Nyerguds

you made a separate exe for cncnet? Why? What's different in it?

There's a fine balance between convenience and laziness. We don't owe it to you to accommodate for your laziness

You can, but for infantry, only for the unit it's supposed to replace. For example, the Commando unit there specifically says it's made "to replace your field general". That means the frames of the Commando are mapped to exactly conform to way the frames and animations are sorted in the GNRL.SHP file. For vehicles/aircraft this matters less, since aircraft always have 16 frames, and vehicles always have 32 plus an additional 32 for a turret (if the unit has one). Nothing in the game will ever automatically adapt to a change in the SHP file, though. For example, giving the Artillery a SHP file which happens to contain 32 additional frames for a turret won't make it magically start using that turret, and using turret-less graphics for a tank will simply make its turret invisible, but the unit still won't have to turn its body towards a target to fire at it.

Really? I got one of those

If you change it to no longer be an APC, you can probably perfectly give it a rotating turret. I don't think the combination of turret and unload frames works without some further tweaking of frame usage, though.

It is possible to convert SHP graphics as one big PNG rather than as separate frames, but XCC Mixer only offers this option for the Tiberian Sun SHP type. Also, converting it back is very unintuitive; you need to go to [Clipboard] -> [Copy] on the edited PNG, then use [Clipboard] -> [Paste as SHP (TS)], and then give the frame dimensions and the number of frames. Using single-PNG conversion for the C&C1/RA1 type is possible, by converting to TS type, but as you can imagine, it's kinda complex. Since it's still useful in some situations, though, and since conversion between SHP types can very easily go very wrong, I made a tutorial on how exactly to pull it off. Here are the steps to do that: Start XCC Mixer (duh ) in Administrator mode (always :O) In the [Conversion] menu, disable ALL the options except "Split shadows". Under [View] -> [Palet], disable "Use for conversion". (This shouldn't affect it, but it seems to actually mess up the conversion, so disable it) Select the SHP file, and use ctrl+p to select its correct palette. Right click on the file, and select Copy as SHP (TS). The resulting file will seem to have twice as many frames since it split off the shadow frames. Don't mind that. (If you don't know where the file ends up... see this image) In the [Conversion] menu, disable "Split shadows", and enable "Combine shadows" Right-click on the TS SHP, and select "Copy as PNG (single)" That's it. Now you got your frames as single PNG. If this is for conversion from RA <-> C&C1, you just need to use MS Paint or something to save that file as high-colour PNG. If this is for more serious modding, this is the part where your magic happens. Happy editing Now, to convert back: In the [Conversion] menu, disable all options. If you saved in high colour, use ctrl+p to select the palette to convert to, and enable the [View] -> [Palet] -> [use for conversion] option. It's strongly advised to use the Purple Palettes when doing that. Right-click the PNG, and select [Clipboard] -> [Copy] Right-click in the folder where you want to dump the intermediary TS SHP file, and select [Clipboard] -> [Paste as SHP (TS)], and select where you want the file, what to call it, and then give the frame number and frame dimensions of the original C&C1/RA1 SHP. In the [Conversion] menu, make sure "Split shadows" is disabled, and "Combine shadows" is enabled. Now, right-click on the TS SHP you created, and select "Copy As PNG". This will produce a normal series of SHP frames. Right-click on the first of the SHP frames, and select "Copy As SHP", and you will finally have your C&C1/RA1 type SHP back. So as you see, it's quite some work, but in certain situations, like editing infantry, or converting normal 32- or 64-frame units between games, it definitely beats going over the unit frame by frame.

Heh yeah, that sure looks better

No. Be less lazy, and use the Edit button :roll:

Of course I can fix it. It's just that right now, I'm not really working on the patch...

Eh, DTA has its own forum... in fact it has 2; one on the DTA site and one on PPM.

Yeah... Einstein has no weapons firing frames set :-\

Eeyup. It's a bug in the game...

Well most filenames are just taken from the exe file. But I did wonder how XCC knew previously unknown filenames like the unused infantry decay animations in C&C1, and the Nod score and map theme. Turns out Olaf also wrote himself a little brute force app to figure that stuff out when he researched the filenames

"the Range value of napalm has been changed" - lulz. How useless xD

You can always see if you can't simply render those separately, and convert the pic to pure 2-colour

Whooo, that looks thorough O_o

Then it's just a mod, so, why should it have to be be considered official part of cncnet? Go and make it, and have fun with it? btw, FunkyFr3sh, not sure how it's detected/shown now, but wouldn't it be possible to just put a [mod] prefix before any map in the list that has changes in unit stats and such? I'm not talking about country changes; those are generally just used for cheating, but unit and building entries should be easy to detect as separate logic.

Windows hides file extensions it knows (like that".ini") by default, and replaces them by a description like that "configuration file". As you just experienced, that seriously cripples your ability to make any sense of your own files. Do a quick Google search for 'show extensions windows 8' and you should find out how to make them visible. There is nothing to fix. The graphics are simply that size. Did you think changing the game's resolution would magically give the game higher resolution user interface? The videos can be stretched to fullscreen by the game engine, but the rest of the graphics can't.

There are also two ways of converting an image to a palette; using dithering, or matching each pixel to the nearest colour. Dithering is okay if you have large images and want the best colour approximation when it's viewed from afar, but for small sprites like this, you better use "Nearest Colour", since dithering gives this typical grainy effect you got there.

Yeeah, that's an odd statement. Game balance changes with EVERY addition. Balance isn't just balance between SIDES, it's balance between units, and the whole rock-paper-scissor theory. For example, even when adding the same new unit to both sides (not specific to the Phase Tank, now), you could very well be adding something that one of the two sides has a decent counter against already, but the other side doesn't, which would make one side helpless because of the addition. Balance isn't as easy as you think.

The usage of the frames is hardcoded, Snijboer. I've extracted the frame usage information from C&C1 and put it in ini format, so you can see what kind of information it is... http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/inirules/infanims.ini But that doesn't change the fact you can't modify it in RA (or C&C95; reading for this isn't implemented in any way) unless you find that info in the exe file and hex edit it there. (Kilkakon actually did that in C&C95, after asking me the offsets. I have no idea where these offsets are in RA, though)

There's already an unused helicarrier unit in The Aftermath.

helicarriers are completely useless. It takes ages to build the helis to fill them, and takes ages to get them launched one by one As for these other unused AM units, my main point is that it'd mess up the whole game balance. Not something to do in a general patch. It'd inevitably piss off people used to the normal game balance. Are you kidding? those things are scary! Basically the only thing that takes em out efficiently are grenadiers, mines and pillboxes, and they chew up pillboxes in seconds. O_o

I went to CommandCom... it's where they gave the official previews of the (now canned) Generals sequel. I was part of the CNCNZ delegation.

I'm pretty sure that was about RA1. Maybe even TS.