Trismegistus con mit cum Ex

[Holy_Diver]

Here (http://www.swordofmoonlight.com/Trismegistus/Downloads/TrismegistusEx.zip) is a trial/teaser for Trismegistus with Ex

It's not the official Trismegistus I want to go up for outsiders, but please try it / tell me what you think / if it works for you. Hopefully Todd and I will be able to integrate Ex into everything available on this website etc throughout this month, or next 30 days-ish anyway.

This package incorporates everything I think Som can do for Trismegistus at this time. There's just a few more things I wanna work on before an official release, including trying to get rid of the restart soft-requirement. Basically once you unpack the archive and run the game it will ask you to restart. You can either A) restart or B) until you do restart you'll have to edit the Trismegistus.ini file by hand and if you change your settings in game they won't be remembered.

I remember a day when putting anything new on your Windows OS meant you'd have to restart your computer, but now days you can pretty much run Windows for weeks until it finally crashes and you have to restart. So I do wanna get rid of this requirement one way or another. Personally I won't restart my computer for some program.... I'll as soon wait a month until I happen to restart, so...

It's not really a requirement that Ex work that way, but its the only way to make a game work out of a readonly drive, like a CDROM or a network share -- and also the only way to have a non-ascii .ini file name. The main reason I wanna do better somehow is because it doesn't work if the path to the folder has any non-ascii characters in it. The only prob is afaik the only way to make it work is to somehow replace an interface in an other process. I'm guessing it's possible but its a whole other level compared to the trickery Ex has indulged in so far.

I also wanna clean up some rough spots around the edgess that no one will likely ever see. And there is some trouble with shadows not blending correctly into fog, but I'm pretty sure there are no shadows in Trismegistus. The included SomEx.dll should look virtually identical whether your video card is Shader Model 2.0 or 3.0 (I reckon most of us have 4.0 or 5.0 cards these days, I really don't know) and I plan to add 1.0 (if possible) before done here and hopefully spruce up the other possible targets just in case anyone ever sees them.

The only problem I'm aware of is if you stand in a certain spot near the beginning of the game a phantom tower will pop into view in the distance over the wall, but its a really small spot. That tower is really the only thing in the game (first 6 maps or so anyway) that really dictated the draw distance. Normally (when extending the draw distance) it is visible from the starting point basically, I'd thought I'd gotten rid of it, but I'd noticed it still popped up in one specific spot earlier today. If Tom rebuilt the map with optimization disabled it would probably become a non-issue. The tower would still be there, but the problem is really that it pops in/out so. In fact I think if one map tile was just lowered .5m it might not show up either.

Maybe something could be done about the Status/Compass display options because I'm pretty sure Tom is not using them.

I used the debugger to explore many of the maps but not all. I reckon if you get that far into the game a glitch or two more won't deter you. Plus I don't wanna spoil everything for myself

The main improvements are:
-Smooth windows experience
-No sound dropout
-All around solid graphics (wysiwyg)
-Unlimited lamps / more vibrant lighting
-Further draw distance caps off sky (fog is same)
-Fog saturated stuff blends into the sky
-Cleaned up a handful of graphical eyesores
-A slew of little Ex features/bugfixes
-Probably much better performance
-Fonts come with game

Mainly there is a lot of quality stuff the untrained eye will probably totally miss even with a side by side comparison, but your subconscious will thank you I think.

The game can also be easily translated into other languages (http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/ex/lang/Trismegistus/) and I may look thru the script at some point inserting Unicode in place where it would seem to help (pretty quotes, arrow symbols, etc)

You may need this (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en)

Below is the Ex.ini configuration.

Code: [Select]

TRISMEGISTUS

[Boxart]

game_series = Trismegistus

game_title_with_sequel = Trismegistus

game_version = 1.1
game_edition =  First Ed
game_year_published = 200X
;game_date_published =
game_first_edition_year = 200X
;game_first_edition_date =

game_legal = This game is a product of From Software's Sword of Moonlight KING'S FIELD Making Tool. It is not produced by nor is it endorsed by From Software.
 
game_auteur = Tom Eversole
game_thanks = From Software

[Author]

;This section is for authors especially. Players should not make
;changes without authorization from the author to do so. The values
;of these settings should not change if/when this file is trans-
;lated into different languages.

international_production_title = Trismegistus

software_company_name = Hguols

[Legacy]

;settings in this section override the settings in the game
;ini file. If this file or the game ini file is readonly (such
;as on a CD-ROM or part of a compressed archive) this section
;will have no effect. Any key value pair will be written over
;the initial ini file each time the game is played.

[Launch]

launch_title_to_use = Trismegistus

do_fix_controller_configuration = yes
do_fix_spelling_of_english_words = yes

[Folder]

;Uncomment this to save your game in your Saved Games folder
;for Vista users, and in your Application Data folder for pre-
;Vista Windows operating systems. This will be done by default
;if playing Dark Destiny from a CD-ROM.
;do_use_users_saved_games_folder = yes

;Alternatively you can manually specify a folder for your game
;by uncommenting and setting the following setting to the address
;of the folder you would like your games to be saved to. Environ-
;ment Variables (eg. %HOMEPATH%) will be expanded if set.
;saved_games_folder =

[Locale]

;Note: only Microsoft Windows defined locales are supported and
;may be required to be installed. Microsoft's "Locale Builder"
;custom locale creator can be supported on demand if need be.

