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Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469362] Fri, 15 June 2012 20:39 Go to next message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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I was looking at Leveledit a couple of years ago in a resource editor, and I noticed that the menu of the Westwood full version of LE was still there hidden away. Maybe this is a result of TT's changes, or maybe I didn't notice before, but if a couple (2-3) of features are copied over to the used menu, they work fine. If more however are added, however, evidently there is some sort of overflow, and DEP crashes LE. If even more are added LE might crash on it's own.

Anyways I was wondering if TT has the ability to enable the old menu in it's entirely (along with the couple of features only found in the mod edition of LE). As proof, I have attached a version of LE with some always.dat export features added (probably is the same as renaming a mod package, but you never know. Maybe LE's old system of asset dependency databasing plays a roll).

EDIT: Got the old menu in the latest LEs! Here is the latest edition: http://www.renegadeforums.com/index.php?t=getfile&id=14241&rid=26513
no need to download the attachment below

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

[Updated on: Sat, 23 June 2012 22:18]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469449 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 11:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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Oh whoops, that was an APB level edit. No wonder I got no responses. Well, Renegade Level Edit always crashes on boot for me, but here is that executable with the exact same registry hacks. [If the stock LE works for you, there is no reason this LE shouldn't.]

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

[Updated on: Mon, 18 June 2012 11:47]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469455 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 13:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Generalcamo is currently offline  Generalcamo
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Interesting.

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469458 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 14:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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Indeed, I felt like I discovered burried treasure when I first found it. Since I can't enable the entire menus without it crashing, though I would post the RC data here (in a more readable form). There are a lot more features than what I enabled in the download:

Here is the "mod" version. (Originally even export Mix wasn't on it, that was added by some earlier resource hacker.)
Toggle Spoiler


Here is the "Developement" version.

Toggle Spoiler


As you all can see, LE was original much more than a level editor, but also had some sort of primitive version control databasing system built in that handled both presets and strings, and file dependencies. Always.dat is just an exported snapshot of that database. It at least supported both local and remote databases in the form of two different files, and maybe even used a remote server for the remote database.

(If this forum supports spoiler tags, sorry I didn't use them.)
Edit: oh wait, I can edit old posts!

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

[Updated on: Sat, 23 June 2012 22:16]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469470 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 16:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Generalcamo is currently offline  Generalcamo
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The forums do support spoilers.

The original hacker was Jonwil. He might know abit more about this stuff.

I do wonder about that camera stuff. Orthographic and Perspective? Might be useful.

[Updated on: Mon, 18 June 2012 16:46]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469471 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 17:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gen_Blacky is currently offline  Gen_Blacky
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nothing new I used the dev one all the time. specially for taking screen shots in Orthographic view. Back in 2004.

http://www.renegadeforums.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=64252&rid=21615
  • Attachment: Le_dev.zip
    (Size: 2.35MB, Downloaded 108 times)


http://s18.postimage.org/jc6qbn4k9/bricks3.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469472 is a reply to message #469471] Mon, 18 June 2012 17:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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Woah, is that a whole other build? or just a resource hack like what I made. More importantly, if this has been around for so long, why the hell isn't everybody using it now?

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469473 is a reply to message #469362] Mon, 18 June 2012 17:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gen_Blacky is currently offline  Gen_Blacky
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Just a resource hack to enable the dev menu. I used it all the time. I think people just forgot about it. Not all features seem to work or it will crash (I have had problems using this). Their are a bunch of other versions by blackintel floating around. Jonwill or someone could shed more light on the subject. What they plan to do with scripts 4.0 and le. They are more focused on the scripts builds.

http://s18.postimage.org/jc6qbn4k9/bricks3.png

[Updated on: Mon, 18 June 2012 17:41]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469477 is a reply to message #469473] Mon, 18 June 2012 19:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ehhh is currently offline  ehhh
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said you were gone for 3 days blacky

noob

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469483 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 02:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
reborn is currently offline  reborn
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I imagine database version control, including remote databases for level edit would be extremely useful for mod teams.


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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469485 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 04:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iRANian is currently offline  iRANian
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Unless your mod team is really incompetent and screws up things like objects.ddb versions, don't think so.

Long time and well respected Renegade community member, programmer, modder and tester.

Scripts 4.0 private beta tester since May 2011.

