Prince of Persia

Robert once asked here that how many graphics sets do exist.
After this I realized that, unlike PoPOT's custom levels page, there is no comprehensive collection of all modified graphics.
The Total Pack has many of the graphics, but not all.

In the first post, I focused on the VDUNGEON.DAT and VPALACE.DAT files.
In the attached ZIP, I put the files and screenshots that show what do they look like, plus a table with the author, year, source and comments.
I am planning to do this for the other files in the near future.

If you know any graphics sets that I left out, please tell me!
I already found some here: viewtopic.php?p=10992#p10992

Here are some random thoughts on this, please let me know what you think:
- Cool stuff, this is very useful for people who want to pick custom graphics for their mods.
- For some people it might be easier to scroll through a web page with this information. I could put this up at popot.org (and give you credit for the work you've done, of course). [Edit: Or princed.org, of course; not everything needs to be on popot.org.]
- Maybe instead of not showing the torch flames and saying they are in PRINCE.DAT, show them and say they are in PRINCE.DAT.
- I'm not sure I understand your chomper blood reasoning. In the images for Prince of Wateria, for example I don't see chomper blood, but I didn't delete any binary files and used PR 1.3. In fact, I've carefully made sure the blood looks good on the custom chompers in both the dungeon and palace levels.
- Maybe place the dungeon wall shadows somewhere in the lower left of the rooms. I'm suggesting this because they are 'usually' the images that are used to create custom elements in rows and columns further to the north-east. The same goes for the palace wall pattern variations. Like the windows, these elements are on the background only, which means they are perfect for mod authors to use for creating strange effects. Two examples are KingOfPersia's Repetition of Time and my Prince of Wateria. Since you placed these elements around the north-east corner of the rooms, certain customizations are off-screen. (Like the dripping window in Prince of Wateria and the fake open door in Repetition of Time.) Maybe also use two rooms for dungeon graphics, to gain space to show off these customizations of wall shadows/patterns and windows.
- I think the dungeon screenshot "rise of the prince lvl1.jpg" was added by mistake?
- Maybe include a LEVELS.DAT file with your custom levels 1 and 4? (In addition to the level0n.dmp and level0n.plv files.)
- Maybe this thread should be moved to the "Prince of Persia 1 for DOS" board in the POP GAMES section of this forum? If you agree, I'll move it there.
- PoP1 Studio includes similar collections, but for some of them doesn't show all possible elements. I can't actually run the program (problem with the .NET framework under GNU/Linux), but I can install the program and check the Database/ directory. From what I can tell by looking through the images there, the PoP1 Studio's overviews are less structured and less complete.

Norbert wrote: - For some people it might be easier to scroll through a web page with this information. I could put this up at popot.org (and give you credit for the work you've done, of course). [Edit: Or princed.org, of course; not everything needs to be on popot.org.]

That's what I thought, that's why I mentioned the custom levels page.

Norbert wrote: - I'm not sure I understand your chomper blood reasoning. In the images for Prince of Wateria, for example I don't see chomper blood, but I didn't delete any binary files and used PR 1.3. In fact, I've carefully made sure the blood looks good on the custom chompers in both the dungeon and palace levels.

I didn't put blood on the test level.
Also, that bug is present in only those files that are marked with "chomper blood is missing!" in the list.csv file.
These are: VDUNGEON.DAT_green, vdungeon.dat_pr08_samples, Vdungeon.dat_spf_tv1.

PR 1.3 does not seem to export them correcly; it either crashes (green, tv) or exports only some of the images (pr08).
The pr08 file can be exported in raw mode (--raw), but the two other can't.
In the case of pr08, PR 1.3 can export only those images that are not compressed, i.e. the byte at offset 5 is 0xB0. The other images have 0xB1 or 0xB2 at this offset, that is, they are compressed with RLE.
Upon closer inspection, it seems to me that the length of the decompressed data is not what it should be. I think it was made with PR 0.8 (as the name suggests), and it seems PR 0.8 had a bug.
I don't yet know what is the problem with the green and tv files.
Yet another bug to fix in PR...

Norbert wrote: - Maybe place the dungeon wall shadows somewhere in the lower left of the rooms. I'm suggesting this because they are 'usually' the images that are used to create custom elements in rows and columns further to the north-east. The same goes for the palace wall pattern variations. Like the windows, these elements are on the background only, which means they are perfect for mod authors to use for creating strange effects. Two examples are KingOfPersia's Repetition of Time and my Prince of Wateria. Since you placed these elements around the north-east corner of the rooms, certain customizations are off-screen. (Like the dripping window in Prince of Wateria and the fake open door in Repetition of Time.) Maybe also use two rooms for dungeon graphics, to gain space to show off these customizations of wall shadows/patterns and windows.

