The 1024x768 Project

[QuasarDonkey]

Well I've been using Gimp to do all the editing, it has most of the same advanced features as Photoshop. I've already managed to reconstruct the background for the federation by splicing parts of the various screens and filling in any gaps. Here's a snapshot (800x600):


Using layer blend modes, image thresholding, etc., you can subtract away the background leaving only foreground graphics which you can manipulate, and superimpose on the resized background, as seen here (1024x768):


I'm working on the WDF file for this screen now to see what it looks like in action.

[Tethys]

That looks like a jpeg i hope you are using png's as a base as I can see some pixelation along the lcars, it looks good though

[QuasarDonkey]

That looks like a jpeg i hope you are using png's as a base as I can see some pixelation along the lcars, it looks good though

Yeah of course, I just used JPEG for demonstration purposes, since the real images are nearly a meg each.

[anjel]

looks really good !!! keep up the good working
Tell me what can i do to help.

[QuasarDonkey]

I'm working a few things out with thunderchero, but I'll be reorganising all of this shortly. Basically I've finished the patch tool for 640x480 and 1024x768, and thunderchero made some resized graphics that work, but are a little ugly. I'll be posting all the info soon. Basically we'll have 3 projects, 640x480 and 1024x768 scaled versions, and an extended 1024x768 version with new screens like above. I'm thinking of modifying my WDF tool to allow simple drag-and-drop editing, since that's tricky for 1024x768 even with UE.

[Tethys]

Drag and drop editing would be ideal. Also, cut and paste editing would be good to have too.

[QuasarDonkey]

Some of you are probably eager to play with this, so here's the patchtool for patching trek.exe to 1024x768 or 640x480:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/botfrespatch/files

To patch to 1024x768, copy Trek.exe to the patch tool folder, and run patch.bat.
For 640x480, edit patch.bat to read:

Code: Select all

patchtool.exe 1

You'll find the WDF files scaled to the different resolutions in the WDFs folder. Copy whichever ones into STBOF.RES e.g. using UE or 7zip.

Finally, you'll need resized graphics. You can resize the TGAs from STBOF.RES yourself, or use this 1024x768 version that thunderchero created:
http://www.4shared.com/file/-aw0cJ1K/1024x768.html
Note these graphics are scaled using nearest neighbour resizing, and look pretty ugly. I'm working on new fancier resized graphics, but I still have a few problems to iron out.

As an alternative, I've started creating a new 1024x768 version of the graphics by enlarging the backgrounds and WDFs without resizing any graphics. UE's WDF editor seems to be capped to 800x600 though. If someone else can confirm this, we can ask DCER to fix that.

[QuasarDonkey]

I've made some progress with my automated resizing system, at least for 640x480. I think the results look pretty nice:

(ignore JPEG distortion)

Soon enough I should have a complete 640x480 distribution.

[Tethys]

Nice seems like its going good, I do notice the *9.fnt needs a / edited in. Perhaps more as well.

[anjel]

niiicely done, looks good, the borders of the main menu, when you click right button, looks a little pixelated. The rest looks GOOD !!!

[QuasarDonkey]

I have an update to the patchtool / WDFs. Basically the previous patch release incorrectly draws the graph when you finish or retire from a game. This fixes it. Also my WDFs cause UE to crash out, so I've written them to be friendlier to UE:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/botfrespatch/files/

On that note, TC sent me some patches to UE to allow it to work with the 1024x768 WDFs. It works, but the UE window will go bigger than 1024x768, so it can be a bit tricky if your screen resolution is lower. Here's the patched release of UE:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AS54EMWB
It should suffice until DCER properly patches it.

[Deks]

Nicely done thus far.

May I pose a question?
Would it be possible to make a 1280x800 version or is the 1024x768 the maximum that the game supports?

[Flocke]

Nicely done thus far.

May I pose a question?
Would it be possible to make a 1280x800 version or is the 1024x768 the maximum that the game supports?

Have to admit I wondered on this, too.
So I just had a look to QD's code patching, found he patches asm position 00401FB0 for resolution mode, had a deeper look to asm source and found it gets evaluated at 005136DF.
There you can see it's a BotF internal switch choosing between resolutions 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, these are standard resolutions supported by nearly every hardware.

But if you take a look at mpr calls, BotF just iterates the devices and resolutions and makes it's choise. It should also be possible to use other modes iterated by MPRGetDeviceName/MPRGetDeviceDriver/MPRGetDeviceResolution
They are also listed by mprtest.exe contained in botf folder.

For my system mprtest finds the following modes:
driver: 0, device: 0
res 0: 640x480 16bit
res 1: 800x600 16bit
res 2: 864x648 16bit
res 3: 960x720 16bit
res 4: 1024x768 16bit
res 5: 1152x864 16bit
res 6: 1280x960 16bit

for your system also 1280x800 might be supported by mpr, start mprtest and see what it tells you.
However, main work is to adjust wdf interfaces and graphics...
I believe it's better to just do the 1024x768 version cause it's the highest resolution supported by every system nower days, but for some try, maybe QuasarDonkey likes to add code for other resolutions.

BTW I like the idea to optimise screen space with 1024x768 resolution mode, and nice progress so far!

[Tethys]

Yes the space optimization is what I think is key here, never liked the small galaxy screen

[QuasarDonkey]

Deks, good question. Flocke, awesome answer.

I had incorrectly assumed that MPR used the same resolutions on all systems -- 0: 640x480, 1: 800x600, 2: 1024x768. But just to be certain it's not an anomaly on Flocke's machine, can an anyone else run MPRTEST.EXE and get any different resolutions to the standard three?

It does create some interesting possibilities. As part of the project to resize all the graphics, I've become familiar with ImageMagick's Perl API, which allows automated image processing. What I'm thinking is to automate the process of enlarging the backgrounds, and I can do the same for the WDFs. This way, we can all have a custom version of BotF tailored to our own maximum screen resolution. That'd be sweet. It will take quite a bit of work, but not as much work as doing it manually.