Crypton

Okey What I need is help with researching arcanum executable and arcanum file formats, like at this moment I'm working on maps, so I'll need help with map sector file format (.sec) research... So you'll need to know a assembler and knowledge of debugging Anyway, if you dont know these things then its okey, I could use any help just let me know what you know about arcanum game, I mean some technical stuff and so on.

Thank you for your input I think that converting source codes for another compiler will be pretty easy because I'm not using almost no delphi unit and most of function are handmade by me. So I'll look what I can do with your request, also at this moment, I think that the most important is research

Thread updated :P Now you can see that there is some objects in maps, I've successfuly made a loading of scenery and partially walls...

You want a plugin for photoshop ? why ? I can make a app that will convert all art files to png for example, it will also create a info file about converted art file, then you can load it normally with ps, and after you finish editing then it can be easily imported back to art file. Anyway, which plugin you mean ? import or export ? or both ?:D I can look at photoshop api, and maybe I'll be able to make some plugins... But there must be more people that wants a ps plugin, I cant do that only for one person so make a pool here or something like that... if more people ask for that then I'll do that sorry... PS: Problem will be that ART files may contains about 255 frames, so when you'll want to import art file to ps then you'll be forced to select which frame you want to import or all 255 images will popup at same time.... or maybe I can do that as layers, every frame will became a layer in ps, so you will have a one ps image only...

Well, its nothing spectacular I think :P just small mod... http://www.sendspace.com/file/tjdlsl If anybody wants any mod for ArtView, just ask here Also I've made a my own ArtLoader which can convert art files in batch mode, convert it to png or bmp, apply transparency and so on...

I did some modifications on ArtView, is somebody wants them: -Automatic file extension association: ART files will have a arcanum icon, when you double click on ART file then ARTView will pop up and you'll see a preview of ART file. -Remembering last browsed folder: You dont need to select a folder you want to browse everytime, now it will remember a folder you browsed lastly and when you launch ARTView it will automatically jump to that folder If somebody wants, I can do any modification ;)

Thank you for making this thread sticky Today I've finished a class for rendering texts, but only from system fonts, so tomorrow I'm going to create a loader for ART Fonts, because I found out that there is a lot of fonts that I did not found on internet, so I must load them from ART file... This week I'll also look at that objects, and I'm hoping that I'll finish research of arcanum object ... so I'll have a walls, scenery, lights and other stuff in ArcanumAlive.

Updated, screenshot posted :P I hope that people will now understand that I'm really started to work on this project again and that I mean that seriously... Anyway, I was thinking about if its possible to make this thread a sticky, so everybody might see this thread... maybe I should ask somebody from forum staff ? hh

Thread updated, I wrote a list of things that has been done in last week...

Well I dont know english well too, so we are on same sinking boat hh... I think that project doesnt need more than 50MB of space Just website (joomla? or maybe html only is enough) and some place for future releases... I could use some спам hosting, there is plenty of them... but it suck because it can be taken down any time and there are also many other limitations Edit: I know php, mysql, C++ and Delphi so if you want to make some tool, just ask via PM I made a plenty of game tools already...

Uf maybe at this time I misunderstood to you... hh You says that its possible to register subdomain at arcanumclub.ru for this project ? like "alive.arcanumclub.ru" or maybe I'm blind :P PS: Are you using any translator ? like from RU->EN ? or you wrote that in english by yourself ?:P

You though that I was talking about that its possible to register old sierra arcanum domain right ? I need webpage for this project, thats why I'm going to register new domain... I tried to find some спам arcanum hosting before, but I did not succeeded so I'm going to buy that...

I'm going to register a domain for website for this project, something like: www.arcanum-alive.com which is спам to take, also I'm going to buy a hosting for this domain

Yes, I'm going to continue work on this project... It could take years to finish that alone, but I'm looking forward to do that... also I'm going to register internet domain for this project and maybe register that on source forge ;)

Still nobody offered any help ? Thats sad because I want to continue on this project...

Wow really nice collection of items.... where you get all these stuff ? Are you trying to make a mod with this stuff ?:P You want to import that stuff to arcanum ?:P

Thank you so much I've already asked on terra arcanum but nobody answered,and I did not found it on net anyway. About download section,well you know its russian stuff,bad to read for me no matter if its translated... plus I did not knew about that there is any download section till now Now I must generate a antialiased bitmap with alpha channel from this font,then create a font engine for loading and drawing text in game. So if anybody is interested to help with generating that bitmap,then please let me know

Its too soon to talk about multiplayer Topic updated....

Well thanks for the answer I can disassemble game by myself,but with few more people it will go much more faster... I was hopin that there will be more people technically aimed,people who know programming but nobody contacted me yet maybe somebody will do it,later...

Yeah I was working on that,the aim was to extract proto table from arcanum.exe to external file to allow people to modify game items without editing .proto files. I was really close to success but I stopped working on that because I had no time at that time.... I can and I will continue with that because decoded proto files will be needed in this project.

Wow I'm really surprised and astounded.... somebody translated thread so Russian language thank you so much.... I was thinking about open gl for a while but I decided to do that in DirectX because many games are made in that. Of course that if game will be completely decoded,then we can make port to OpenGl easily,I heard that opengl is much easier to understand than DirectX I'll be updating this thread frequently,possibly every day.... so look forward for news everyday. Thanks for interest.

