Level Editor Issues

Anything to do with Drakan level editing and modifications, post it here! Also this is the place to tell us about your new levels and get player feedback.
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De Profundis
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Level Editor Issues

Post by De Profundis »

Just a question:

Does anyone, other than myself, have issues viewing animations in the 3d window of the editor? Makes it tough creating stomp sequences without a visual reference.
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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

If I remember correctly this is a known issue due to the editor originally made for Win 95/98 and incompatibilities with later operating systems. Someone correct me if I'm wrong or if there is a fix for it. Shelim have you any ideas?

What are you working on Deprofundis?
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by De Profundis »

I ask because it actually worked for me running windows 7 a few months ago. I had an issue in which I had to reinstall windows to resolve and now I'm back to having no visual on animations again. Hoping the reason might be known.

I'm working on a single player series, which I haven't done since maybe 2002? Don't really have a reason. Just trying to spend less money and more time at home. I still work within strict time constraints and that leads me to go for a linear type of world design (basically what you'll see in front of you is what you get) but with a lot of quests and things to do in small areas as well as slight variations on events depending on player choices as ways to extend play time.

A lot of different games inspire the design, but some people here might know I worked in film for a time and I'm inspired to have a cinematic approach to the story. There won't be voice acting, so storytelling will consist of seeing events happen that can be understood without dialogue, and then text screens throughout gameplay where dialogue is needed (lore/quests/objectives/etc).

I've already got several levels on the go, including a dungeon type level in first person view mode and sections in top-down view. I've got some of my own music composed for it as well. I don't do any of my own modelling or major tweaks that require tons of time, so no nifty new features like trade or barter systems and new armour designs, but I'm doing what I can to make it interesting.

No promises either. I'm just working on it for fun, but I hope I'll get it done at some point to share with you guys.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by De Profundis »

It's not the end of the world if I can't get a view of the animations. I can always create STOMP sequences each with a single animation and frap it in-game to create an animation library outside the editor, it'll just make things take longer to do it that way.
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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to seeing it even if it takes a while.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Ah, I forgot about this but did you try the level editor patch that fixes crashing on Win2k/XP? This fixes 3d view crash and should fix your problem on windows 7.

http://www.arokhslair.net/downloads/Engine.zip

Also this topic may help http://www.arokhslair.net/forum/viewtop ... f=4&t=2097
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by De Profundis »

I did try that. Unfortunately I still get a hang on animation loading.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by DeProfundis »

Hey! It's me! Long time since I've posted. Shortly after that last post I had a lot of personal things happen: splitting, moving, traveling, and generally living in locations that I can't connect my computer to the internet due to the wireless card port being more or less pooched.

I can finally connect it again, and maybe work on some stuff for once in the editor. I've been looking at this All in One patch and I want to know if it works in conjunction with the 445 patch, or if it should be patched out of the box, and does this have an effect on using the level editor to any known degree?

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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Hi there. The game has to be updated to 445 then the AIO patch applied - I can't say if it affects the level editor or not but you might want to ask Ucyborg - he put all the work into it and may have a solution. Shelim hasn't been seen on here for a long time but he's another who is an expert at Drakan modding.

It would be good to see your work eventually but due to these issues with modern operating systems a lot of modders have abandoned Drakan so I can understand why it is taking so long to do.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by DePr »

I'm actually surprised there are even still people who do patches for this. That's beyond awesome and highly appreciated.

To be honest, I haven't touched the editor for a long time. I am 30 now and it's only a downtime activity. One thing I was planning on doing was actually taking landscapes from other levels for certain parts and changing them around to save a lot of time. One of the good things about modern systems is that level loading happens in a split second, almost allowing for seamless transitions to play around with player/camera switching, which I am surprised we never saw much of in the past.

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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by UCyborg »

AiO Patch only affects the game itself, I haven't touched the Level Editor. I don't know why it crashes, but finding a fix would probably be a major PITA since there is no source code available and the program itself seems to depend on some quirks present only in ancient Windows versions.

I tried running it on Linux under WINE and even there it immediately crashes without that patch mentioned above, even with Win98 compatibility. After applying the patch, some STOMP sequences can be viewed entirely, while others will make it crash immediately, while on Windows, they all seem to crash at certain point. On Windows, it worked once without crashing, but I was unable to reliably reproduce it since.

I haven't messed with DOSBox, but with certain build of it, it's supposedly possible to install Windows 98 on it and even get some 3D acceleration working, which is needed for 3D view to work. If the editor bugs just because of newer Windows, DOSBox may be a possible solution. Not ideal, but there really isn't a lot of options.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

What about running a virtual machine? Almost all modern CPU's support virtualization (VT-X, VT-D, Hyper-V etc) which normally has to be enabled in the Bios of your machine. You would then need a copy of VMware player which is free and then you can install Windows 98 on that. Vmware has limited hardware graphics acceleration so I'm not sure if 3D preview would work nor if indeed Drakan itself will run.

If anyone still has a copy of Windows 95/98 or even 2000/XP it may be worth a try...

VMware player can be found here https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#d ... player/4_0
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by UCyborg »

3D is only available for Windows 2000 and later. I tried running the level editor on XP with VMware and it's the same story as on Windows 8.1. Also, while the game runs, it's slow (which is to be expected) and graphics is glitchy; on some levels, terrain doesn't render, Arokh's fire looks like a bunch colored rectangles etc. I haven't tried Windows 2000 yet. It's likely the same.

On Windows 98, you don't get 3D and even to start level editor, you must manually change resolution to whatever you can set in Display properties, because for some reason, whenever VMware scales virtual display, something in Windows breaks and starting level editor gives some DirectX error.

That's why I suggested DOSBox. DOSBox SVN Daum is the variant that emulates Voodoo, but putting Windows 98 on it could be quite a challenge. There are some different tutorials online on the topic.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Well it was worth a try. Guess with such an old game there isn't going to be any solution really other than have a dual boot system. Even then getting such an ancient OS to run on modern hardware would be a problem. Lack of drivers etc.
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Re: Level Editor Issues

Post by De Profundis »

I am still running windows 7 and viewing stomp sequences aren't so bad. They seem to only crash at the very end of the sequence and only the 3D viewer crashes, so it's an easy work around. The biggest issue that i have is that opening the 3D viewer for individual REO with animations, it freezes as soon as you select an animation, which is why i was creating a video library with FRAPS so I had a visual reference. In that case, even if the viewer does crash, I'm familiar enough with what's happening to know if I'm doing things properly if i stick with static shots. Kind of like playing an instrument without hearing it.

It just sucks because it takes so long to do, but it's not impossible. There are certain landscape items and buildings that you can only see parts of in 3D when they require multiple pieces to put together, so i have to find them in uther levels to set their positions relative to one another and group them before I can place them somewhere.

That said, I still suck at creating water the way it is supposed to be done. Professional designers would cringe at my work. Pretty much making it so that if you don't see it, it isn't there. Fly cheats would be very impractical.
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