Public Commander Keen Forum

[gerstrong]

Hi guys,

I have started the integration of the Galaxy Engine into CG. I soon will create some Frameworks to get it working.

What I can tell so far about the progress is:

- EGAGRAPH can already be read, but there are still some errors I'm fixing
- Some functions you have seen in the latest CG, will be available for Keen4-6. We created the engine that way it is flexible enough.
- I have all the information we need to get the full support of Keen 4-6 and also some for Keen Dreams.

For those who are interested in the support, we are still looking for developers that want to help us. Let's work together and make that program a piece of great software like it did ScummVM.

We really have awesome features in CG. We will be able to reuse those under the Galaxy engine. Some things that are really possible and will happen:

- Mods will be supported, because there is a handmade integrated CKpatch code in the program. I also will be concentrating on the ceilick mods of Keen 7 and 8 to get those working straight forward without the need of any dosbox or stuff like .bats
- No calibration or limited gamepad support. Configure your buttons, directx or sdl will handle your gamepad like it happens under CG.
- Music. If we get enough knowledge about IMF, we might be able to play the music on better tuned instruments.
- Sounds will be played through SDL/DirectX, basta! No hardware detection problems anymore on exotic systems.
- Much faster launch and decompression of the games, new methods for that I have been researching for will be there.
- Hi-colour tiles. Use 32-bit colour bitmaps under CG in any Keen 4-6 game. That would be awesome!
- More or limitless saveslots
- and much more...

Ah and I'm working on a new version of UNLZEXE which I want to embed into CG. If someone is interested I can provide a copy. It will be a bit faster and run under Linux32, Linux64 and Win32.

And it will be integrated into CG.

[DSL]

Sounds like awsome!
The only thing i could contribute in is graphics, and you already have an icon... I hope it still works.

[gerstrong]

Of course, we are also using it in the latest Alpha 1 Version.

This icon is awesome.

For graphics we are still looking for someone that would like to make the EP3 Tileset into Hicolour.

[DSL]

[gerstrong]

The tileset is a big bitmap, that has all the level-graphics that are used in the game.

The Bitmap after the fonts is the tileset I'm talking about:


We already have done Ep1 and Ep2 tilesets, they are now VGA and can be downloaded through HQP v1.4. Modifying these bitmaps make the game look like this:



Now CG is able to read bmp, so you can use hi or true colour tileset, and make all the game look a bit better.

When Dos-keen 1-6 were released, they used 16 colours. Galaxy used nice tricks, to still make it look nice, but that was a big limitation, we had back then.

If you want to modify the Tileset of EP3 I can send you copy of our work so far. Only some elements are done. I would be very grateful, if you'd help us.

So the Tileset is one bitmap that needs some better colors, that's all.

[DSL]

I might be able to help you once i get back home from my holiday vacation some week from now.

You could send me a detailed description of what needs to be done in a PM and i'll see whati can do.

[DaVince]

I suggest you also support PNG for full alpha channel support.
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Hi!

My Website. (Games, music, code, random stuff.)

[gerstrong]

@DaVince: Nice idea, but we might need another library. Maybe later

[TerminILL]

You're using SDL for the Linux port at least, right? Whack in SDL_image, find and replace SDL_LoadBMP with IMG_Load, and you're good to go.
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[gerstrong]

Yeah, I also had that in mind. We also could use SDL_mixer, but they also are extra libs and I'm not sure if you need something else. If someone wants to support them and can guarantee that you only need that libs for everything, well then he is welcome to implement this support.

SDL_image is really easy to use, but I want to get sure, that we don't any more libs, as this one suppors a lot of formats.

Sorry, if I don't do it, but I really want to get the Galaxy support into that App and give support of vorticon. We are still removing a lot of bugs. I hope I release the beta today.

[DSL]

My vacation is at an end.
So how can i help?
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May the Well Of Wishes grant you a fortunate new year!

[gerstrong]

Okay, this is what have been done so far. There is still a lot potential for improvement.



The other tiles are already included in the HQP and really don't need modifications. Nevertheless, every improvement is welcome

Here are our already done tilesets:

[TerminILL]

Those tiles are looking niiice
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[Levellass]

Hot darn! Looking forward to this!
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What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.

[VikingBoyBilly]

I never stopped to think what was the statue of liberty doing in washington D.C. ... wait, that's the white house right under it! So the tantalus rays are also targeting New York? Seems pretty strange they'd fire two tantalus rays at the same country...
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