snydley on 15/8/2008 at 16:12
Are there any high-resolution graphic patches like there are for SS and SS2 for Terra Nova?
I finished those 2 games, and found a copy of Terra Nova on Amazon for $2.50,
but after playing those 2 games with the patches I find the stock TN graphics
terrible. Are there any for it?
Thanks
Shadowcat on 16/8/2008 at 01:44
Sadly no. Make sure you're running in 320x400 rather than 320x200, though. And take note that your settings are only remembered in saved games, so if you're not loading a saved game when you start up, you need to go back to the options screen ('o' at any time). Also note that you must manually select the best terrain setting (it doesn't make a lot of difference, but there's no reason not to use it).
You'll get used to the graphics. I've just been playing the game again myself the past few days, and I still think the scenery can look amazing. You just need to apply a bit of a mental filter...
snydley on 16/8/2008 at 14:08
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
Sadly no. Make sure you're running in 320x400 rather than 320x200, though. And take note that your settings are only remembered in saved games, so if you're not loading a saved game when you start up, you need to go back to the options screen ('o' at any time). Also note that you must manually select the best terrain setting (it doesn't make a lot of difference, but there's no reason not to use it).
You'll get used to the graphics. I've just been playing the game again myself the past few days, and I still think the scenery can look amazing. You just need to apply a bit of a mental filter...
'Fraid my filter's old and dirty and doesn't work that well.;) After playing SS and SS2 Terra Nova graphics don't cut it with me. I really liked those 2 games. Is there anything else out there like those 2, anything you can recommend?
snydley on 17/8/2008 at 02:09
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
Sadly no. Make sure you're running in 320x400 rather than 320x200, though. And take note that your settings are only remembered in saved games, so if you're not loading a saved game when you start up, you need to go back to the options screen ('o' at any time). Also note that you must manually select the best terrain setting (it doesn't make a lot of difference, but there's no reason not to use it).
You'll get used to the graphics. I've just been playing the game again myself the past few days, and I still think the scenery can look amazing. You just need to apply a bit of a mental filter...
What program was used to remake the graphics in SS2, any idea? Is it freely available? I wonder if it could be used to remake Terra Nova. :eek: Heck, I've got alot of time on my hands,(famous last words), I'd take a stab at redoing them if the tools were available free.:thumb:
jtr7 on 17/8/2008 at 08:56
Ever heard of ShockEd or DromEd? SS2 and the earlier Thief games used the Dark Engine. ShockEd and DromEd are the editors and there's a decade's worth of wisdom to tap.
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=103) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=103
Read the
FAQ there, and take all that free time to brush up!:p
Renault on 17/8/2008 at 22:11
Quote Posted by jtr7
Ever heard of ShockEd or DromEd? SS2 and the earlier Thief games used the Dark Engine. ShockEd and DromEd are the editors and there's a decade's worth of wisdom to tap.
Yes, but he's talking about graphical upgrades. Dromed/Shocked are level editors, not graphics editors.
Shadowcat on 18/8/2008 at 09:39
There are indeed tools to manipulate the Terra Nova data formats, but I am quite unsure of your expectations.
You cannot possibly change the screen resolution that the game runs at this way, which seemed to be your main issue. Nor do I think you could increase any of the texture resolutions.
You could likely replace textures with other textures, provided they were of the same resolution and used the same colour palette, but I am very doubtful that you would consider the results of such an effort to constitute any sort of improvement over the current graphical quality of the game.
The best efforts made in the realms of Terra Nova editing (primarily the work of Jörg Fischer and Gigaquad, and most excellent work it is too) can nowadays be found collected here:
(
http://terranova.110mb.com/files.html)
(Note to self: We
really need to get this stuff mirrored (
http://www.ttlg.com/tnova/) here at TTLG)
It won't exactly be trivial to use, but check it out, and if it doesn't scare you away then I encourage you (and anyone) to dive in and see what you can make with it :)
d'Spair on 18/8/2008 at 20:50
Wow, oh yes. Thanks for the link Shadowcat!
Gigaquad on 19/8/2008 at 09:45
Terra Nova's landscapes are still very nice, but the low resolution and small textures ((
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/browse_thread/thread/c9499e3461eac547/ad4e3d4f056a6584?lnk=st#ad4e3d4f056a6584) there's a reson for this), although great in 1996, just haven't aged as well as SS1. However, inspired by this thread and ToxicFrog's (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100041) high-resolution patch for SS1, I opened the exe file in a hex editor. At offset 0x1BB298, there are resolution tables like this one:
Code:
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
40 01 C8 00 08 01 00 00 0D 00 00 00 320 x 200 Bits/pixel
40 01 F0 00 08 01 00 00 0E 00 00 00 320 x 240
40 01 90 01 08 01 00 00 0F 00 00 00 320 x 400
68 01 C8 00 08 01 00 00 10 00 00 00 360 x 200
68 01 F0 00 08 01 00 00 11 00 00 00 360 x 240
68 01 90 01 08 01 00 00 12 00 00 00 360 x 400
80 02 5E 01 08 01 00 00 13 00 00 00 640 x 350
80 02 90 01 08 01 00 00 14 00 00 00 640 x 400
80 02 E0 01 08 01 00 00 15 00 00 00 640 x 480
20 03 58 02 08 01 00 00 16 00 00 00 800 x 600
00 04 00 03 08 01 00 00 17 00 00 00 1024 x 768
00 05 00 04 08 01 00 00 18 00 00 00 1280 x 1024
40 06 B0 04 08 01 00 00 19 00 00 00 1600 x 1200
Changing the normal 320 x 400 to higher values produces (
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2245/tnreso1hv4.png) mostly (
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8551/tnreso2up5.png) garbage, but (
http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7025/tnreso3ak5.png) "640 x 400" looks just like (
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/4140/tnreso4ua4.png) 320 x 400, even with every other line missing. I got the HUD to scale properly by copying the low-res HUD files over the high-res ones. The code to actually change video mode is somewhere else, but that's probably beyond my skills.
EDIT:
0xB842F, 0xB8440:
Screen width, height? (affects ctrl-x dialog position, mouse wrapping).
Shadowcat on 19/8/2008 at 21:19
Very cool :)