Shadowcat on 15/11/2001 at 23:31

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hmm... the videos are all in <a href="http://www.radgametools.com/smkmain.htm">smacker</a> format. perhaps you'll find some help at that web site??

let us know if you have any luck... i don't have time to do any investigating myself just now, so i can't offer any other help :/

ToxicFrog on 19/10/2002 at 01:00

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I'm having the same problems. The important cutscenes play fine, but the short ones are sound only. System specs:
PIII 800MHz
394 MB RAM
Asus/NVidia V7100 GeForce 2 MX400 AGP
Windows ME
40x CD Drive
Command line:
__FF.EXE +BADLINMODES +BADPALDAC
I also tried copying the movies to the HDD -- no luck. Looking at them with the Smacker tools, they are all the same except for length and resolution. I would think that the resolution would have something to do with it, but the briefing, storyline, and main menu (that is the only non-story or -briefing cutscene that seems to play, BTW) files are all different resolutions, lengths, and sizes. There seems to be nothing in the files themselves to differentiate the movies that play from the ones that don't, so that leads me to suspect a problem with TN itself. The fact that the game-critical ones are the only ones that play seems too convenient to be coincidental.
[EDIT]
Experiments with renaming files (e.g. so that the LGS splash is named as though it were the first briefing) have proven that it is some aspect of the game that determines what movies are played--not some attribute of the files themselves--and also that TN distinguishes between them by filename. Further experimentation with a hex editor has confirmed this (Editing it so that it played OPENERA.SMK instead of S01_04A.SMK, for example). There seems to be no way of telling where it indicates which ones should be played and which ones not -- my attempts to do so have met with failure. It is probably buried deep within some other part of the program, and I do not have the necessary skills. And windows doesn't have strace, so I can't even try that...
[EDIT]
I HAVE DONE IT!
Each movie filename occupies a 16 byte cluster near the end of the executable. It will look something like this:
Byte: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Text: b r i e f 0 1 a . s m k
Hex: 62 72 69 65 66 30 31 61 2E 73 6D 6B 00 00 00 01
Note that the cluster will ALWAYS end with enough nulls (hex 0x00) to bring the total length up to 16 ('cause the file length is less than 16). Also note that the last byte of this example is 0x01, not 0x00. This last byte indicates whether or not to play the video. If it is 0x00, then you will only get sound. So, for each video file name in __FF.EXE, count 16 bytes (counting the first character of the filename as 1) and change the 16th byte to 01 if it is 00.
I will post more specific instructions as soon as I finish editing and testing.

ToxicFrog on 19/10/2002 at 03:54

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Finally, the XVI32 patching script. To use this, load __FF.EXE into XVI32, select Script->Editor. and cut-and-paste the following into the script edit window:

MSG This script will patch Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri to play all movies properly. It must be executed on __FF.EXE.
ADR $1B53DB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B55EB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B55FB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B563B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B564B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B565B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B566B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B567B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B568B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B569B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56AB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56BB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56CB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56DB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56EB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B56FB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B570B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B571B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B572B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B573B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B574B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B575B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B576B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B577B
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B57AB
OVERWRITE 01
ADR $1B57BB
OVERWRITE 01
MSG Patching complete. Save __FF.EXE and play!
EXIT

Alternatively, you could save that script to a text file (with optional xsc extension) and open it from the script editor.