RA-1 Hex Editing.

[Allen262]

I'm Looking for the snow.mix or temperat.mix in the RA95.dat but I can't find them. I not even sure there in there... I've found just about ever other .MIX and .INI to the game listed and did the needed edting so my mod won't interfere with the normal Red Alert.

 

Any help would be nice.

[pichorra]

snow.mix and temperat.mix isn't in the Main.mix inside the CD?

[Nyerguds]

If it's the same as in C&C1, they're stored in theater objects, which contain the filename of the mix archive without the .mix part.

 

You should look for "temperat" without the .mix part. Also note that you'll probably find "Temperate" there too. Make sure you remember the order they are in, otherwise you might change the wrong one when editing "Snow", since for Snow, the theater name is the same as the mixfile name.

 

[edit]

 

It's exactly the same as in C&C1. You'll find the start of the theaters data at 0x1FE0F0 in ra95.dat. The first one is the theater name, then the mixfile, then the extension of the files inside the mix. So only edit the second string. Since the data's in a fixed object format, there's 8 characters available for each filename, so you can make your snow mixfile name longer if you want.

[Allen262]

It's exactly the same as in C&C1. You'll find the start of the theaters data at 0x1FE0F0 in ra95.dat. The first one is the theater name, then the mixfile, then the extension of the files inside the mix. So only edit the second string. Since the data's in a fixed object format, there's 8 characters available for each filename, so you can make your snow mixfile name longer if you want.

 

I seen was there last night and tried to edit it but the game crashes if I start any missons. I have 3.03 so I hit Aftermath missons and selet my difficulty than click OK only go hear the XP *Bonk*, The game sits a black screen and I have use CTRL-ALT-DELETE to end the game. :ranting:

 

TEMPERATE.......TEMPERAT..TEM.SNOW............SNOW......SNO.INTERIOR........INTERIOR..INT

 

TEMPERATE.......TEMPERA!..TEM.SNOW............SNO!......SNO.INTERIOR........INTERIOR..INT

 

I did remember to change the TEMPERAT.mix and SNOW.MIX to TEMPERA!.mix and SNO!.mix. I have them in the folder with all the other .mix file. still no working...

 

Error window as follows

The Instruction at 005vcde0 referenced memory at 00000000

The Memory could not be read from

 

Click on Ok to terminate the application 

 

[Nyerguds]

Well, theaters are quite sensitive stuff... it uses the filename for other files than just the .mix. You probably at least have to rename the palette inside the mixfile for it to work.

 

btw, you got that error message wrong. "v" is not a valid hexadecimal character. If you get me a correct one I could check it out.

 

[edit]

 

If it was 005bcde0, it's indeed the palette loading code.

[Allen262]

Well, theaters are quite sensitive stuff... it uses the filename for other files than just the .mix. You probably at least have to rename the palette inside the mixfile for it to work.

 

That I can live with I will try it and let you know if this fixed it.

[Nyerguds]

^ I just edited my reply... the error was indeed the palette loading.

[Allen262]

Swiched temperat.pal to tempera!.pal and it now works! *WOOTS* Never did find a snow.pal but the game works fine with out changing it.

 

Thinking of move down to mod Mod Announcements soon!

 

Need to get my hands on a TFD RA95.dat so my mod will work with TFDers....

 

Thanks for the help Nyerguds!

[Nyerguds]

Looks like they're all in local.mix. Did you try loading a snow theater map without the sno!.pal?

 

 

As for TFD, it doesn't really have an RA95.dat, since it doesn't have the 3.03 patch on it by default.

 

I do hope you started from my 3.03 installer, since the exe of that has some extra fixes (like the fact it no longer tries to delete conquer.eng on startup).

 

This is the source package from which I made the 3.03 installer; it contains the normal and TFD (read: no-cd cracked) versions of these exes:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cncstuff/source/ra303installer.rar

 

[Allen262]

I extracted the temperat.pal and snow.pal and renamed them tempera!.pal and sno!.pal. I put these renamed .pals back into the Loca!.mix but I did not remove temperat.pal and snow.pal I just added the two renamed copies.

 

 

I did NOT start with your 3.03 installer. My dat came from the old manual_patch303_english.exe but I have  downloaded your ra303installer.rar.

 

Is the freewere RA Allied Disk and Soviet Disk the same as one ones I bought in the late 90s in the "Dominatin Pack"? It has Allied Disk CD1, Soviet Disk CD2, Counterstrike CD3 and Aftermath CD4 in one nice case.

 

Next TFD... I have NO idea how TFD works. Do I just need to edit the RA95.dat found the cracked folder to get my mod to work for peope with TFD?

 

I'm so far over my head now.... I'm going to need lots of help...

[Nyerguds]

I extracted the temperat.pal and snow.pal and renamed them tempera!.pal and sno!.pal. I put these renamed .pals back into the Loca!.mix but I did not remove temperat.pal and snow.pal I just added the two renamed copies.

