User talk:Neo

Hi Neo,

We (geyser and Alloc) are positively impressed by your recent contributions to the "OBD" knowledge database. Wow.

What kind of activity (professional, Oni-related) has led you to such expertise? What tools do you use to analyse Oni?

OUP could use some expert OBD knowledge right now: we'd like to produce a fully functional release Soon(TM).

Would you consider private dialogue with us (mail, ICQ)? (about TXMP and recurrent data types)

geyser 03:09, 6 March 2007 (CET)

Hi guys,

What's so much to be impressed, I just added some matrices here and there (mostly) ! :)

I've been digging through Oni binary files for some time now (I think it was the summer of 2002 when I opened a dat file in a hex editor out of curiosity and when I saw all this TXMP, PNTA, IDXA, M3GM etc. stuff I thought that maybe I can get something out of this binary format). While I'm not a game developer I have a bit of a passion for 3D stuff so I learned a bit of Open GL and a bit more of Direct 3D so I'm quite familiar with transforms, quaternions, textures etc.

As for used tools: much like anyone else I think. A hex editor, Excel for some things, SQL Server (database) for some others, Visual Studio (while it's file hex editor is quite dull it has a cool memory view in debug mode (you can set the number of displayed columns and the data type to display (integer/float, decimal/hexadecimal, 1/2/4 bytes). Obviously since this was in debug mode I had a program that loaded the DAT file into memory and where I could select a "file" (for various reasons I happened to call them "resources"). In addition I sometimes used a disasembler (home made, don't ask what it is) to stare at some things inside the executable :). Last but not least I have a "viewer" for a bunch of things from Oni (texures, 3D models, animations, environment). Good to test things like what I added to OBAN and OBOA file formats.

As for mail/messenger (MSN or Yahoo) I guess it's OK but I don't feel like posting my mail address in here, it's a public place... any ideas ?

Neo

OK, we won't ask you about your home-made disassembler ^^, but the viewer definitely sounds nice.

Viewers (and exporters/importers) for things other than TXMP is what OUP currently lacks.

Needless to say, we'd like to see those (is it C/C++?) and with any luck integrate them with OUP... ^^

As for contact, our coordinates are available (just click our sigs). My YIM alias is serguei_mechkov.

geyser 02:53, 7 March 2007 (CET)

I only have a few more doubts about the TXMP format. Will experiment a little tomorrow night.

geyser 02:53, 7 March 2007 (CET)

Your homemade tools remind me of someone from the previous Oni Central Forum... Have we met? ^^

geyser 02:53, 7 March 2007 (CET)

Nope, we had not met before. As for viewer I intend to make it available but not right now, I kept doing experiments with it for the last 2 weeks or so and the whole source looks like after a war. The current one is written in C#, I also have one that is written in C++ but it has not been updated in a while so it lacks/gets wrong some things. I'll add you to my YIM list and you can ask for more details there, I'm not familiar with this wiki stuff to write too much... :) Neo

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I've tried to run your Onibrowser several times, but I've failed. The test system is a laptop with WinXp + SP2, .NET 2.0 and XNA 1.0. When I doubleclick on the exe the harddisk makes only some noise for some seconds. That's it. Nothing else happens. No error message, no window. Nothing. Any idea what's wrong?

Can you add some code to the vtuneapi.dll that draws the trigger volumes (volume color: red, opacity: 10%)?

Ssg 12:40, 22 December 2007 (CET) 1. Hmm, that's unusual. Things to check: - make sure you run it from the local disk and not from a network share - make sure you have the correct xna version installed. The latest OniBrowser uses this [Framework 1.0 Refresh]. Previously there was another 1.0 version (without Refresh in title) but that was removed from download. - update DirectX

If nothing works take a look in the event viewer, maybe there is something about failing to start (go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer, Application Log).

2. I suppose it is possible but I'm not sure what it takes. Besides, I already did this for OniBrowser so I'll try to post a new version of OniBrowser one of these days.

Neo

The DirectX update was helpful. Now it works. Thank you.

Ssg 14:45, 23 December 2007 (CET)

2 again. Here's an updated OniBrowser that shows trigger volumes, flags and sounds. You need to upgrade to XNA 2.0.