;Locale settings are one iso639 language code and one iso3166
;country code separated by an underscore (ll_CC) with an optional
;@variant modifier, ie. (ll_CC@cyrillic)

;Eg. play in Japanese if your Windows locale is not Japansese
;locale_to_use_for_play = ja_JP

;your computer/user locale will be used by default
;locale_to_use_for_dates_and_figures =

do_use_builtin_locale_date_format = yes
do_use_builtin_english_by_default = yes

do_use_abbreviation_prefix = yes

[Window]

window_title_to_use = Trismegistus

restrict_aspect_ratio_to = 4:3

;Set to 9 for Direct3D 9 mode. Defaults to 7
directx_version_to_use_for_window = 9

shader_model_to_use = 3

do_force_fullscreen_inside_window = yes

do_auto_pause_window_while_inactive = yes

;This will keep your game from from changing to 640x480 resolution
;during the intro/ending screens and in game movies.
do_scale_640x480_modes_to_setting = yes

;1:1 (pixel perfect) mapping to your digital TV/monitor.
do_center_picture_for_fixed_display = no

;Under Direct3D 9 this puts the game in true fullscreen mode.
do_not_compromise_fullscreen_mode = no

;Might help interlaced TVs/monitors. Direct3D 9 only.
do_use_interlaced_scanline_ordering = no

;Disable "vsync" when set to yes. Direct3D 7 not yet supported.
do_force_immediate_vertical_refresh = no

[Option]
 
do_pause = yes
do_cursor = yes
do_mipmaps = yes
do_alphafog = yes
do_rangefog = yes
do_dither = yes
do_highcolor = yes
do_anisotropy = yes
do_lights = yes
do_sounds = yes

[Detail]

;set to 1 to disable anisotropic filtering.
;mipmaps_maximum_anisotropy = 1

;Ms wait before showing hourglass. Or 0 to disable.
cursor_presentation_timeout = 250

;Use 80% calibrated, 20% original Som parameters
lights_calibration_factor = 0.8

;number of Shader Model 1.x light calculations
lights_vs_1_x_unroll_x = 7

[Adjust]

sky_distance_multiplier = 1.7
sky_fadeline_multiplier = 0.8

[Bugfix]

do_fix_slowdown_on_save_data_select = yes
do_fix_graphics_device_interfacing = yes
do_fix_oversized_compass_needle = yes
do_fix_clipping_item_display = yes
do_fix_lighting_dropout = yes
do_fix_elapsed_time = yes


;EOF/Enjoy Trismegistus~

Maybe you can help with the dates?


UPDATE: If you're considering downloading this at this point, there is a patch download (patch.zip) on the next page. Probably should've attached it to the top post, but didn't.

[Holy_Diver]

UPDATE: The "spectral tower" is actually not on the starting map thankfully. It's on the "other side" map.

Also I'm pretty sure there are supposed to be numbers beside Intellect/Magic Ability Level (for the record) ... I will have to take a look at the translation file to see what's up with that. It's just a trial, but I will let you know when you can download a new translation file from the translation website to fix this

[Holy_Diver]

Here is a fix for the Intellect/Magic Ability parameters...

You just need to add "do_use_contextual_prefixes = yes" under/around "do_use_abbreviation_prefix = yes".

I guess this feature had never been tested thoroughly... there were some bugs, that require the attached SomEx.dll to be copied over the one in the EX/SYSTEM folder.

Probably "Magic Ability Level" should be translated to Magic Ability.... with the correct fonts there is no space between that and the number when 2 digits.

[dmpdesign]

I didnt even notice this was here until I read a different post of yours.

I am going to download it when I get home and see how it goes.  Will leave you some feedback so you know all went well.

Good job.

[Holy_Diver]

It's taking me a little longer than I'd anticipated to prepare a final version of Trismegistus, so I recommend downloading it/checking it out in the meantime. Just remember with the final release time comes to open regedit, and search for "IniFileMapping" (Local Machine) and delete any keys there that look related to Som games.

If I can get the lights back to looking ok I will try to upload a new copy of SomEx.dll (along with a new Ex.ini file) with some of the recent improvements later today or tomorrow.

[Holy_Diver]

I intend to do some further work with Trismegistus' sky. I'm going to use the images.key file to replace the sky texture with one that is just double resolution with four copies of the texture (assuming it wraps) in each quadrant, which should have the effect of making the clouds smaller / less pixelated. I'm also going to try to see if the halo/band texture can be replaced so it can be made softer towards the top...

And anyway there is one last touch I don't know enough about to bother with, but I know some of you do. Basically I'd like a new dome .mdo file (I'm pretty sure they are .mdo) with a fair amount of polygons to the following specs...

