Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

About PR usage and development, and about the POP format.
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Norbert
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Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by Norbert »

I have finished the first version of a document that explains how to change PoP1 images:

2011-05-22_Changing_PoP1_Images.pdf

The source document (.odt; OpenDocument) is also available, here.
Its main page on PoPOT.org is here.
Feedback is welcome. Just post it in this thread or send an e-mail.
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Re: Documentation

Post by poirot »

Wow, I love it! Do you want access to the princed SVN sites and web site so you can add links, upload files, edit CusPOP and all that stuff?

PS: my first impression was that it was made in LaTeX.
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Re: Documentation

Post by Norbert »

Hey poirot, I'm glad you like this first version. My LaTeX skills are very limited, since it's quite a long time ago I actively used it. (Back in the days, when I was still studying Computer Science.) Therefore I decided to use OpenOffice.org for the job. Incidentally, more people are able to edit OpenDocument documents.

I may be able to help with updating the Princed websites and software in the future, but I'm currently unable to do so. There are so many other projects that I still have to finish... (Among other things, I have a new Magento programming job since about four months, which eats away a lot of time.) Also, I have popot.org as my playground: I think, for instance, that implementing what I described here could encourage more people to play the various mods that are being created.

By the way, about CusPop... this download at princed.org provides the user with a CUSPOPSITEVERSION.HTML file that has an "action='wp-content/plugins/cuspop/prince.exe'". However, adding a prince.exe file won't make it work. What exactly is this?
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Re: Documentation

Post by David »

Norbert wrote:By the way, about CusPop... this download at princed.org provides the user with a CUSPOPSITEVERSION.HTML file that has an "action='wp-content/plugins/cuspop/prince.exe'". However, adding a prince.exe file won't make it work. What exactly is this?
I think that http://www.princed.org/wp-content/plugi ... prince.exe is a server-side script. (probably written in PHP)
The downloadable CUSPOPSITEVERSION.HTML file is not usable by itself, because it requires a server-side script.
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Re: Documentation

Post by Norbert »

David wrote:[...], because it requires a server-side script.
Yeah, exactly what I'm thinking.
So basically, the princed.org download section starts with a "CUSPop Website version" that nobody has ever been able to really use. :P
Strange stuff.
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Re: Documentation

Post by poirot »

No, the site let you customize your own prince.exe so you can download it and play with it. Each customized prince.exe file is different so the file is generated dynamically depending on what you've filled on the form.

The source is GPL and available from the URL http://www.princed.org/wp-content/plugins/cuspop/src/
I didn't have time to add comments and my name and license on it, sorry about that. As David pointed out, it is written in PHP.
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by Norbert »

Norbert wrote:I have finished the first version of a document that explains how to change PoP1 images: [...]
So, I've been looking into what tricks were used in Repetition of Time, other than the broken room links and such.
About three years ago, Veke was wondering how the huge potions were created:
Veke wrote:It has some very interesting hex-editing, (the huge potion of level 12 being my favorite, and which I haven't still figured out).
It turns out that almost all tricks were done by editing images.
I've created a collage (quite a bit of work went into it) that shows exactly what KingOfPersia changed.
I don't think many mod authors other than KingOfPersia have changed the sizes of images, but PoP can deal with it just fine. :)

Image
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by poirot »

It is also possible to activate resources such as the big window in the dungeon environment and add them to vdungeon with other graphics (the resource id must be the same), then you can change the graphic to whatever you want as long as you use the same palette as vdungeon.

Take a look at Steven Fayers (ecco)'s graphics to see how he played with image offsets to create what I think is the best pop graphic mod.
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by mk1995 »

Norbert wrote:Image
Now I'm still wondering how exactly he managed to change the window in Level 12 to a balcony.
Image
Just to make something clear: I will not reply to daft PMs like "Where can I find X?" or "Can you give me a link to Y?". Most of your questions are likely answerable if only you took your bloody time to look through these forums and use Google if all else fails. Sheesh...
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by Norbert »

mk1995 wrote:Now I'm still wondering how exactly he managed to change the window in Level 12 to a balcony.
[Edit: changed my entire post.]

Ah, I now understand your question.
They are two different rooms in the level that just happen to look alike. ;)
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by Norbert »

Two improvements for future version of this document:
- Mention the PR.bat and PR.sh scripts and simplify things.
- When exporting BMP images, make sure to check Compatibility Options->Do not write color space information. (Else some tile combinations may create distortions.)
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Norbert
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Re: Documentation (Changing Prince of Persia 1 Images)

Post by Norbert »

Norbert wrote: August 23rd, 2017, 3:28 pm Two improvements for future version of this document:
- Mention the PR.bat and PR.sh scripts and simplify things.
- When exporting BMP images, make sure to check Compatibility Options->Do not write color space information. (Else some tile combinations may create distortions.)
Also, maybe someone who uses Windows could go through the steps and write down the Windows locations of all these files.
For example, where GIMP is located, and thus where the .gpl palette is being exported to.
In fact, all this may be different for various Windows versions.
I wouldn't know...

More generally speaking, I'm sure there would be lots of ways to improve this documentation...
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