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Heroes Community > Heroes 3.5 - WoG and Beyond > Thread: [Official Thread] HoMM 3: Horn of the Abyss - Announcements, Questions, Features
Thread: [Official Thread] HoMM 3: Horn of the Abyss - Announcements, Questions, Features This Super Thread is 554 pages long: 1 70 140 ... 185 186 187 188 189 ... 210 280 350 420 490 554 · «PREV / NEXT»
phoenix4ever
phoenix4ever


Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
posted May 02, 2016 06:49 PM

Damn, my mistake, I meant HotA.lod not HotA.dat.
What I meant was that when I look at the files in HotA.lod it shows his original portraits, but in game it still shows his HotA portraits.
I tried to delete the files entirely and it did'nt affect anything either...  

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Lex
Lex

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 03:13 AM
Edited by Lex at 04:41, 04 May 2016.

Hello!  My brother and I love HOTA.  We've been playing it in our LAN with simultaneous turns.  However, with the latest version, when we load our manually saved game, simultaneous turns are inactive until the next turn.  Before the latest version we just got (1.4.2 RC6; I think we were using 1.4.2 RC5), we were able to load the game and immediately have simultaneous turns.  Now, that's not the case.  The message we get is "Simultaneous turns will be activated next day".  This is a regression from the previous version, in our opinions.

Can we have an option for this, at least?  It was working nicely before.

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Lex
Lex

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 03:57 AM

Hi.  It just made my brother replay a day when there were no conflicts.  Neither of us were anywhere near each other on the map with any of our heroes or towns, neither did any trading with each other, and neither attacked anything the other had attacked.  This was early in the game.

What's up with that?

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Lex
Lex

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 04:11 AM
Edited by Lex at 04:17, 04 May 2016.

Here's another regression:

I was hosting.  I saved the game while my brother was in a battle.  When we loaded, the result was very weird; a regression bug compared to the previous build.

In previous builds, this would have saved it as if he hadn't started his turn, but in this one, it saved his current position beside the dwarves he was fighting, but reset the nodes he had visited on that turn ("Not visited" despite his new position.).

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Allin4Heroes
Allin4Heroes

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 04:06 PM

I have the best map anyone can ever imagine, but it was made with SoD. I now found this amazing amazing mod, and I love it. I love the new castle, the new artifacts, the bug fixes, the....EVERYTHING.

But, my map is "only" XL. Can I somehow convert it to a huge map, or at least one size bigger without loosing any terrain, and placements? It would take 3 months to recreate it otherwise.

For example, draw water all around the map that I have would be great, as that would add alot of water elements and option to put islands.

Hope this is the right place to ask for this. I am open to any suggestions, as long as I dont have to start over with the map.

PS. I already converted my map to all the new cool stuff. I just need the size now, and the map is probably the best there is in existence when it comes to a good game of Heroes.
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phoenix4ever
phoenix4ever


Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
posted May 04, 2016 04:30 PM

Actually I also have an XL +underground SoD map, where I added all the cool new HotA features. Guess it would be interesting if it could somehow become one size larger...

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P4R4D0X0N
P4R4D0X0N


Famous Hero
posted May 04, 2016 04:49 PM
Edited by P4R4D0X0N at 16:52, 04 May 2016.

Make a backup save from you map and load your map in hota editor and re-save it to make sure its hota format now. My suggestion create and save two maps, one in XL format, another in G format both with plain water on it. Edit them with Hexedit, search for the differences (I guess they are in header or in top) and edit your previously backuped save from your old map with these header variables.

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Allin4Heroes
Allin4Heroes

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 04:55 PM

P4R4D0X0N said:
Make a backup save from you map and load your map in hota editor and re-save it to make sure its hota format now. My suggestion create and save two maps, one in XL format, another in G format both with plain water on it. Edit them with Hexedit, search for the differences (I guess they are in header or in top) and edit your previously backuped save from your old map with these header variables.


Has anyone ever tried this? Where will the elements of the map end up? Will it be surrounded by water as default, or will it start from upper left corner?

