Tutorials and Discoveries

[Chronicles5]

Please post here if you have any tutorials and discoveries useful to newbies or anyone here at the forums! I will start with a bunch of my own:

-HOW TO RETEXTURE BLANK WADS-

You will need:
§Strpix2
§TR2WAD
§Jack!

First, you will make your wad with TR2WAD, when you have a blank wad from this, you need to export it's 16bit textures through Jack! then save them as a 24-bit bitmap, in whichever folder you choose. Load up strpix, and import your wad. Simply load the new bitmap file and you are home free! Just remember to save your wad! This may not work 100% of the time, I am working on a full solution. (I found this myself)

-THE CORRECT AUDIO FORMAT-

~Using Sound Recorder or any other .wav conversion program, if you have made a new recorded sound, you will need to change the format to: Microsoft ADPCM 44.100 khz 4bit, stereo, using the 'properties' button on the drop down menu. This will play the audio instead of getting blips of other music, but only this format works for trle (I found this myself)

-HOW TO DELETE TRIGGERS, AND DOORS ETC.-

~Though this is a simple function, it is not mentioned in the manual, and some people don't know this, to delete doors and triggers, left click and press delete on the 2D map plan view area (It's that simple) (NOT MINE)

-CURE FOR THE COMMON CRASHING LEVEL CONVERTOR-

~If the level convertor crashes when you have a highly detailed level, with a big wad, you need to reduce the size of the wad as much as you can, this will cure the crashing, save you from a heart attack, and reduce file space at the same time, simply use TRWest to delete all unecessary objects in the wad. (I found this myself)

-ERROR MESSAGES-

~Invalid Doors- This simply means one of your doors is incorrectly placed, and you need to find the room the message mentions, and delete all the doors in the room, then reconnect them, if this doesn't work, simply copy and paste the room in question, and switch the two, then try reconnecting the doors.

~Texture ranges- This can be very easy, or very nasty... When splitting levels, or just copy and pasting a room from one project to another, you may get this message. The textures in your copy and pasted room are not complete, some of those colored textures at the bottom have snuck in, and these are giving you an error message. You need to find them, and texture over them, and the message will go away.

~Argument too big- there is something wrong with your texture set, it may be corrupted, or the wrong tga type, etc.

~Incorrect TGA format. When adding in words or pictures to a tga set, you may invalidate it, so simply save it as a bitmap, then resave it as a tga file again.

~Division by Zero- this evil error message shows up in many trle programs, and means you are trying to do something you can't possibly do, you will need to find another way...

~Error reading level- this error mesage usually happens in trle programs when you are trying to use a level file you aren't supposed to use, as in vict.tr2 or del.trc.

~EVIL error messages:

-EVIL messages are bad, those mean something has gone horribly wrong with your level, and you need to save what you can, and hope for the best. (NOT MINE, obviously )

-EVIL: Unknown object type detected. You probably pressed the move object button without selecting what object to move, don't worry about it, you are perfectly safe.

-LARA'S ANIMATIONS-

~When triggering a puzzle hole object like the poseidon statue or the lyre, you will need to use ocb's for lara's animations, and you can trigger the object, and have a different ocb, and lara will do a different animation for it, you can use whichever one ou want, just put a negative number in the ocb of a puzzle hole object. (NOT MINE)

-KEY HOLE 12-

~The key hole 12/key item 12 objects is used when you want to use that key more than once. (NOT MINE)

-COMBAT TRIGGERS-

~Core was lying, the combat trigger is used!!! When lara pulls out her guns, she activates the trigger!! (NOT MINE)

-THE FAMOUS ROLLINGBALL TRICK-

~This allows you to have several cam sequences, special audio triggers etc. Have a rollingball track set up in a remote room far from your other rooms, this will have several rollingballs here, however many you need. Trigger the rollingball at the start of a cam sequence, and it will trigger any heavy triggers in front of it. Have a heavy antitrigger in front of it so it stops itself and you wont here the noise. the cam sequence finishes, and you trigger the next rollingball from the camera, which activates the new sequence etc. use this to your advantage!! (NOT MINE)

-ANTITRIGGERS-

~When using an anittrigger for a door you pass by, as you pass by it, then having a switch to open it again, so you have to go back to it, to get sometihng, this is an ideal time for a heavy rollingball trap.


-TRICKS WITH SCRIPT-

~Script is very complicated, and can make or break your day... This tutorial explains about how to rename and use puzzle objects in the script. It's pretty simple, but one mistake and you'll be ready to jump off a bridge.