Well if you want your mod not to interfere with anything, you might want to add them in an extra mixfile instead of back in local...

 

 

I did NOT start with your 3.03 installer. My dat came from the old manual_patch303_english.exe but I have  downloaded your ra303installer.rar.

The problem is they made the game itself contain patch functionality, which is seriously not a good thing. I removed it and made the patcher do the patching functions.

 

Is the freewere RA Allied Disk and Soviet Disk the same as one ones I bought in the late 90s in the "Dominatin Pack"? It has Allied Disk CD1, Soviet Disk CD2, Counterstrike CD3 and Aftermath CD4 in one nice case.

Yeah, besides a new autorun EA slapped onto it. And the lack of CD3 and CD4.

 

Next TFD... I have NO idea how TFD works. Do I just need to edit the RA95.dat found the cracked folder to get my mod to work for peope with TFD?

 

I'm so far over my head now.... I'm going to need lots of help...

It's really nothing more than using the cracked exe, yes. If I were you, I'd just rename the normal edited ra95.dat to yourmodname.exe and the cracked one to yourmodname_tfd.exe, if you catch my drift. Bonus points for using a resource editor to give it a (custom) exe icon.

 

Older versions of the game could still use the -cd workaround (WW's inbuilt nocd system), but they somehow messed that up in v3.03.

 

 

If you work with an installer, it's pretty easy to check if the folder where the user installs the mod is the same as the folder marked as TFD RA install folder in the registry, and in that case you just give the TFD exe instead of the normal one. Though in that case I would make sure they got the same name. In fact that's exactly what I do in the patch 3.03 installer

[Allen262]

Well if you want your mod not to interfere with anything, you might want to add them in an extra mixfile instead of back in local...

I've edited the RA95.dat.so it no longer looks for local.mix but now loca!.mix. Any files the mod needs I've replaced the last leter in the name of the file with a "!" and done the same in the RA95.dat.

 

The problem is they made the game itself contain patch functionality, which is seriously not a good thing. I removed it and made the patcher do the patching functions.

 

Well I can just hex edit your RA95.dats for Normal and TFD RA-1. It should take 5 minute each to change the needed text? Shash here* Done!

 

Yeah, besides a new autorun EA slapped onto it. And the lack of CD3 and CD4.

I downloaded the ISO right after came come out and the looked same so I never burned them to a CD I just deleted them since they looked the same as the CDs I already had. Thanks for telling me there were the same.

 

It's really nothing more than using the cracked exe, yes. If I were you, I'd just rename the normal edited ra95.dat to yourmodname.exe and the cracked one to yourmodname_tfd.exe, if you catch my drift. Bonus points for using a resource editor to give it a (custom) exe icon.

 

Older versions of the game could still use the -cd workaround (WW's inbuilt nocd system), but they somehow messed that up in v3.03.

 

Already have ra95.dat to yourmodname.exe done and I just put icon in them. Have a normal and TFD or craked ra95.dat done. This leads to my next question, Counterstrike and Aftermath are not free so can I include my modded mission from them in TFD install or not?

 

If you work with an installer, it's pretty easy to check if the folder where the user installs the mod is the same as the folder marked as TFD RA install folder in the registry, and in that case you just give the TFD exe instead of the normal one. Though in that case I would make sure they got the same name. In fact that's exactly what I do in the patch 3.03 installer

 

I not worked with an installer program a lot but I did find that you used Inno Setup and I downloaded it myself. I look at your scrip and I have no idea how you made it or how I could make something like it. I’m going to try to see if I can change your scrip to work as a installer. I don’t know if I’m reading it right….

 

EDIT

 

Maybe I should ask if any would like to play this? I did mod the campaigns so that people can play campaign for Nod,GDI, Crounterstrike and Aftermath... Wonder if any would play it.

[Nyerguds]

In v3.03, CS and AM are no more than a registry entry. Enable it and the game thinks you got the expansion installed. All files for both expansions (besides the missions) are included in patch 3.03. So even if you don't consider it free, there's no reason not to use the CS/AM mission menus for your own missions. 3.03 has it anyway, and you still need the original CDs to play the original missions. For that reason, my installer has the options for enabling the expansions.

 

As for them not being freeware, well, seeing as TS and its expansion ARE both freeware, and EA supports my C&C95 patch which contains the C&C1 expansion, I think that can be ignored; EA not releasing the C&C1 and RA1 expansions was pure laziness. They're up for download on cncworld.

 

As for the installer, well, you see, I got 2 files in my files list (well, for each language) with as check "isTFDInstall". That's a function I wrote myself which you can see in the [Code] section at the end. Basically it just checks if the folder you chose to install in is the same as the TFD RA folder saved in the registry. Those are the registry entries used for the TFD launcher program, btw. If TFD RA is installed, that registry entry has the path.

