Aces of the Deep Modding tutorial and tools!
 

As promised, I have written a tutorial on modding AOTD, based on my findings so far.. I have also included all tools needed. If anything is unclear please ask me here and I will try to explain. Everything can be found in the download below.

:salute:

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

Thanks for these too. I plan on diving into them later today/tomorrow. The various new screens are outstanding too !

I notice the readme in this file is for AOTP. Am I correct in assuming the same info. in it would apply to AOD ?

Thank you, I am happy you like the mod! :salute:

Hmm, what readme are you referring to? The AOTD modding tutorial I have written myself for Aces of the Deep..

Yes, all info I have listed applies to AOTD.

Oops, sorry for not being clear. The UP2NOWAP.txt readme.

Disregard; I see what's up now after spending more than a glance at things.
Trying out the various tools a bit. Very handy !

Yes, especially Engie is really helpful in this regard. There are two problems I want to find a solution for, one is the LZW compression of BMPs which Engie cannot handle, and the second is that Engie hangs when you try to save over a certain amount of frames to a sprite BMP with internal type SCN/OFF.

Take the "TOWER" BMP files for example. There are four of them, that builds up the bridge views in 4 parts, covering 90 degrees each. They are all Dynamix BMP sprite files, 16 frames in each BMP. The internal palette is greyscale, type "SCN" with compression off. But when I try to save my own modified BMPs (I have tried many different approaches), Engie hangs when saving to SCN/OFF. I have yet to try to change all frames though, so I am not 100% if I am doing it right..

I would very much like this new bridge with lookout concept to work, and maybe improve the internal view of the tower a bit. This is frame 0 of TOWER1.BMP, with my own sprite added:

https://tinyimg.io/i/zRHDfvE.jpg

Good idea, very nice ! One really big plus about modding AOD is that unlike SH3, it doesn't need much if any gameplay modding so nice additions like this are able to be concentrated on.
I use a camera file in SH3 that allows me to move right up to the front of the bridge, "in front" of the watch crew, so the non-crew AOD bridge view never really bothered me as I couldn't see them in SH3 either.
But this addition would be great.

This would indeed be a great addition:Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

So, I can see the file menu and folders but can't actually open or download anything? :06:

Tried Internet Explorer, Edge, and Mozilla Firefox; All the same thing? Am I doing something wrong here?
Tim

That's weird.. You don't get any download option? I checked the link just now and it works fine.

I was quite a bit wrong here regarding SCN\OFF. OFF does not mean compression is "off", but rather has something to do with offset for sub-images. I found a great source on the file formats here:

https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki...N.2FOFF_format

Nice stuff Mate!
:up:

For extracting the DYN files Game Extractor works great!
You only need the FREE basic version.
http://www.watto.org/game_extractor.html

I use Firefox. Click on the download icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

@Andreas86,

You mention you have some code you can't compile.
Would you mind sharing that code?
Being from the 80's maybe C code?

As to Hex Editing?
I started with free editors. I moved to SweetScape 010 LONG ago for it's features.
It's not free but once you buy it and learn it's capabilities? There's nothing like it out there!
I bought it years ago around version 3 and am running version 12 now!
I have used it to figure out AND write Scripts and Templates to work Animations in SH3, SH4, and a bunch of stuff for SH5.

For serious Hex Work? I don't think there's anything better! And I've been doing Hex for 30+ years!

Now if you want SERIOUS information and help on Game files?
https://forum.xentax.com/index.php?s...421e40b58139b8

Yes I'm a registered member there but under a different Handle.

Well, I didn't save the info but I found it online, think it was a source for LZW/huffman compression from the 80s? As I understand it caught on with many game developers.. But coding / compiling /decompiling etc is beyond my understanding. See if I can find it in the browser history though.

No problem. I've got some code and a few programs now to test.
:03:

@Jeff-Groves: Is there any chance you could help me work out how to save the TOWER frames back into SCN/OFF format sprite BMPs? Engie just hangs upon saving. I have contacted the creator of Engie, but it is a longshot. It would be so nice to be able to give the old conning tower a stroke of paint..

I'm going to look at this problem.
With the information you are providing that helps me to break down file structures and work towards a solution.
The OFF sets could be a clue once looked at in Hex.