A second room would be better, since the first room is already crowded.
This second room should be shown only if those images don't fit into the first room.

Norbert wrote: - I think the dungeon screenshot "rise of the prince lvl1.jpg" was added by mistake?

It shows a mod that has custom graphics; the mod was not released by its author.
But yes, then it's not needed.

Norbert wrote: - Maybe include a LEVELS.DAT file with your custom levels 1 and 4? (In addition to the level0n.dmp and level0n.plv files.)

I attached it to this post.
Note that you need to enable all resources.

Norbert wrote: - Maybe this thread should be moved to the "Prince of Persia 1 for DOS" board in the POP GAMES section of this forum? If you agree, I'll move it there.

Okay.

Norbert wrote: - PoP1 Studio includes similar collections, but for some of them doesn't show all possible elements.

I just checked it, and these are those that are not in my collection:
- An older version of Endless Tomb. (13_24)
- The cga/ega graphics that I mentioned in the first post. (13_25, ..., 13_31, 16_15, ..., 16_21)
- "New trick bootcamp" (13_17) spikes are invisible?
- The Dragon Temple by the_mad_joob (16_9)

David wrote:That's what I thought, that's why I mentioned the custom levels page.

Alright, I'll look into this next weekend.

David wrote:I didn't put blood on the test level.

Maybe it would be cooler with blood. (Tile type 0x12 with modifier 0x80 will be supported in the next apoplexy. For now it can be added with a hex editor.)

David wrote:Yet another bug to fix in PR...

...and PR will be even more awesome.

David wrote:A second room would be better, since the first room is already crowded.
This second room should be shown only if those images don't fit into the first room.

Or just take into account all the space in both rooms and spread out everything more. In the light of constancy, and it would be easier to put customized sets alongside the original to see what has changed, plus it wouldn't be necessary to look into which images don't fit into the first room. (This would otherwise require additional custom levels just to check this.)

I have fixed the three buggy graphics files. I attached them to this post.

1. The crash was caused by an invalid entry in the index with ID=0, address=0x7974, size=0, while the size of the files are 0x4D6A (green) and 0x3985 (tv).
I modified PR to ignore entries if their address is bigger than the file size.

2. About the RLE-compressed images that PR didn't export: I modified PR so that if the decompressed data is too long, PR just ignores the excess.

3. And of course I added the chomper blood from the original VDUNGEON.DAT. (plus res268.bmp and all the binaries, which are actually zero-height images)

Norbert wrote:Maybe it would be cooler with blood. (Tile type 0x12 with modifier 0x80 will be supported in the next apoplexy. For now it can be added with a hex editor.)

Or with RoomShaker's Custom modifier button. (Which, surprisingly, does not work on open/close buttons, the only tiles for which each modifier value has a different meaning.)

Norbert wrote:Or just take into account all the space in both rooms and spread out everything more. In the light of constancy, and it would be easier to put customized sets alongside the original to see what has changed, plus it wouldn't be necessary to look into which images don't fit into the first room. (This would otherwise require additional custom levels just to check this.)

Plus, the second room could have an open level door, because the inside of the level door can also be customized; I've done this with Prince of Wateria, for example.

I made the following changes:
- Moved the wall patterns and the window to a second room. I skipped one tile between the wall patterns, because they are two tiles wide in the brown spf graphics.
- Added a level door to that second room, and made the already existing open button trigger it.
- Added a bloody chomper to the first room.
- Added a third room which contains only a right-half level door. In the brown spf graphics, it was redefined as a very big image.
(see http://www.popot.org/popuw_forum_archive/608a.html)
- Added a fourth room to show the big pillar top and bottom of the brown spf.

I attached a file which contains these:
- the new levels.dat
- screenshots of the original graphics (for reference) and the brown spf, repetition of time and wateria graphics.

Tell me what you think.

David wrote:Tell me what you think.

I like it.
While, in theory, elements could still overlap (for example, the far left wall shadow over the window), this is now unlikely to happen and (almost) everything should now have been taken into account.
In my opinion it's fine.
Will you be creating an updated all-graphics.zip?

As a side note, while ecco put all the effort into embedding those "brown spf" graphics into the DAT file, I have some doubts about whether he created the original graphics himself. IMO there is a clear contrast between on the one hand the very impressive shadows, textures and carvings/engravings, and on the other hand the somewhat amateurish way some elements were put together. (Then I mean both 'combined elements inside images', and 'combined images inside rooms'.) Or, what's also possible, he's very skilled at creating standalone elements and not that skilled at combining them.