Neo

Does not work. I've installed XNA 2.0 but nothing happened. Again no error message and no window. The strange thing is that the "old" version of OniBrowser doesn't work with XNA 2.0 too. It needs XNA 1.0. So any ideas what's wrong with the current OniBrowser version?

Ssg 15:50, 3 January 2008 (CET)

Oops... I forgot a file. Please redownload

Neo

Doesn't work either. Same result as above. The "old" version has a XPtheme.dll. Maybe that's the problem? (I've copied it to the folder with the current version but no success.)

Ssg 17:36, 3 January 2008 (CET)

I'm out of ideas. The last zip missed Oni.Files.dll so check if you got it now. XPTheme.dll is old, not needed anymore. Try to take a look in the event viewer for an error about Oni.Browser.exe.

Neo

The event viewer gaves me an error message: "Couldn't find Microsoft.VC80.CRT". I've googled a bit and it looks like a general problem for Vuisal C/C++ programs. So please search the net for "VC80.CRT" to solve this problem. (Microsoft MSDN help: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235342(vs.80).aspx )

I've installed the "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)" (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=32BC1BEE-A3F9-4C13-9C99-220B62A191EE&displaylang=en ) but it didn't help.

Ssg 22:00, 3 January 2008 (CET)

Stupid me, I tend to forget that XNA is actually written in C++ and it needs that. Now the only problem is that you need the SP1 C++ redist. You were close :) .

Neo

Hooray. It works. Thank you. And yes, I was really close. It was a fifty-fifty chance and I chose the wrong. As usual. (Grrrr... Murphy... just you wait!)

I would like to take screenshots as in Oni (screenshot+number.bmp). Do you think you can add such a feature? And can you make your program run in real fullscreen?

Ssg 02:27, 4 January 2008 (CET)

Is there a way to switch the visibility of the flags/sounds/tvs on/off in general and separate?

Ssg 02:35, 4 January 2008 (CET)

oh, a new version - gonna check it out

Kuchumovn 11:31, 4 January 2008 (CET)

• screenshots - I think I can add such a thing but isn't pressing Print Screen key enough?
• fullscreen - ha ha... old versions did that, I think I can restore that functionality easily.
• flag/sounds/tvs visibility - not yet, wanting to do it this weekend

Neo

• screenshots: I would like to create an overview of all TVs. It's not very handy to do that with the Print Screen key. That's why I've asked for a screenshot-shortcut.

Ssg 18:22, 4 January 2008 (CET)

Updated OniBrowser

• fullscreen - F11 key
• screenshot - F12 key
• toggle flags visibility - F5
• toggle sounds visibility - F6
• toggle trigger volumes visibility - F7

Neo

Coooooooool... thank you very much.

Ssg 20:49, 5 January 2008 (CET)

"screenshots: I would like to create an overview of all TVs"

What's the point of creating an overview if we'll edit them?

I mean, TVs are about the first thing we'll hack Very Soon.

geyser 23:23, 5 January 2008 (CET)

Maybe there're people out there who like to create scripts for the original game?

Btw: Very Soon (TM)? Is that the same soon as this? :p

Ssg 02:23, 6 January 2008 (CET)

@ VerySoon(TM): I suppose you haven't tried the Edition?

The COMING SOON thing is more like an inside joke now.

I don't know why I didn't remove the index.php page ^_^

The original TVs are quite unusable for custom logic.

There are partial workarounds, but it's still a pain.

The future belongs to custom-matched TVs and scripts.

But it's OK if you want to do the overview, of course.

Maybe it will help people get familiar with TV setup.

And then maybe they'll start modding BINA, who knows?

geyser 21:27, 6 January 2008 (CET)

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hi, Neo

while porting your TRAM viewing code i noticed that there is some kind of jitter in model animations (for example look at barabas' rocket animation (level 0) - feet are some kind of jittering)

also you use LERP method in your code

i haven't found it in the internet, but i found SLERP - i guess it is the same

so, do you have any ideas why do animations jitter?

or am i just paranoiac?

Kuchumovn 11:02, 9 January 2008 (CET)

jitter: no idea, I don't see anything wrong with that animation

quaternion:

• lerp = linear interpolation in a 4D space
• slerp = linear interpolation on a sphere

They are not the same mathematically but I didn't notice "visual" differences between using one or the other. Oni uses lerp (slerp needs some trigonometric functions so it will slow down things probably) so I did the same.

Neo