My Renegade server plugins releases

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469486 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 04:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
zunnie is currently offline  zunnie
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Still it would be very nice to be able to work on the objects.ddb remotely.

https://multiplayerforums.com/uploads/monthly_2018_03/TCW2_Signature.png.6236a0dbc6e1e53472a18fe8cd15e47b.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469487 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 06:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
danpaul88 is currently offline  danpaul88
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Of course, there's always the possibility some of the menu items were hidden because the code behind them was never finished or didn't work properly... just because a menu item exists doesn't mean the corresponding functionality actually works.

http://steamsignature.com/card/1/76561197975867233.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469488 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 06:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iRANian is currently offline  iRANian
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I highly doubt Westwood didn't use version control. More likely is that the version control feature uses a proprietary code library to work with proprietary version control software they used.

Long time and well respected Renegade community member, programmer, modder and tester.

Scripts 4.0 private beta tester since May 2011.

My Renegade server plugins releases

[Updated on: Tue, 19 June 2012 06:28]

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469491 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 07:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jonwil is currently offline  jonwil
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The version control features in LE are tied to a very specific version of a Microsoft version control tool called SourceSafe. We (TT) do not have SourceSafe nor do we know where to get it or how to use it properly if we had it.

The 4.0 leveledit has enabled all the LE features that are actually usable as things stand, all the other disabled features dont work (at least as far as I know, anyone who thinks otherwise feel free to correct me and we can put those feature back into a future version of 4.0)

Jonathan Wilson aka Jonwil
Creator and Lead Coder of the Custom scripts.dll
Renegade Engine Guru
Creator and Lead Coder of TT.DLL
Official member of Tiberian Technologies

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469493 is a reply to message #469362] Tue, 19 June 2012 08:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
danpaul88 is currently offline  danpaul88
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Erm, I know exactly where to get SourceSafe... it used to come bundled with older versions of Visual Studio.

It's a horrendous thing to use though, I avoid it like the plague.

http://steamsignature.com/card/1/76561197975867233.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #469507 is a reply to message #469493] Tue, 19 June 2012 13:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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Ok, reading about source safe, it does sound pretty shitty. For testing though, http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/KB976375 maybe would allow LE to work with Visual Studio 2010. Might be neat just to try. But if you guys say it need's a specific version, then that's out the window too.

More practically using a modern decent version control system over a mod package get's the job done, and is probably better than using an integrated, but shitty system like sourcesafe+LE.

Anyways, I've got the latest version with the entire Dev menu! it was really simple. I simply renamed menu 2 (the dev menu) to 129 (the mod menu), and menu 129 to menu to. This effectively switched the menus, without switching their location within the executable causing it to not crash on boot! Then I added the one thing only on the mod menu: export mod package, to the dev menu, and it still worked just fine.

So now I am uploading both the APB and Renegade Mod 4.0 tools package with this fix. Unlike the one Gen_Blacky upload, these are the latest version in all other ways of contending, so they should work fine with 4.0. The other one is besides the menu swap, virtually identical to westwood's original upload and is thus incompatible with 4.0.

@Jonwil the current 4.0 LEs, both ren's and APB's, had menus virtually unchanged from older versions of LE, and thus were missing tons of working features. These should be the best of both worlds, and I recommend TT base their version of LE off this. If there are features that crash LE every time, I recommend TT just grey them out, something which I believe can be accomplished with a resource editor, so people know what they are missing.

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #470393 is a reply to message #469362] Sun, 01 July 2012 03:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jonwil is currently offline  jonwil
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What I want is for someone to take the LevelEdit exe file as of the 4.0 beta 5 mod tools and take a look at the menu in that.
Then please post the names of any menu items present in the various dev builds and stuff (in this thread) but not in the 4.0 beta 5 tools AND which they think should be supported in LE.

I will then tell you if they are something that can be brought back into LE or not and if not, why not.
As for Visual Source Safe, the hard part is not just finding one but figuring out the mess needed to get LE to talk to a VSS install (and how to set up the repository in the way LE expects it and etc)

Jonathan Wilson aka Jonwil
Creator and Lead Coder of the Custom scripts.dll
Renegade Engine Guru
Creator and Lead Coder of TT.DLL
Official member of Tiberian Technologies

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Re: Hidden Leveledit Features [message #470538 is a reply to message #470393] Mon, 02 July 2012 11:02 Go to previous message
Sonarpulse is currently offline  Sonarpulse
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Well as a start, here is a list of all the menu items not present in the 4.0 beta 5 LE but present in mine.
Edit:

  1. ☐ : doesn't work
  2. ☑ : does work


list of missing features

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll51/Sonarpulse/Forum/CnP.png

[Updated on: Mon, 02 July 2012 21:49]

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