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Do you still think GalCiv 1 is fun even with GalCiv II out?

758 votes

1- Yes

2- No

Ship encoder available

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#50 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/20/2003 11:58:26 PM

Mmm I'm pretty sure the alpha channel is somewhere in what I assume is the pixel data area, mostly because it's bigger than it should be. According to the docs, the alpha channel when loaded from an indexed bmp is based on level of grays, so it's a classic 255 levels alpha channel.

I've read that the bitmaps are compressed all the time, I really, really hope it's some kind of RLE because if it's a kind of zip derivative or what not I'm really screwed

. I'll poke around a bit tonight before going to bed but I dont expect much because I'm pretty tired ^_^.

#51 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/21/2003 8:47:08 PM

Mmmmmm the pixels are harder to decode than a I thought. There's some parts I just cant figure out yet. I'm afraid it'll take a while, so don't hold your breath for a finished version too soon.

#52 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/22/2003 12:44:57 AM

If anyone's interested I started working on the saved game files to change my mind. Found out a couple of interesting stuff :

http://www.tauniverse.com/visual-ta/Graphics/GalCiv/SolScreen.png

Link

There's quite a lot of files but hopefuly a galaxy editor for planets and stars doesnt look too hard. I'm just waiting to know if they've got some anti cheat measures built into the metaverse before releasing it. I wouldnt want to ruin it for other peoples. CariElf, FrogBoy?

#53 by Citizen MadMaz - 6/22/2003 1:02:01 AM

Just an FYI: There's a save game editor that someone put out (along with all the trainers and such) when the game first came out. The only thing it lets you edit are the leader/civ names and money.

#54 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/22/2003 1:35:02 AM

Thanks, wouldnt help thought. The name is in plain text so that's easy and I imagine the money is really obvious too, I just didnt think of looking into it yet.

I'm orienting my search more into editing the star type and coordinates, planet stats etc. I think I just need to find the x y coordinates of the stars now and you'd be able to generate a map via an editor.

#55 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/22/2003 3:18:03 AM

I changed the location of the file to

http://www.tauniverse.com/visual-ta/HTML/GalCivFormats.html

Link . I've also broken it down into multiple files for the simple reason that MTD is an archive format for various files and SPR1 and PAL_ just happen to be file formats archived into it. In theory, you could put anything into it.
[Message Edited]

#56 by Citizen MadMaz - 6/23/2003 7:45:02 AM

If you're still having trouble figuring out the sprite format, here's one possible idea. Checkout the file SsBG.tga and startscreen.mtd. The first is a plain ol tga file of the startup screen, while the mtd file contains a portion of what appears to be that same image in the sprite format (which the program superimposes on the upper right corner of the screen after the movie is done playing.)

And of course, you could just use a debugger and step through as mutil loads up the sprite and displays it.

#57 by Senator CariElf - 6/24/2003 1:24:03 PM

Hmm...the links aren't working for me.

#58 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/24/2003 4:46:14 PM

Well only the last one is valid. As I said in the last post, I changed the file names.

#59 by Veteran Dark Rain - 6/28/2003 5:30:56 AM

Mmmm I discovered a couple more things, lot's of the pixel stuff hacked too. I'm going to try to find out the rest as I write a framework to read and write the MTD files plus the SPR1 and PAL_. If you want more infos, just keep checking the website. I'm uploading a new version of the docs pretty often when I'm working on them. Oh yeah and my website URL changed, it's a subdomain now, the new url is :

Visual Designs :

http://visual-ta.tauniverse.com/

Link
For the file formats :

http://visual-ta.tauniverse.com/HTML/GalCivFormats.html

#60 by Senator CariElf - 7/1/2003 3:25:37 PM

Most of our sprites are encoded from 2 pcx files, both indexed. The first one is the color image. The second one is grayscale and is used to get the alpha channel.

#61 by Citizen mdrcmen004 - 2/7/2004 9:17:06 PM

Is it hard to understand?

#62 by Citizen Spartan0691 - 7/16/2004 11:21:24 PM

Ok, i have all the how-do-make things down... however, MUtil i think has a problem because when i create an .mtd file it doesn't come out at all, the colors get screwed up and everything, so i was wondering if any one knows how to solve that problem...?

#63 by Citizen Spartan0691 - 7/16/2004 11:22:11 PM

Ok, i have all the how-do-make things down... however, MUtil i think has a problem because when i create an .mtd file it doesn't come out at all, the colors get screwed up and everything, so i was wondering if any one knows how to solve that problem...?

#64 by Citizen turgotZ - 7/17/2004 9:56:38 PM

Are you loading a sperate palatte file into mutil? If you are dont bother, just load your image file and save them. Mutil support 16bit colour depth.mtd?if your making ships or other animated graphics mdl is the normal extention, it likely doent maker though.

#65 by Citizen Takodoe - 7/19/2004 11:23:14 AM

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