From the script of TRLR, a few examples, for Puzzle, Key, Pickup, Examine, and PuzzleCombo items.

[Level]
Puzzle= 4,Ba Cartouche, $0000,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 5,Ra Cartouche, $0000,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
PuzzleCombo= 4,1,Cartouche Piece 1, $0000,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
PuzzleCombo= 4,2,Cartouche Piece 2, $0000,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Examine= 2,The Rules of Senet, $0000,$0500,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
;FMV= 5,0
LoadCamera= 79993,-6715,57009,81452,-5264,58348,161
ResetHUB= 12
Name= Tomb Of Semerkhet
RemoveAmulet= ENABLED
Level= DATA\SEMER,107

The level 'Tomb of Semerkhet' Notice the Puzzle, PuzzleCombo, and Examine2 objects, these will be mentioned later. Also note the RemoveAmulet piece of script, used to remove the Amulet of Horus from Lara's inventory, because Von Croy had it during that level...

[Level]
Key= 1,Token, $0013,$0200,$4000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Key= 10,Gate Key, $0008,$0300,$8000,$e000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 1,Trident, $0014,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 2,Music Scroll, $0006,$0400,$0000,$c000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 3,Golden Star, $0000,$0500,$0000,$0000,$0000,$000a
Puzzle= 4,Hook and Pole, $0002,$0700,$0000,$2000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 5,Portal Guardian, $0008,$0600,$8000,$f000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 6,Horseman's Gem, $0000,$0300,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 10,Pharos Knot, $0011,$0400,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 11,Pharos Pillar, $0013,$04b0,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Puzzle= 12,Black Beetle, $0008,$03b0,$0000,$e000,$0000,$000a
PuzzleCombo= 4,1,Wall Hook, $000a,$0400,$3000,$c000,$0000,$000a
PuzzleCombo= 4,2,Broken Handle, $0004,$0400,$0000,$c000,$0000,$0002
PuzzleCombo= 5,1,Ornate Handle, $0002,$0500,$4000,$1000,$0000,$000a
PuzzleCombo= 5,2,Hathor Effigy, $0016,$0400,$8000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Pickup= 1,Broken Beetle, $0008,$03b0,$0000,$e000,$0000,$000a
Pickup= 2,Broken Glasses, $0008,$0150,$0000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Layer1= 128,128,128,-16
LensFlare= 249856,-32000,109824,128,96,0
AnimatingMIP= 2,10
AnimatingMIP= 4,10
AnimatingMIP= 5,10
AnimatingMIP= 6,10
AnimatingMIP= 7,10
AnimatingMIP= 8,10
AnimatingMIP= 9,10
ResidentCut= 1,17
ResidentCut= 2,18
ResidentCut= 3,19
ResidentCut= 4,20
LoadCamera= 45633,-7508,47067,46657,-7880,47863,73
Name= Alexandria
Horizon= ENABLED
ColAddHorizon= ENABLED
Level= DATA\ALEXHUB,110

From the level 'Alexandria' This is the biggest script in the game, mostly since the cutscenes and Animating_MIP objects are so high. there is also a lens flare object, many resident cuts, and a ColAddHorizon added to the script. Looking at the 'Token' object line of script, you can see this is a key object, but did you know it was Key_Item1? Look closely: Key= 1,Token, $0013,$0200,$4000,$0000,$0000,$0002
Notice the line Key= 1, Token. This means there is a key item 1 object in the alexhub wad that needs to be called token. You can rename this as whatever you want, but you must change the line 'token' in the English to whatever you changed this one to, or the script will look to the english for a non-existing name, and it will find nothing, and will instead name your object 'load' with a blank view of the object. the line: $0013,$0200,$4000,$0000,$0000,$0002 only has to do with the rotation and position of your object when it appears on the screen when you pick it up, and how it rotates in the inventory when you look at it. the same goes for all objects in the script. remember you cannot add a line of english, or subtract one, you must change one!! But be careful...

About enemies:

This is actually my own discovery (as far as i know) too make a cool animating object, save an enemy as an animating object in TRWest or Wadmerger, and check it out! The TR2 samurai guards will raise their spears, and the TRC skeleton hovering things float up and down, this can be useful for effects and works with almost all enemies.

There are some to start with. I think almost all of the discoveries I made myself (at least I dont think anyone thought of them before me) but if they are someone elses, I do apologize, i didnt copy your ideas at all. I hope this thread helps someone!