Code: [Select]

Logging sky Y-coordinates...
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.875
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
1.28921
1.72276
1.72276
1.28921
1.72276
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
0.640367
1.28921
1.28921
0.640367
1.28921
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125
-0.125
0.640367
0.640367
-0.125
0.640367
-0.125

I'm assuming it's a half sphere (inward facing) starting at -0.125 and with a radius of whatever the highest number in the list is plus 0.125.

I'm not sure how many polygons is ideal, however the ones that come with Som are squares just about as tall as the screen, and about 8 per the entire 360 degrees. So I figure we can do better. At least four times that.

I'm (third time's the charm) not just shouting into the wind about this. I really want/expect one of you to step up to the plate.

[Holy_Diver]

I found out a little bit about skies last night / and managed to tweak the first map of Trismegistus to great effect, though I still need to formalize a lot of the stuff I did.

A) The band/halo around the sky is because the sky background doesn't actually go all the way up to the top.... the top is capped off with either the fog colour or some fixed background colour (probably fixed) ... it might definitely be interesting to use the fog colour instead as some kind of extension, though Ex doesn't yet have a per map framework in the .ini file it's definitely doable since Ex does know what map is loaded. Actually there must be three parts I'm thinking, because I don't know otherwise how the cap is rendered. The halo seems to get blended over.

B) All parts are in the .mdo file, and I only see two textures. Which means the cap must be a solid colour defined somewhere. Complicates preparing a .mdo file anyway a little.

C) The band/halo not blending seems to not be intentional. It happens because colorkey knocks out the top row of pixels which should be blended instead, but they fall below the knockout level (less than 8,8,8)

I can fix it by adding a colorkey disable fix to the images key, but I want to see if there is not a more systemic reason for this. I think anyway the dev team did not intend for the colorkey to be interpreted the way it actually is. They only specify to knockout 0,0,0 but for 15bit textures that's <8,8.8 ... so I wanna see if maybe the sky textures are 24bit and if so whether or not they are in both 16bpp and 32bpp mode. If possible it may help to distinguish between the two types and apply colorkey differently. If the textures drop down to 15bit in 16bpp however the only way to know for sure is to track the texture through the GDI interfaces where the colour conversion likely occurs. Anyway, if things go well it may offer a fix for holes in some files like the Triple Fang. There's probably a good chance though more files previously without probs would start sprouting black pixels where they don't belong, but anyway... it's worth investigating. It may also be I that I should be tracking the colorkeyenable state... but it's caused probs in the past. It may be it's only supposed to apply to textures and not blit operations. Will have to revisit that as well.

D) Raising the resolution of the sky will definitely help I think, but it dawned on me the unique way the sky swims like a flame might be lost with a higher res model... so I wonder if the design was intentional. Still I think a higher res sky would on the whole be better, and might just make the swimming more subtle. It may even be possible the animation code has the swimming built in, but I more suspect it's just a side effect of linear interpolating the texture versus spherical interpolation. You could also probably jitter the sky vertices a little to give them some more swirls. Kind of reminds me of the animated water in the opening area of KF2.

E) Bumping the mist texture up to 512x512 (by making a 2x2 quilt) really made a difference in terms of a polished feel. It probably seems to move faster. But let's be honest, the skies are more like an etheral snow globe than a real sky of any type. It definitely seems to work with Trismegistus to create a haunting / lush environment, and it felt good to see everything just so for the first time.

[Holy_Diver]

Actually on second thought, it's not much trouble to do a rolling fog, like across a landscape. However I think a point sampled fog would be easier to manage. I think ground fog tends to settle at a natural elevation and level out. But I'm not positive. I can see like outdoors fog rolling across the landscape. I'd have to look outside on a foggy day to get a really good idea. The only trouble with a rolling fog model is how to deal with the edges once you want to stop the fog. Basically if you stopped the fog suddenly it would still ramp up/down to the next pixel on the fog map, so you'd need to hide those areas. Whereas with a flat shaded fog so to speak it would just clip off. Though you'd also need to hide that. Ideally on a 200x200 map you could divide a tile between a wall, but I'm not positive that will always work.

There is also the question of whether you want a smooth fog like the fog we have, or like a dry ice fog where you can clearly see where the fog terminates. For a dry ice fog noise could be added to make it appear to boil a little.

My idea for this stuff is to do everything on a 200x200 map, and use the 56 pixel border (256x256 total) to store meta info about the texture, like what kind of fog you want, and where the elevation of the map is, units etc. I'd go ahead and implement this tomorrow-ish if I had a test file. Maybe when I start mucking around with the .mpx files I'll toss together a tool to generate an elevation map from the .mpx file. That would give you a kind of place to start anyway. An interactive painter (where the changes become immediately visible) would be nice but probably won't come for a while... not without a custom map editor anyway.

[Verdite]

Sorry to report that this doesnt work for me. I tried to run the trismegistus application and nothing happened other than getting two registry edit boxes, and a restart prompt.

There was alot of loading going on though. I couldnt really use any other apps until it was finished and when it was nothing happened when i tried to run trismegistus.

[dmpdesign]

Holy, try John's custom sky out, it was a lot better than the sky that came with SOM and might have what you need.

www.swordofmoonlight.com/SOMTools/CustomModels/Map/NewSky.zip