Aircraft textures

[Spoonboy]

#3401

Does anyone know if it is possible to edit the aircraft textures in Knights of the Sky? And how this could be done?
Just getting back into playing KotS again, and it would be great to make my own ace markings!
In the game folder, the aircraft files are .rb (Ruby?) files. Not sure if/how these could be edited, or if the textures are in a different file.
Loads of other file types I’ve never heard of.
Standard.pln?
Planes.cat?
Has anyone ever tried this?

[rnlf]

#3404

I have no info on that, but I *assume* the “textures” are actually solid color polygons, so editing them would mean editing the plane geometry.

Andy Ruby is 5 years newer than the game, so that’s highly unlikely 😛

[Spoonboy]

#3405

Ha, I wonder what all those weird file extentions mean…
As my programming knowledge is practically zero, I naively hoped to find files with flattened-out versions of the planes, that I could easily edit in Photoshop (or MS Paint!). I fear that may not be the case 😀
I still wonder if these textures can be edited somehow.

[rnlf]

#3406

Might be interesting to check out, but even for an experienced programmer it’s not easy without the actual code being available.

[sorceress]

#3440

.rb might abbreviate “rigid body”, ie a vector model which doesn’t change shape.

[Spoonboy]

#3441

I like that theory! Have you noticed this in any other games of the era? (This is a Microprose game)
A lot of the files have quite decriptive extentions (.pln, .pic, .dat, etc). If only I could get into them.
And had the ability to do anything with them once I’d got into them..:D

[sorceress]

#3446

I do have some experience deciphering undocumented fiile formats, but alas, I don’t have this particular game.

[kdrnic]

#3447

I’ve made you a .ZIP of the .RB files mentioned:

RBS.ZIP

[sorceress]

#3450

does this point cloud look like a plane to you?

Attachments:

1. 

   fokker.gif
   

[kdrnic]

#3452

heh, how you managed the result so quickly?
I tried this code but didn’t get good results:
link

[rnlf]

#3455

Clearly looks like the vertices of a plane. The outliers might be color information or triangle index lists intermixed with the vertex coordinates?

[Spoonboy]

#3460

@sorceress looks like a Fokker Eindecker!
One of the early enemy aircraft in the game.
There are some recognisable features, but not sure about the points behind the aircraft. I thought they could’ve been related to the smoke polys (that appear when planes are shot down), or maybe something to do with hitboxes?
But I really LOVE this point cloud gif.
Seeing something recognisable from my past, in an abstract way, it feels like opening Tutankhamun’s tomb and finding his fingerprints on a cup 😉
For those that know the game, this would make a great quiz – guess the object!
Maybe the patterns/colours are kept in a different file, although @kdrnic’s code did seem to contain colour information?
The game is about 1Mb and is available on freeware/abandonware sites, if you wanted to see the rest of the files (Or I could post it here? Not sure if posting whole games is ok?)
Anyway, thanks so much for showing me familiar things in interesting ways 🙂

[kdrnic]

#3468

Managed to get a similar point cloud now:


bin = ReadFile("fokker.rb");
_idx = 256;
_offs = 0;
var signed = true;
var short = true;
var endian = false;
var old_buttons = 0;
function Loop(){
ClearToColor(screen, 0);
_idx += dpad[0].x * 0.1;
_offs += dpad[0].y;
var idx = Math.floor(_idx);
var offs = Math.floor(Math.abs(_offs));
var pressed = buttons[0] & (~old_buttons);
old_buttons = buttons[0];
if(pressed & BUTTON_A) signed = !signed;
if(pressed & BUTTON_B) short = !short;
if(pressed & BUTTON_X) endian = !endian;

//for(var i = 0; i + idx < bin.length; i += 3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs){
for(var i = 0; i < 128; i++){
x = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 0 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 0 : 1)];
y = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 1 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 0 : 1)];
z = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 2 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 0 : 1)];
if(signed){
if(x > 127) x -= 256;
if(y > 127) y -= 256;
if(z > 127) z -= 256;
x += 127;
y += 127;
z += 127;
}

dx = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 0 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 1 : 0)];
dy = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 1 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 1 : 0)];
dz = bin[idx + i * (3 * (short ? 2 : 1) + offs) + 2 * (short ? 2 : 1) + (endian ? 1 : 0)];

x += dx / 256;
y += dy / 256;
z += dz / 256;

var t = 256, s = 3;
x *= s;
y *= s;
z *= s;
x -= t;
y -= t;
z -= t;

var c = 0xFFFFFF;
PutPixel(screen, x, y, c);
PutPixel(screen, x + 256, z, c);
PutPixel(screen, y, z + 256, c);
}
TextOut(screen, "IDX : " + idx, 256, 256, 0xFFFFFF);
TextOut(screen, "OFFS : " + offs, 256, 256 + 8, 0xFFFFFF);
TextOut(screen, "LEN : " + bin.length, 256, 256 + 16, 0xFFFFFF);
TextOut(screen, "SHORT " + short + " SIGN " + signed, 256, 256 + 16 + 8, 0xFFFFFF);
TextOut(screen, "ENDIAN " + endian, 256, 256 + 16 + 16, 0xFFFFFF);
}


Attachments:

1. 

   fokker.png
   

[kdrnic]

#3470

Here a DOS program for you to play with:

Link

It uses my TAPEGRO framework

Use backspace to loop through the model files