Alien Breed 3D - How to edit sprites and textures?

[dex]

Hello there!

I hope this is the right forum to discuss this. Does anyone know if there is a tool or editor to modify sprites or textures of "Alien Breed 3D"? Or are the game's graphics in any known format that can be openend and edited by graphics tools such as Deluxe Paint or even Photoshop with plugins? Thank you very much for any information in advance.

Kind regards,
dex

[deicidal]

The source code for alien breed 2 is available if that helps

http://aminet.net/search?query=Alien+Breed+3D+

[dex]

Is the graphics format the same in AB3D II as it was in AB3D? However, I would still need a tool that could open/edit/convert Alien Breed 3D II graphics. Is there anything like that available at all for AB3D II or 1?

[deicidal]

Sorry not sure about that, if i get some time (doubtful at the moment) i will have a gander, if no one else can help, I will see if Andy C can shed some lite on the problem

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Wiki

Team17 made the source code for AB3D freely available in March 1997. They released the source code to AB3D's sequel, Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds, on the cover CD of Amiga Format magazine issue 95, and although not mentioned in the accompanying magazine the source code to AB3D was also included on the CD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Breed_3D
You can find the CD on the file server in the folder 'CD/Magazine Cover CD/Amiga Format' (Amiga Format CD #11 (Issue 095 - 1997-03).7z)

[dex]

Hey that's very nice, thank you! However, it would take months for me to create any suitable conversion tool based on the format the game packs its graphics - no doubt that the necessary information can be found in the sources, though. So that might be pure laziness and lack of time for the sole purpose to change some colours in the game. Which would be my actual goal. I wonder if anyone ever made any modifications to the game graphics, are there no mods? Custom textures? Wads? Things like that. By the way, the game seems to store its (compressed) graphics in two files for each sprite or texture (set?), those are ".wad" and an appropriate ".ptr". No idea if this might be some standard format you could actually open with some obscure tool on the net. Any ideas?

[Coagulus]

not mentioned in the accompanying magazine? It says so on page 106!

EDIT Ah, AB3D 1 not 2, I see!

[musashi5150]

As I'm sure you're aware AlienBreed3D uses the copper to generate a chunky RGB display window. I'd guess all the textures are stored as something close to plain RGB values with possibly some kind of compression. You won't be able to open these up with any normal Amiga paint package - so keep hunting for that obscure tool or get hacking

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by dex

By the way, the game seems to store its (compressed) graphics in two files for each sprite or texture (set?), those are ".wad" and an appropriate ".ptr". No idea if this might be some standard format you could actually open with some obscure tool on the net. Any ideas?

Well, .wad is used a sort of container for the Doom and Heretic engine, so there are a few tools for extracting/packing that:
http://www.terrybutler.co.uk/tools/d...and-extractor/

Not sure if that applies to the AB3D wads though.

[TCD]

They don't start with 'PWAD' or 'IWAD', so that's a nope.

[dex]

Yeah, I didn't expect one of those to be of any help anyway. It's still strange that noone back in the day did any modifications for AB3D and put them on Aminet or whatever. Besides some (very nice) control enhancements and a superb hack that adds the lost title music (I'm serious, that's actually what made this game complete), there is not much else in the field of "mods" for this game. But why, it's really not that bad at all

[TCD]

Okay, will delete the old one and rename the new one then. Case closed I'd say

Edit : Wrong thread, but I guess it means the patch mentioned here : http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55423 works

[vroom6sri]

I can't add anything of value here apart from encouragement - I would love to see an better version of AB3D. It was one of the games I awaited with the most hope and then was bitterly disappointed. As I have ranted on several occassions the demo was much, much better than the released game. The whole feel was better and it actually had aliens that resembled those only ever seen from above in the 2d versions.

I'd actually be pleased if someone just hacked the demo to make extra levels from the data contained within.

Anyway, good luck with your work on this. I hope to see a post at some point announcing some enhancements.

Cheers!

[dex]

Wait a second, the demo had aliens resembling the ones from the top-down games? Which demo? Are there several ones? I only know that one demo without HUD and starting in some kind of courtyard with some very colourful aliens - which one did you mean? Do you know of any screenshots from that version?

[vroom6sri]

You are referring to the same one I think. The demo does start in a courtyard (or at least outside) and there are green (OK so not the same colour as the true original aliens in AB) that fire green crap at you. These aliens are drawn as upright creatures as opposed to the silly 4 legged red ones in the released game.

I suppose I should have stressed that I think these green aliens are a truer representation of the ones in the 2d game. I hope I haven't got your hopes up although that seems to be my experience with AB3D. LOL.

[dex]

Oh yes, those green ones ARE indeed better - I mean just look at these shots. http://amr.abime.net/amr_popup_pictu...ilesize=388927 I found a scanned preview of the Demo game at HOL, now I just need to combine the graphics and especially the HUD and textures, with the release Alien Breed 3D and voila! The question is... how...

[vroom6sri]

I remember reading that very article. Probably one of the many reasons I felt let down by the released game. Great potential but something ruined it. Was it rushed? Was a standard A1200 too limited? Did they just give up and conclude the production?

[dex]

Well if I could find the actual Alien Breed 3D 1 sources on that CD someone mentioned, I could look for the original graphics (as weird as it is, the graphics for AB3D2 seem to be there, too - or am I looking at something different here?). But I can't find the AB3D 1 stuff. There is the original background title pic and the red alien as iff but that's about it. Hm, any ideas anyone?

So I found the files, of course they seem to be scattered all around the folder. Even the original green alien is there: Graphics\alien64x64x32 and a bigger version Graphics\alien64x64x64 and also a much better back picture for the level: Graphics\backpic

I uploaded a pic of the correct sprite of the original green alien: http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/4...en64x64x64.png

Those are standard Amiga .iff format and can be opened with any iff tool or Photoshop with the appropriate plugins.

The game seems to use a compressed format, though and I don't know how to get those files compressed so the game recognizes them. I am pretty sure that all we would need to do is to replace the "alien2.wad" and "alien2.ptr" files by a version with the green alien. Maybe with those files in the "Amos" directory of the AB3D2 source, looks like those were the editing/conversion tools they used. However, I am currently quite lost, if anyone know a bit more about the AB3D sources and the whole thing itself - try to help out, as you can see there are a lot of fans still waiting for that one version of AB3D they never released

No wait that's it! Possibly faster approach:
Is there a way to get a version of the original demo or the rolling demo with all files extracted like the AB3D release which has folders? Might be because of the WHDload install, though. The AB3D demos I found, only consist of an executable file with all the data in it Any idea how to extract that? Or is there any HD install out for those? Then we could just replace the graphics for the aliens and the sky back pic

[Doomer]

Check this...

http://www.weedoorsbanging.com/archi...-breed-3d.html

I send a mail to John Girvin, he have a knowledge about data formats etc.

[dex]

Hehe, nice guy, I wrote him too some days ago. He told me that the graphics are 12 bit RGB format, 3 bytes per pixel (for the copper). Unfortunately he also told me doesn't have any conversion tools etc. Ah come on, there has to be some way to hack that games graphics. If I could at least decompress the demo executable, I could just replace the sky texture and that one alien - maybe one or two wall textures as well to make it a bit darker. There's got to be some way