This is older topic about ArcanumAlive's first project, ArcanumPascalum, the new Arcanum engine written in Delphi. This project was canceled because of lack of interest from public. However, all source codes has been translated into another language, more famous C++, and this project continues under different name, OpenArcanum. If you are interested in joining, or you are just looking for more info, check out official site at http://arcanum.game-alive.com/ or topic at this forums https://forums.arcanumclub.org/index.php?showtopic=6957 Thank you for your support! If you want to read history of this project, continue reading text below.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 9.7.09 After weeks without any update, here is small one, we have started our new website: http://arcanum.game-alive.com or http://www.game-alive.com http://arcanum.game-alive.com/forums/ Check it out! Update 12.6.09 I've made a short video, if somebody is interested you can watch that at youtube.... Preview Video: Preview Video 2: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 7.6.09 Uf, I did not made too much progress in last 4 days, but at least something was done: -Added simple scenery animations (machines, fires and so on), every sprite has own framerate, but Arcanum seems to use 15 fps as default for every scenery. -Added time to game, yes same time as in Arcanum, which is 8x faster than real time. -Added light switching event, street lights turn on at 18:00 and they turn off at 6:00 -Added constant alpha blending, like bessie uses that -Added sprite scaling, some of NPC are scaled, in bessie mine, spiders are scaled to 25% of original -Added shadows, only shadow direction changing is missing.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 2.6.09 Today, I've realized that I've done a lot of work on this project in last month, you can compare that from screenshots too 3.5.09 2.6.09 New screenshots: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 27.5.09 I've finished roofs containers, and fixed portals, added lights ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 20.5.09 I have really good news! I've found almost all bit flags used in game, including their values and their usage... What this means ? Its actually great because I'll be able to get objects properties, including hidden ones. Also this will speedup a progress of this project, because I'll be able to load any object without errors... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 17.5.09 I've added few things: -2D Lighting, original lights from arcanum, looks very identical to original -3D Lighting, new lights, ambient light, and partially spot lights... -Alpha blending, 3 modes, this was needed to remove black pixels from fire at screenshots below... -Zooming !!! yeah, now we can zoom like in 3D RTS Ideas for new things: -New map format, probably XML based which easy to edit by hand -Random quest and map generator -Dialogs in XML, tree structure will be really helpful here -Easy editable objects, no proto files anymore, so probably again XML -Easy editable sprites, no more art files, just simple png/bmp with XML info -Easy modifiable menu, again XML -Maybe support for lua scripts -Map compiler, that will convert text format to binary, that will speedup a loading time Update 13.5.09 Okey, here is some latest screenshot, I've successfully added a walls and partially portals, like doors and windows, but you can see that I have still some problems with position of portals I need to fix it... I hope I find that problem. Current progress: Update 11.5.09 A lot of changes happened, and I really dont remember them all but: - I've added a ART font loading and drawing procedures - Proper loading of map sectors added - Added support for loading objects from maps, current only scenery a partially walls Current progress: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 3.5.09 I've uploaded current screenshot of what I've done so far on this project, remember that game engine was completely rewritten to different language (Object Pascal).... On that screenshot is only one map loaded, but I can load any map, but without any objects... only with surface. I think that objects will be pretty hard to research, but fortunatelly I've found the most important bits of objets for drawing.... so I think that I could finish object loading in one week. Screenshot, (FPS limiter is enabled): ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 29.4.09 I found out that developing new formats for Arcanum is bad idea at this moment, it will slow down a development of this project rapidly, so I'm going to make a loader classes for old Arcanum formats, after all formats will be researched then its possible to make new formats.... What is done ? - Basic game engine, was rewritten to Delphi and DirectX 9 - Loading and saving sprites from files, including ART files - Loading of MES files - Sprite class for drawing sprites, including transparency - Terrain class for loading terrain data from .SEC files - Sound class for playing wav sounds from .wav file by using DirectSound //Maybe FMOD or Bass will be better ? - Video class for playing Bink спам ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update 27.4.2009 I'm back, and I'm going to continue working on this project... I was waiting too long for any "real" offer for help with researching or programming, but unfortunately I got only one offer and it was only about programming stuff... so I'm going to work on this project alone. Also I've decided to make ArcanumAlive in Object Pascal (Delphi) and DirectX 9 instead of C++ and OpenGL, why ? -Delphi project compiles much faster than Visual Studio Projects -Writing applications in Object Pascal is much faster than in C++ -I need to learn DirectX more for my other projects -I've created some games in Delphi already -I have already made sound engine that uses DirectSound for Object Pascal -And, the main reason is that I'm pretty skilled in Object Pascal programming Also I've decided to make a website for this project, and maybe sing it on source forge... but firstly I'm going to rewrite this thread in way that more people will understand whats going on in this project ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Screenshot (Very old, first stage): Loaded terrain data,no scenery and objects yet.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History: 15.9.2008 Project has started, I've wrote a simple tile engine that was able to render a tiles from sector files. This app was written in C++ and DirectX. After 3 months searching members to create a team, that could work on this project, I decided to stop this project. Also people were not interested in this project, and many of them (you know who) tried to sabotage this project from beginning... 15.4.2009 I've decided to continue on this project, because I hoped that I will create a ArcanumAlive team. Again, nobody joined after all, so I decided to work alone.... 27.4.2009 I've started to work on this project seriously and also I've moved from C++ to Delphi, with hope that it will speedup progress of this project ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool section: ArtView: I've made a small modifications on this nice tool! Whats new ? -File Extension association, when you doubleclick on any .ART file, it will run a ArtView and preview selected ART. -Remembering a last browsed folder. Download Do you want more modifications ? Just ask! Arcanum Debug Mode Enabler: I've found this back in 2008 (posted at TA), when I was researching arcanum executable, this is registry patch that will allow you to show all debug messages from game, it will create also a debug console and it will write all debug messages to debug.txt file in main directory. Also I found that as first(!), after almost 8 years that was game released.... even "DBT" did not knew about that! Download