Post#8 » Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:06 pm
Impulse, that's awesome. Check your PMs for the download link.
Meanwhile I've made some more progress. DC maps have usually their content(mdls, sounds, textures, sprites etc which are stored in game.zip) reduced only to files needed by the map in order to save ram and shorten loading time.
This fact can be used in order to optimize each individual map's performance and visuals on the DC. For example if you have a small, rather undemanding map, you could use more complex MDLs and larger textures in order to make your map look more impressive. This goes the other way around as well. If you have a huge map with lots of geometry, you could still make it run at a decent speed on the DC by reducing texture size and by using lower poly MDLs.
This smart method also allows you to play the same map with PC players who might have nicer visuals due to better hardware without caring for compatibility issues.
Well this method also has disadvantages for my converter, because atm it does not have a clear idea about which resources are needed for a map.
That's why in my videos you can notice some missing weapon animations, icons and sounds.
There are two options to do this:
-creating a universal game.zip which would compatible to all maps
or
-parsing the map info and reverse engineer all the content needed for each map entity
I'm going with the first method because it's pretty quick to complete. But it eliminates all the advantages of the official method and might break some maps compatibility and make the game crash caused by limited ram.
The second method is the preferred one but more difficult to complete. I'll go with it once I have all the knowledge needed for proper map conversion.