Myst Offline: Complete Chronicles

[Ai'ron]

I'd say kudos, but that just doesn't cut it. You're awesome, GPNMilano =).

[Sophia]

Exiting! Anxiously awaiting the tutorial

[Carl Palmner]

/me wants to cry (for joy)!

Looking forward to the tutorial, but also wondering...once you manage to fully convert every Age, do you plan to take the next step--i.e., create a patch that does it all? It would be wonderful to download a program, double-click it, wait for it to finish, and then open up my copy of Uru CC and immediately start playing with Jalak again...

Just think about it--when complete, the only thing this project would lack would be the multiplayer aspect. And by utilizing the old UU code, even adding that is possible. (Sniff).

[GPNMilano]

While I'd love to make a program that would patch Uru: CC into a mix of it and MOUL, it would require distributing the game files for MOUL. The textures, prps, etc. And no forum would host it, and I wouldn't ask them too. For now I'm just gonna stick with writing a tutorial when I'm done. (Though, I warn people, its not easy. It'd be much easier to just distribute the already made files then following the tutorial, but I don't want to screw with anything Cyan may have in the works by distributing their stuff.)

As for multiplayer stuff, I thought about that. When the revelation came that we could start up Uru again without Cyan's servers, I seriously considered starting a server with all of this work, and recreating MOUL again. But It all goes back to not wanting to hurt any future of uru. If Cyan gets the rights back for MOUL, and the game will be run on independent servers, basically a return to UU. I may contact Cyan legal to see if creating a server with the MOUL content is okay. But I'm not going to do that till the rights issue is finalized.

[Chacal]

The kind of things GPNMilano does cannot be automated. Importing a prp file, selecting some objects, re-texturing them. It could be possible to write a python script to work inside Blender, but it wouldn't be cost-effective, especially for GoW people who are presumed to be able to do the manual operations by themselves.

[Tweek]

An unwise presumption in my opinion, people here have varying levels of skills, I feel tools and tutorials should reflect that.

[D'Lanor]

A true patch does NOT distribute any files. It only distributes a diff file. Anything can be patched as long as the source files on the target computer are the same as those you started with.

[GPNMilano]

A true patch does NOT distribute any files. It only distributes a diff file. Anything can be patched as long as the source files on the target computer are the same as those you started with.

Let me clarify. If a patch were to be written to patch MOUL into CC it would have to be with drizzle. Drizzle works as it should, with the exception of the physicals for some regions. Ladder, footsteps, camera, etc. It would be much easier to simply fix the problem drizzle has with converting the ages, than making a patch that would extract the information needed from the PRPs on someones computer, and create new PRPs out of them to be used in Complete Chronicles. Because that information (Read: the objects we see on screen) would still need to be converted for the COmplete Chronicles plasma engine.

A python script for Blender that does the work inside of blender of retexturing, etc. That would be useful. But since none of the ages are getting full conversions. All I'm doing is importing certain objects not present in CC, re-texturing them, and then exporting them as a new prp for the age. The new ages such as the pods, jalak and minkata are getting the majority of the work. Namely to replace their physicals for the regions with new ones.

In laymans terms, If I make a patch, its probably just gonna be with Dustin to fix drizzle so that others don't have to go through the frustration of getting to where I have so far. (Because it is frustrating. Many a time have I scene a blasted error screen on Blender and wished I had an ignore button)

EDIT:

Myst Offline: Complete Chronicles

Chapter 2

There's nothing like linking to relto and seeing your bookshelf in a new light. With that in mind, I decided to focus this mornings efforts on just that. My Relto Bookshelf. A little python tinkering, and my books are back in the order they were in MOUL. The covers are wrong of course, but I intend to fix that this afternoon. It should be a relatively easy fix, I hope.

I decided before I start writing my tutorial I'd give people a little taste so what follows is the instructions to recreate your MOUL bookshelf.

1. SAVE YOUR FILES. Make a backup of Uru just in case you screw something up. So far I haven't had any problems, but you can never be to careful.

