally hate running java apps, but in this particular case, I know the community has been lacking something useful for this sort of work on the PC side forever, and apparently people say Amber needs to be updated (why? what's wrong? etc, I have no idea, heheh).

I'm still pretty familiar with the file formats and stuff, but I'll pop up some old docs and read up on it over the next weeks if collections editor is what I end up doing. To be honest, its something I always wanted to do and since no one is getting close to release, why not.

My plan would be to read up, listen to suggestions, prioritize features, and get a skeleton set by December 18th. Then around December 21 or so (whatever the nearest weekday after 21st is) I would start working on weekdays until January 13 in small iterations to get those features done. At the end of those 20 days, whatever I have done will be open source, and hopefully it runs and is useful by then as well. Its short, but I'll (hopefully my girlfriend will have a job, hahah) have a good ten or so hours a day to split between that and practicing my Chinese writing (and God knows you can only do that so many hours a day without going nuts).

I think the project size just about fits the time frame. Now I just need to hear more about what people want to see.

Also, does Amber deal with mons tags and stuff too? I mean, isn't there something in the mons structure that reference which collections to use for different animation sequences for the sprites? Trying to remember this sort of stuff :) (maybe I should just start looking up, hahah).

-Tim

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:25 am
by iron
Amber is just about perfect. The problem is that it was written for MacOS back in the pre-OSX days, which means on modern Macs it needs to be run in an emulated environment called Classic. This is even more problematic now that Apple has gone with Intel and Classic's no longer supported.

Hence a cross-platform app would be perfect.

Btw Amber just deals with .256 tags - nothing else - and doesn't support colormap collections. Have a play with it on those Macs and you'll soon get the gist of what it does.