From what I can tell, there's only one mod on popot.org that uses the right level door of "brown spf" (Levels08) and merely at one location (room 5 in level 9; plus in the demo level). I've attached a screenshot of that room. (Click it to properly see it at full size.) It looks like there's a back alley there.

Norbert wrote:Will you be creating an updated all-graphics.zip?

Yes, I will. It will contain the fixed DATs and the new DATs I found in the PoP1 Studio.

Norbert wrote:the somewhat amateurish way some elements were put together

From you screenshot I see that what you're running is not the original version.
In many of the mods on popot.org, LEVELS.DAT contains "decorations" added by the Total Pack. This is one of those mods.
(You complained about this here and here.)
Those "decorations" are wall patterns, windows, skeletons, disabled/stuck spikes, torches, broken floors, stuck floors.
Especially the stuck floors and the disabled spikes are telltale (the most obvious is when they appear on level 15), because most mods don't contain them originally. (But some do. For example Arabian Nightmares has many stuck spikes.)
Some of these modifications disrupt the custom graphics used by the Levels08 mod.

I went through all mods on PoPOT that contain levels.org and this is what I found:
(I'm using PoPOT's mod numbers)
- levels.dat is decorated in 11,15,16,22,23,25,27,28,29,39*,43,51,61
(39 is the Random Tournament. Should it be present at all?)
- levels.dat is mirrored in 33,51,58
- yes, 51 is both decorated and mirrored.
In all cases, the LEVELS.ORG files contain the non-decorated and non-mirrored levels.
Also:
- 86 contains two concatenated levelsets in levels.dat. (I wonder how it happened...) Levels 1-6 are similar, the second has the original levels 7-14.

David wrote:

Norbert wrote:Will you be creating an updated all-graphics.zip?

Yes, I will. It will contain the fixed DATs and the new DATs I found in the PoP1 Studio.

Nice.

David wrote:11,15,16,22,23,25,27,28,29,39*,43,51,61 [...] 33,51,58 [...] In all cases, the LEVELS.ORG files contain the non-decorated and non-mirrored levels

Thanks a lot for that information.
I'll make sure the LEVELS.DAT files in those packages become what the levels.org files are now. [Edit: Done.]
Yes, now that room of Levels08 looks even better.

Here is the updated all-graphics.zip.
It's actually a 7-zip within a zip.
The 7-zip is for the smaller size (so the forum accepts it), and the zip is because the forum doesn't accept 7z files.

Okay. I'll start with VDUNGEON.DAT.
I will only include different versions on the web page, to prevent confusion.

So, of the 49, I won't include:
- VDUNGEON.DAT_intodungeons (same as original)
- vdungeon.dat_illusion (same as original)
- VDUNGEON.DAT_poparabic (same as original)
- vdungeon.dat_pr08_samples (same as dark blue)
- vdungeon.dat_pr08_samples_fixed (fixed, but still "(same as dark blue)")
- VDUNGEON.DAT_green (has a fixed version)
- Vdungeon.dat_spf_tv1 (has a fixed version)
- VDUNGEON.DAT_wooden (same as pirates)
- VDUNGEON.DAT_original13 (same as original)
- vdungeon.dat_ice_pack (same as hwdun01)
- vdungeon.dat_hwdun01 (virtually same as ice)
- vdungeon.dat_hwdun02 (virtually the same as wooden)

Norbert wrote:I'll start with VDUNGEON.DAT.

This will have to do, because I don't want to spend too much time on it.
http://www.popot.org/custom_levels.php? ... UNGEON.DAT
Maybe I'll improve it in the future. I'll do VPALACE.DAT tomorrow.

Norbert wrote:I'll do VPALACE.DAT tomorrow.

http://www.popot.org/custom_levels.php? ... PALACE.DAT
Maybe the download links should be on the left-hand side, or I could increase the size of entire website.
Not right now though; I'm going to put together code for the mods.xml.

David wrote:I am planning to do this for the other files in the near future.

Okay, now I collected all FAT.DAT, GUARD.DAT, KID.DAT, PRINCE.DAT, PV.DAT, SHADOW.DAT, SKEL.DAT, TITLE.DAT and VIZIER.DAT files.
(Though I don't think that anyone would want to reuse TITLE.DAT files from existing mods.)
I attached the collection to this post.
Like previously, it's actually a 7-zip within a zip.

While collecting, I noticed that some downloads on PoPOT.org contain different graphics than the "official" releases of the mods.
I also found some mods that are not on PoPOT.org at all.
I listed these in notes.txt.

There are no screenshots yet.