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ModKeen 2.0 released!

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 5:10 am
by adurdin
Like that's big news. What was wrong with the old one? Not much really. But this new one fixes all that and can handle Keen 4, 5, and 6 also. So if you can be bothered upgrading, get it here: http://durdin.net/andy/keen/modding/files/modkeen2.zip (90 kB)

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 7:09 am
by KeenRush
Commander Keen says: "You tech adurdin!" :)

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 8:29 am
by levellord
fixes all that and can handle Keen 4, 5, and 6 also.
Ah, is this the commander Keen 4-6 modding tool we've all been waiting for? Anyone got an unlzexe'd Keen4 executable (Unlexe and unp don't seem to work with me.)

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 10:11 am
by adurdin
How are you using them? The necessary way is to open a command prompt at a directory containing both keen and unlzexe (or unp), and run "unlzexe keen4e.exe" (or "unp keen4e.exe").

Keen Dreams

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 7:05 pm
by Frenkel
Are you ever going to support Keen Dreams in Modkeen?

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 8:22 pm
by adurdin
That's planned for 2.1. :)

squiggle

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2004 11:49 pm
by xtraverse
Questions on XSPRITES.TXT:

The clipping rectangle--is this used for drawing the sprite or for collisions or what?

I was looking at 4SPR0193 (one of the slug). It's clipping coordinates were [10, 8, 21, 23]. x1 and y1 seemed to be where the collision rectangle started, but x2 and y2 were different than the clipping rectangle, which is [10, 8, 22, 24]

And is the origin an offset from the top left of the image or the top left of the clipping rectangle?

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 4:12 am
by Br1ck
You mean in the third section of the sprite bitmap? Currently the clipping section of the bitmaps doesn't work. At least AFAIK. You must edit the coordinates in the text file.

I've made a program that I threw together. IMO it makes it much easier to edit the clipping and origin--via a dragable clipping region overlaying the sprite. It also has a few other handy features (importing at the click of a button, etc.)


As to the origin coordinates Andrew Durdin had this to say:

The origin of the sprite is the point of reference used for it in the
game. Essentially, it marks where the "position" of the sprite is
relative to its picture. This is particularly useful with animations.

Consider the yellow "hand" creature from Keen 5: the sprite images used
when it's rotating can all be sized to avoid wasted space (for example,
when it's vertical, it is a tall thin picture; when horizontal it's a
wide, short picture), and for each image the origin can be set to the
point about which it rotates. In this way, although the images are all
different sizes, and the point of rotation is drawn in a different
location in each image, they will all appear in the right place when
animating.

Or consider the wormmouth: the point of origin can remain the bottom of
the sprite: so with the "attacking" images, when it suddenly becomes
much taller, the sprite position remains the same, although the
y-coordinate of the image on the screen is lower. If the origin of each
sprite was fixed (as in Keen 1, 2, 3) to the top-left corner of the
sprite image, then you'd need to have larger bitmaps for each different
picture, with wasted space in most of them.


Another example: If you set the originY of the "Demo" sprite (4SPR0005.bmp) to 60, it'll show up near the center of the screen :)

,,

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 5:06 am
by xtraverse
Ah, well I hope that gets in the next release. Thanks

Release date

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 1:44 pm
by Frenkel
How long was this program already ready? In other words: Did you wait for a 3/14 release or was it just finished?

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 3:20 pm
by KeenRush
KeenMod supporting Keen Dreams in the next release? Cool!

Oh, and that program you've made sounds pretty useful Br1ck. I'll try when I need it.

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 8:01 pm
by adurdin
How long was this program already ready? In other words: Did you wait for a 3/14 release or was it just finished?
I began it around the 1st of March, and had it ready to release on the 13th. It was only *just* finished.

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:36 am
by Ilsoap
Does this mean that there will be some sort of KeenEdit for Keens 4-6 too?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:50 am
by levellord
We can only hope. It will free us from the memory constraints of windows. (Wanna bet not even dosbox will run Ted5 in the next version of windows?)

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 2:48 pm
by KeenRush
Heh heh, yeah! Code something new KeenEdit up, maybe with C/C++ this time to make it faster? As long it's for DOS.. :) (Though, by the speed the Q-Basic made is just good for me..)