Is there no tool for doing this more specifically for Heroes maps?
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted May 04, 2016 05:41 PM

It's harder than it looks, since maps are always squares. However, the map data format simply lists all rows of the map consecutively. In order to make up for every extra number of tiles with each row, you'd have to cut out individual rows each time. Imagine a 192x192 map that you would want to extend to 256x256 ... you'd have to cut 192 lines out of the old map and "paste" them into the new map.

Alternatively, you could try and add empty mapblocks with each row. However, map objects have variable length, depending on the number of elements within a tile, especially considering overlaps.

This is something you'd need a tool for, you really don't want to do this manually.

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phoenix4ever
phoenix4ever


Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
posted May 04, 2016 06:23 PM

Yeah it would be a pain to do it manually, so maybe somebody knew about a tool to convert maps to other sizes or maybe such tool does'nt exist?...
My map is an island map with plenty of water already, so I don't think I'd wan't more water around it, I guess I'm looking for something that would "stretch" the map, although I don't know if the result would be pretty...

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P4R4D0X0N
P4R4D0X0N


Famous Hero
posted May 04, 2016 08:48 PM
Edited by P4R4D0X0N at 20:57, 04 May 2016.

Hmn, in that case it's a lot worse, true. But I haven't imagined it would be that hard. For old DOS games, okay... granted... these games was always coded as snow with tons of limitations. I remember modding good old MM4+5 or Wizardry7... pain in the ass! But anyways, to add some more squares (blank water) shouldn't be much of a problem, don't you think? It's just copy/paste the same tiles, or are these comprimated in code aswell? If its possible and without comprimation the map would be upper left corner, with comprimation no chance without an editor...

and btw. where is your map? I want to check these "best maps of all time"

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Allin4Heroes
Allin4Heroes

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2016 09:44 PM

Nobody has any working solution to this? We need to be able to convert our maps to bigger sizes!
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bloodsucker
bloodsucker


Legendary Hero
posted May 04, 2016 10:27 PM

I don't get you, of course if you could copy a map to a larger size you would have too fill all the blanks and it appears to me that would not save much work.

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted May 04, 2016 10:29 PM

Or you could look at it that way: here is a perfect excuse to create a new map, bigger and even better.
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted May 05, 2016 12:06 AM
Edited by Maurice at 00:10, 05 May 2016.

I'll see if I can give an example. A short while ago, I was trying to identify Witch Huts in the save game data, in an attempt to "read" which Skill she would offer. If I could find it, it would simply allow me to start a game, save it and then examine the Witch Huts present for the Skill offered, or which spells were contained in Pyramids and the likes. Probably a lot faster than using cheat codes to examine them all before deciding whether I appreciate what's being (randomly) offered.

Anyway, each tile details all the objects that somehow affect it. If you take a look in the editor, you can see that each object has a frame associated with it. A Witch Hut for instance has a 3x3 frame - you can see this most clearly when you have the grid view active.

Within a save game, each tile that falls within that frame actually contains data about which part of the Witch Hut is shown in it. With two Witch Huts next to eachother, I found that the save game held this information with regards to the "entry tile" of both (which, as said, were adjacent). The tile info looked like this:

Tile 1: 00 00 00 00 40 10 71 00 00 00 1A 00 00 20 02 00 03 00 00 00 19 00 00 01 1A 00 01 01 1B 00 02 01 00 1C

Tile 2: 00 00 00 00 40 10 71 00 00 00 1B 00 00 E0 02 00 02 00 00 00 1A 00 00 01 1B 00 01 01 00 15

As you can see, they're not even the same length. I've made a preliminary analysis of what the data above is actually telling and found at least the meaning of some of the above values. Breaking it down:

00 00 00 00 40 10 71 00 00 00 = seems to be a marker or indicator of sorts indicating a Witch Hut. However, I've also seen other values here, but I haven't yet figured out what these values represent exactly, so I also don't know why it's not always this. Also has a few padding bytes I think.

1A / 1B = counter, to assign a number to the Witch Hut in question. This is also the order in which the search function of the Map Editor finds them, if you select the "Find Next..." option. In this case, they were Witch Hut 26 ( = 1A in dec) and Witch Hut 27 ( = 1B in dec). Note that the very first one in the line is numbered 00. Also note that this is a counter across ALL map objects, not just Witch Huts.

