LOFT TEMPLATES

[luke83]

Hello All,
 Is there anyway to upgrade the list of LOFT templates to  better suit any new art created? Where is this data kept and is it changeable?

Thanks

[Volutar]

No it's not changable. At least before new MCD format will be invented. You may use those oroginal 112/114 or even add new - up to 255 (it is possible).

[luke83]

I am sorry, maybe i have mis-understood , It is possible to add some NEW ones onto the E=end of the original file up to a max of 256 tiles?

 After all these years , has anyone else added new ones already? What Program did they use?

[Volutar]

I believe this can be done with hex editor in binary mode (16bit x 16 lines). I think it is possible to edit this file with editor which can read/write 1bit raw images.

Anyways, this is not necessary. Trying to do mods in obsolete oldschool format, which has died already many years ago... I insist on inventing new tile format. At least for NEW things.

[luke83]

Hex Editors , Well that counts me out

[moriarty]

do you have a link to detailed information about LOFTemplates? only thing I could find was https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Glossary#L[/color]]https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Glossary#L, which really doesn't tell you much.
If you have more info, I might help you on it... I have some basic hex editing knowledge, which basically started when I was editing soldiers and money in xcom savegames, back in the days... as well as stunning all aliens in TFTD battlescape savegames, when I didn't want to fight them

[Daiky]

hex editing, now that was the real modding... today modders are spoiled with things like XML or YAML

on-topic: I know Bomb Bloke from strategycore did LOFTEMPS editing and he had ways to visualize them, don't know if he has tools to edit them.

[moriarty]

absolutely.

I still remember the amazement when I tried to give myself too much money and ended up with negative amounts. that was when I learned about stuff like data types

did you ever edit a savegame to stun an alien? it's really rather weird: if you set their stun value above their current health, and load the game again, the aliens are invisible but your soldiers can still see them. apparently the game checks for consciousness before drawing unit sprites, to avoid drawing "ghosts". then, if you either shoot them or simply press "end turn", they drop unconscious, because only at those points the game checks to see if they actually fall unconscious.

EDIT: oh, I just found https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=LOFTEMPS.DAT]. cool. it's really a voxel model at the LOF level, interesting. It should be quite easy to edit those or make new ones, really. of course it would be even easier if somebody made an editor, but that might just be too much trouble.

@Volutar: what kind of format do you propose as a replacement for this model?

[Daiky]

this guy made an editor: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,265.0.html

But I don't know the status of that project, and if it really can read/write loftemps.dat...

It's like minecraft !! :p Oh no, I'm going to start playing minecraft again, aaarrrgh

[moriarty]

right, I was just thinking about that one... thanks for finding it he was trying to use it for making new graphics, but I guess it's perfect for editing LOF Template data.

[Volutar]

moriarty, simple text format for new tiles (+image). I hope Daiky remembers :-P, we've discussed on this long time ago.

[Volutar]

moriarty, that voxel editor can edit only whole 3d model. You cannot adapt it to edit loft single layers and compose 3d models with them. In order to get this voxel-by-voxel editor work for openxcom, MCD tile format should be changed.

We have to decide either we stick to original MCD format with LOFT table and 12 layer references, or get into precise voxel models 16x16x24 (in this case we have to rebuild every game tile).

In this second case with 1 bit per voxel we'll get 768 bytes per tile (196kbytes for 256 tiles), otherwise (for 1byte per voxel) it will be 6k per tile and 1.5mbytes for 256 tiles (map tileset), which is kinda big, specially if you want to fit this on mobile devices.

Is it really worth it, to spend so much time and effort for bulding voxel models of such tiny resolution as 320x200?

I doubt it. I can make this LOFT (bitmap) editor which will be capable of editing of original MCDs (including LOFT assembling, image and tile mcd fields). But what for? This format is obsolete. I refuse to do anything within stupid MCD format, which is absolutely INCAPABLE to fixes or mods which will require of extra tile flags or values.

This one my little suggest to make maps more solid, less stupid (with inability to stand near northern or western ufo outer wall) was ignored... this is useless. forget it.

[Daiky]

what about YAML to replace the MCD format?

[LCSand]

In the long run something has to replace the MCD and other old game resource formats.
I am a fan of zip files containing xml files and other stuff. You know like all current office formats or pk3(from quake).
Maybe it is time to think about the new formats.

[Volutar]

The thing is modders here didn't hold their horses and want "modding tools" for non extendable original data format, which is stated to be "not changed by even one bit" (because of copyright things).

Daiky, Yaml to replace mcd? You must be joking? With "speed" issue of current yaml engine I can't even predict how long battlescape load time will be (considering there will be voxel object coded into text form). And what about sprites themselves? Also "color rows in yaml"?
Nah. Yaml is only for SHORT CONFIGS, not for any visual: 3d voxels/images/vector data. Who ever will be editing tiles or sprites in notepad?..