 

function IsTFDInstall(): Boolean;
begin
Result := (ExpandConstant('{reg:HKLM\{cm:TFDReg},ra_folder|{cm:TFDDir}}') = WizardDirValue());
end;

Note that {reg:} is an inline registry request in inno setup, {cm:} values are my own strings specified in [CustomMessages]; {cm:TFDReg} contains the registry path of the TFD values (from which the "ra_folder" one is requested by this statement) while the {cm:TFDDir} contains the default TFD RA path to return as default if the registry query didn't give any result. Maybe I should just make that blank... meh.

ExpandConstant is the function to parse the inno setup {...} codes into a string that can be used in the script. So I just compare the TFD RA path value from the registry with WizardDirValue(), the value of the selected folder in the installer, and if they're the same, I know the user is installing on TFD.

 

Inno has a huge help library containing all of these codes and standard functions and stuff.

 

 

Anyway, then in my files, it's just using the Check option, which can be used to call one or more boolean (True/False) functions from the code section, with AND/OR/NOT modifiers.

 

Source: ra303eng\ra95.dat; DestDir: {app}; Languages: eng; Check: not IsTFDInstall
Source: ra303eng\cracked\ra95.dat; DestDir: {app}; Languages: eng; Check: IsTFDInstall

meaning, the normal ra95.dat is only installed if it's not a TFD install, and the cracked\ra95.dat is only installed if it is a TFD install

 

Maybe I should ask if any would like to play this? I did mod the campaigns so that people can play campaign for Nod,GDI, Crounterstrike and Aftermath... Wonder if any would play it.

We really can't answer that without any clue what this project is actually about

[Allen262]

That install making is going to take some time. I've never seen any thing like this....

 

As for the “Project”. It is perhaps the holy grail of RA-1 modding. An RA-1 to c&c95 conversion. I Google-ed "stats_warheads_perc.txt so I could make sure it was you that made the texts I used as base to mod from. Google took me to http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/mods/ that is yours and I saw that you have at one point started a RA-1 to c&c95 conversion. You have a folder for it and screens of the main menu are shocking close to mine.

 

Now I have to ask. Did you give up? I know you are putting lots of time into C&C95. Is this why I never knew any one else was trying to do the same as I am. I’m attaching some screens from my game.

[Nyerguds]

Ahh, actually I got sidetracked with remapping research (fun fact, you can change the colour RA1 USES AS remap), and never really continued it.

 

I was planning on taking some existing RA1 to C&C1 mods and fixing their graphics, since pretty much all such conversions have awful black-to-transparency errors, bad remap conversions, and sometimes missing shadows. Reliably converting any graphics only takes me 5 minutes with the toolset I made.

[Allen262]

With Purple Palette I have remove 99% of the errors, the mod has gone beyond just graphics. I have most of the sounds from C&C95 (Unit selects and a sound effects, Unit firing sound, explosions .ext) TS EVA. (TS EVA game me more sounds to work from.) 20 scores from C&C95, CounterStrike and Aftermath have no scores replaced. Some of the C&C95 movies are found in the mod. All missions have been edited or replaced. Even the Ants missions.

 

If you want I can try to attach the mod in a post.

 

[Nyerguds]

Hehe, so you're using my palettes. Best idea I ever had (besides maybe patch 1.06)

[Allen262]

I use the Purple Palettes mostly to check for black-to-transparency errors.

 

I need to find a place that I can use to up load a simple instaill I made of the mod....

[Nyerguds]

I'd say, megaupload?

[Allen262]

If I upload it will you look at the mod for me? I'm the only one that has it. I have no idea if somthing is wrong with it once it leaves my system.

[Nyerguds]

Sure, no problem.

[Allen262]

Sure, no problem.

 

I thought I would ask since you quit yours to do remapping research and C&C95.

 

In the installer you will have select your Red Alert directory. After the installer finishes you will have to go to your Red Alert directory and start the mod from RA-1 to C&C95.exe if you have normal RA-1 OR RA-1 to C&C95_TFD.exe if you have TFD RA-1. I put both .exes in there since I didn't now know what one you have but you probably have normal and TFD Red Alert 1 .

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TLUNY002

The file list at 187 MB and 40min for a 54.0Mbps D-Link wireless card, You may get a faster time.

 

You don't have to look at it any time soon I know it is the holidays. So look at it when you can!

 

Thanks!

 

? needs to replace ? sig. With a RA-1 error.

[Nyerguds]

Heh, less than 200 mb from megaupload? will only take 5 minutes.

[Allen262]

[Nyerguds]

Hmm... you need to learn to keep your filenames within 8.3 (xxxxxxxx.xxx) range. It's just a healthy habit when working with C&C1 and RA1 -_-