00 00 = Padding bytes?

20 02 / E0 02 = An interesting way to number the skills. The list follows the Skill ID list (where 0 = Pathfinding, 1 = Archery, ... , 27 = First Aid) in multiples of 32. In this case, 20 02 equates to 32 + 512 = 544. Divide by 32 yields 17, which according to the Skill ID is Earth Magic. In a similar way, E0 02 equals skill ID 23, which is the Armorer Skill.

00 = Padding byte?

03 / 02 = number of "objects" to paint on this particular tile. Apparently, the tile of the left Witch Hut has 3 such "objects" to paint on it, the right one only 2 (which is indeed true, I made a line of Witch Huts all adjacent and these two detail the two at the right most side of the line).

00 00 00 = Padding bytes?

Each "object" reference has 4 bytes associated with it. As can be seen, the first Witch Hut has 3 of these 4 byte groups, the second one has 2. Just taking the first one from the first Witch Hut (19 00 00 01), these values are as follows:

19 = Object ID reference of the object getting painted here.
00 = The row within the frame of the object to paint on this tile (note that rows are counted from bottom up to top, with 0 being the bottom row).
00 = The column within the frame of the object to paint on this tile (note that columns are counted from right to left, with 0 being the rightmost column).
01 = No clue, didn't figure this one out. I always saw it as 01.

After those object bytes, there are two more:

00 = Padding byte?

1C / 15 = this seems to be the specific tile itself, which ground type it should show and which variety within that subset; for instance, if you paint a map fully with Dirt or with Grass, you will see a number of different variations of Dirt or Grass tiles. This number is the ID of the specific underlay to use.

For each tile in the map, such a byte string exists. It just goes through the rows, starting at the top left corner, going over a row in reading direction, skipping down to the next row once it reaches the end. There is no marker of any kind to indicate the map border! The tile at the far right border of the map is directly followed by the left most tile along the left border of the row below it.

Given how each tile has variable length (depending on the number of "objects" it has to paint in the tile) as well as missing these border markers, it's a hell of a job to expand a map file manually. A tool could do it easily, though, as it can read the tile sections by counting the number of objects to paint within each tile as well as the number of tiles it has read, keeping track of the map border.

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Sav
Sav


Known Hero
posted May 05, 2016 01:16 PM
Edited by Sav at 13:16, 05 May 2016.

Allin4Heroes said:
But, my map is "only" XL. Can I somehow convert it to a huge map, or at least one size bigger without loosing any terrain, and placements? It would take 3 months to recreate it otherwise.

You can use GrayFace map editor patch option of copying map parts.

You need to download Gray Face map editor patch adapted to HotA editor: https://yadi.sk/d/JbbyEUFLdv4hq
Put it in HotA folder and run h3hota_maped.exe with command line key "/p:gf_me_patch.dll". Some of functionality of Gray Face patch will be available (including copying parts of map).
To copy map part enter Obstacle Brush section, click "copy" icon in the top-right corner (near Mini-map) and select what map area to copy.
Then start creating new map, click "paste" icon in the top-right corner and select place to paste copied part of map.

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Lex
Lex

Tavern Dweller
posted May 05, 2016 04:06 PM

I noticed a spelling error in the English version: "Martello Tower" is incorrectly spelled "Marletto Tower".

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Silva
Silva

Tavern Dweller
posted May 05, 2016 04:59 PM

I think I noticed that too.

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Lex
Lex

Tavern Dweller
posted May 05, 2016 07:00 PM

Thank you for trying to help, but if you want to confirm my report, please confirm it with certainty.  I was not reporting the spelling error just to show off.  I think it would be good for it to be fixed, since a "Martello tower" is a nice thing to learn about while growing up.  I only learned about the existence of Martello towers from playing Heroes 3 when I was younger.

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bloodsucker
bloodsucker


Legendary Hero
posted May 05, 2016 07:55 PM

Galaad said:
Or you could look at it that way: here is a perfect excuse to create a new map, bigger and even better.

It's also how I see it.

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