Most likely due to detail level. CAOD has slightly more detailed graphics.

So all the files you sent me are CAOD.

No, don't even own it.

That's strange cause all your files have the larger Shapes.vol then the AOD DOS I downloaded.
:hmmm:

Most if not all the downloadable versions are not patched.

The ships in CAOTD are textured, whereas the ones in DOS AOD are not. Could this have any relation to the problem?

It could. Interesting to figure out.
The smaller file will probably be best to work with to understand the shapes.

I prefer unmodded as safer! I have no experiance modding software I think the factory graphics look great!


Christopher Tarana

I agree. We also don't want to try to make AOD more like SH3 (vice versa in fact would be better).
But the work already done and being done isn't doing that and add to the game vs. trying to make it something it isn't.

I have extracted all .dat files from AOD.DYN, they can be found below in the link. I have also posted ALL the extracted graphic files from both SHELLVOL.DYN and AOD.DYN in a new thread.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jI4...ew?usp=sharing

@Jeff, you have probably already extracted these already, but there is an intriguing .dat file called COUNTER.DAT, it contains the information below. Could it be a lead to some of the inner workings of AOTD?

MISC
INIT
LUMP
SCENES
MONO
EVENTS
AI
DIALS
CLIPPING
IO
LOOP
MISC_VM
SIMRATE
DRAWING
MOVEMENT
COLLISION
TEMP1
TEMP2
TEMP3
TEMP4


Also, reading through SUBSIM.EXE in HxD is interesting.. Has anyone ever seen a UFO in the game?

I have to correct myself regarding my earlier post in the other thread, regarding BRIDGE.PAL. It is indeed used by the game, and is in fact loaded in right after all the TOWER.BMP files.

How AOD loads in various files, and their order can be viewed by running DOSbox in debug mode (DOSbox SVN DAUM has this included), and directing the output log to a text file. This is interesting! Here is a short example logfile i made, just starting AOTD, selecting single patrol, convoy encounter, starting the sim and then going to the bridge view:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1taB...ew?usp=sharing

It will output a log of everything that happens ingame, and the files that are loaded accordingly, so I recommend trying this! Also, the log confirmes that AOTD will indeed look for the files it needs in the SIM folder, and then afterwards in the .DYN archive if it cannot find a standalone file.



-By the way, from now on I will post everything I find out relevant to modding in this thread. In my other thread with the graphics mod I will just post updates and additions to the mod.

I have made a new torpedo stopwatch, see the screenshot underneath. It works in many screens, and I have got the palette stuff worked out. Problem is it crashes the game in some screens like the map screen. And when in bridge view, the are that should be transperant shows garbled pieces of what seems to be other textures in memory.. For some reason AOD seems very finicky about the LZW compressed BMP sprite files. Engie will not save in LZW, and because of that the file size of my new CLICK.BMP (3 sprites in 1 file) is much larger than the original. So I suspect that may be the cause of the problem. The strange thing is if I try to make a new CLOCK.BMP using a solid block type clock like the original, the game won't accept it. But this new one with transparent background works ok, at least this specific file. Some of my other variations dont. Weird.


https://tinyimg.io/i/quSi3Vv.png

I placed "ACE-OUT.EXE" in AOD's "SIM" folder per the instructions.

I went into DOSBOX, navigated to this folder, ran "ACE-OUT AOD.DYN DAMAGE.BMP" and it spit out the "DAMAGE.BMP" file in that folder.

Awesome!

But no matter which graphical editing program I open it with, it gives me a file corrupted error.

Any ideas? I am on Linux if that matters, but I used dosbox to extract the .BMP so I don't think it should.

Great to hear that you tried it out! The problem is that it is no ordinary BMP, and normal graphic editors won't open it. You have to open it with Engie, the program I have linked to and included. In Engie, you can open those files, view and save. The BMPs that ACE-OUT spits out are files containing multiple frames/images. So for any file with .BMP ending, you should choose "save as frames" in the Engie file menu.

BUT you have to make sure you open those files with the corresponding palette file, and save while the correct palette is loaded. I assume you have downloaded the archive with all extracted files from AOD? The palette files are in there.

It doesn't matter if you are on Linux regarding Dosbox, but I have not tried Engie in Linux. Maybe it can work under Wine?