2. Erase the save file for Relto. Its listed in the sav folder of your Uru Installation. Depending on what avatar you use. Or how many. Since its impossible to tell by the name of the folder alone which goes to which avatar, just delete all personal save files in each folder. Doing so will erase the last saved state of your Relto, but all your Yeesha pages will remain in tact. Your hut door will be closed when you arrive there.

3. Unpack your python files and decompyle your python files. This can be done with either Plasmashop or UruPython. I tend to use UruPython to extract, but either one works just as good. Once you have your python files, make a copy of the file "psnlbookshelf" In a seperate folder. Open both the original and the new files in your python editor. All you need to change is the listing of where the books go in the shelf. It will look like this:

Code: Select all

linkLibrary = ['Cleft',
 'Garrison',
 'Teledahn',
 'Kadish',
 'Gira',
 'Garden',
 'city',
 'Neighborhood',
 'Nexus',
 'RestorationGuild',
 'Ercana',
 'Ahnonay',
 'AhnySphere01',
 'Myst',
 'Negilahn',
 'Link16',
 'Link17',
 'Link18',
 'Link19',
 'Link20',
 'Link21',
 'Link22',
 'Link23',
 'Link24',
 'Link25',
 'Link26',
 'Link27',
 'Link28',
 'Link29',
 'Link30',
 'Link31',
 'Link32',
 'Link33',
 'Link34',
 'Link35',
 'Link36']

Change it to this:

Code: Select all

['Neighborhood',
 'Nexus',
 'city',
 'Link4',
 'Link5',
 'Cleft',
 'Garrison',
 'Teledahn',
 'Kadish',
 'Gira',
 'Garden',
 'Link12',
 'Link13',
 'Link14',
 'Link15',
 'Ercana',
 'Ahnonay',
 'AhnySphere01',
 'Link19'
 'Link20,
 'Link21',
 'Link22',
 'Link23',
 'Link24',
 'Link25',
 'Link26',
 'Link27',
 'Link28',
 'Link29',
 'Link30',
 'Link31',
 'Link32',
 'Link33',
 'Link34',
 'RestorationGuild',
 'Myst']

You'll notice the pods are absent, Minkata, and Jalak are absent. This is because I haven't yet added them to the library for Uru. When I do I will post instructions on how to add them to your bookshelf. Since This hack utilitizes the bottom shelf its strongly suggested you update your ULM books to different slots. I don't know what would happen otherwise. So make sure the last two slots on your bookshelf are open in ULM.

Once you've successfully edited your python file, open up Plasmashop, and go to the python tab. Uru's python.pak is listed there. Open it up and delete the pre-existing psnlbookshelf file with the delete button. Once its successfully deleted add the new one you made. As long as you've done it correctly it should encrypt without error.

(This is where saving a backup of uru would come in handy, in case it doesn't work correctly)

Once its done, load up uru and visit Relto. Your door should be closed, and when you open it, your books will be arranged in their new order. Happy linking.

[Jamey]

GPN, Is doing all of this bookshelf stuff required in order to put other things in ages like the tables in Kirel, Glass ornaments in Bevin, etc? Or is this just something else you can do with the game files just for fun?

I think I've got some idea of how to put stuff like that in various ages. I think it works just like using Drizzle, NetBeans, and PlasmaShop to convert MOUL ages, only this time, you convert different files. For example, if you wanted the bahro flying around in the city in CC, you would use these tools to convert the following files just like you convert MOUL ages for the offline version:

city_District_bahroFlyers_arch
city_District_bahroFlyers_city1
city_District_bahroFlyers_city2
city_District_bahroFlyers_city3
city_District_bahroFlyers_city4
city_District_bahroFlyers_city5
city_District_bahroFlyers_city6

Then simply drag them into the dat folder in your Uru CC folder.

Now I have NOT tested this at all, This is how I think it may work. Do you guys think it would work this way, or do you guys think it wouldn't be that simple?

Has anyone tested anything like this?

[Paradox]

You must also add PRP files to the .age file in order for them to be loaded.