Re: AotI Offline (Unofficial) Expansion: Despair and Hope
Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:08 am
Alright, coming off of a few weeks of crunch time at work (spoilers: it sucked!)...
I'm looking a bit deeper at the "porting PSP2i monsters" thing. So far:
1. I found a place I can stash all the monster data outside the .exe without requiring a bunch of extra work to make it load and stick around. It's a file that the game loads on startup and keeps around until shutdown. It's not the gigantic NBL that contains everything ever (I'd prefer not to add anything else to that one, if I can--you've that the mission packs are incompatible with any of the other item edits, this is why). It was the swear filter. The game loads that NBL at startup (even offline), stashes it somewhere, and preserves a pointer to it, which is all I need. As long as it doesn't contain the actual swear filter text file, the game will gladly ignore its contents.
2. Spent a bit of time working on the PSP->PSU model converter code. It's still not great (all my PSU work has some really nasty habits in it), but it should work for both monsters and maps now without much manual tweaking. I also fixed the lighting on Sand Rappy. You'll notice in the take 2 video, the Sand Rappies were always fully-lit from all sides; that's been fixed now.
The Sand Rappies did worry me for a bit, though. I fought a few in PSP2i and saw that they always peck 4 times (and then backflip 3 times), but they weren't doing that in PSU... turns out they only do it at low HP and I'd hurt them a fair amount on PSP2i trying to get rid of the other enemies that were with them, oops.
Bonus screenshots:
Sand Rappies just doin' Rappy things
Helga's arena from PSP1, properly ported (this one is cool)
I'm looking a bit deeper at the "porting PSP2i monsters" thing. So far:
1. I found a place I can stash all the monster data outside the .exe without requiring a bunch of extra work to make it load and stick around. It's a file that the game loads on startup and keeps around until shutdown. It's not the gigantic NBL that contains everything ever (I'd prefer not to add anything else to that one, if I can--you've that the mission packs are incompatible with any of the other item edits, this is why). It was the swear filter. The game loads that NBL at startup (even offline), stashes it somewhere, and preserves a pointer to it, which is all I need. As long as it doesn't contain the actual swear filter text file, the game will gladly ignore its contents.
2. Spent a bit of time working on the PSP->PSU model converter code. It's still not great (all my PSU work has some really nasty habits in it), but it should work for both monsters and maps now without much manual tweaking. I also fixed the lighting on Sand Rappy. You'll notice in the take 2 video, the Sand Rappies were always fully-lit from all sides; that's been fixed now.
The Sand Rappies did worry me for a bit, though. I fought a few in PSP2i and saw that they always peck 4 times (and then backflip 3 times), but they weren't doing that in PSU... turns out they only do it at low HP and I'd hurt them a fair amount on PSP2i trying to get rid of the other enemies that were with them, oops.
Bonus screenshots:
Sand Rappies just doin' Rappy things
Helga's arena from PSP1, properly ported (this one is cool)