T2X Pre-Patched & Installed

baeuchlein on 24/3/2024 at 16:54

I think we should start with the newest Ricebug version, which is the one marbleman linked to in (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144804&p=2513759&viewfull=1#post2513759) this post. I will start every one of these missions in an up-to-date T2Fix v1.27e created installation of Thief 2 NewDark and look at the monolog.txt, dbmod.log and Thief2.log files. If nothing bad crops up from these, I can integrate the newest version of the DMLs into a "prototype" build and do the same again. If that works, then we can use these newest DMLs. Whether they should be put into the "full & fixed T2X package" in the end, or only into T2FMDML from T2Fix, is another question.

Once we have a set of DMLs that do work, we can put the available translations into that T2X version (which will be a bit complicated for some languages) and do the next testing session to make sure the translations all work with AngelLoader and FMSel as well as several Thief 2 NewDark versions.

If we're past this stage, we can then see how we put translations and DMLs into the T2X HD version as well as the Necro T2X version, and have more happy testing sessions.

After that, we'll have to deal with our burnouts, and also how and where to publish that thing. This should include attempts to contact the makers of the translations and politely ask them whether they think this is OK, or whether they'll sue us for copyright violation and sent a mad undead vampiric Hammerite squad after us to punish us for all eternity. We might also do this "ask for permission and publish" stage once the upgraded "Ricebug version" is ready, and do the T2X HD and Necro T2X stuff afterwards.

What do you think of my oh-so-great and magnificient plan?;)

voodoo47 on 24/3/2024 at 17:15

pretty ok, though I would perhaps advise against mixing the language packs into the base build - ideally, those should be kept as separate modules, ready to be plugged in whenever necessary.

not sure how to handle NecroAge and hdmod versions yet, but again, if the base build can be kept separate, and the hires assets converted into separate modules, then I would see that as preferable. need to check whether the fm/mod loading system is able to handle such a situation, my experience from the SS2 ecosystem tells me it should be doable, but there will be conditions (or rather, a need to set the resources up in a very specific manner).

either way, getting all the fixes straitened up is a good start. linking my ancient very basic fixup zip, it may have a few bits that aren't available anywhere else (ooh, and looks like I actually did dynamic skies too).
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7quQTgSRc9KT0JaTTY2aE13STA/edit?resourcekey=0-0octCVu2AH1ftrn4w_jOHQ)

I also have one very old bugreport, I'm guessing all of the below has been fixed;

Quote:

Wrong pickpocket count in the mission. There are 3 legit pickpockets on Normal and 4 on Hard/Expert. You can get another one by KOing and quickly grabbing the ticket off the guy at the train station (which IMO shouldn't be counted as a pocket at all). That makes 4/6 on Normal and 5/7 on Hard/Expert. Shadowing
The ambient sound Ctestf in the chapel has a low radius. While roaming around the place, it cuts off and starts again constantly Knowledge
Wrong texture on one of the Tough Boys Armory tower roofs Ill Repute
Incorrect pickpocket count in the mission. It is only possible to get 6/13 on Normal, 7/15 on Hard, and 8/16 on Expert. My guess would be that musket pistols count as pickpockets but cannot be picked. Hotel

has sausages being just stretched apples been fixed, btw?

fortuni on 24/3/2024 at 17:20

Hey Mr B

I'm more than happy to help out in whatever way you see appropriate, testing, bug hunting, sleeping, eating, drinking etc, but I am beta testing a mission for the T3 anniversary contest atm and that takes priority, but if we are to do a major fix for this seminal campaign lets get as many people as possible to replay it, the more we corral the more issues we will fix. We can open a testing thread at Shadowbox or Discord, I would suggest Shadowbox is better as both Glypher and Jax are already there.

fortuni on 24/3/2024 at 17:28

Quote Posted by voodoo47

not sure how to handle NecroAge and hdmod versions yet

With greatest respect to Gecko and Necrobob but it's probably impossible to accommodate all mods when fixing a fan mission less alone the 13 mission campaign. I would suggest the priority be to concentrate on the original campaign, and if we find some ways to fix issues arising from other mods then great but they should not be a priority, it would be an never-ending mission otherwise.

voodoo47 on 24/3/2024 at 17:35

yes. hence, "lets get the base build sorted out and then we'll see".

from my experience, NecroAge is ok to work with, hdmod not so much, as the author pretty much did everything we told him not to do. because who needs rules, right?

baeuchlein on 24/3/2024 at 23:24

Quote Posted by voodoo47

I would perhaps advise against mixing the language packs into the base build - ideally, those should be kept as separate modules, ready to be plugged in whenever necessary.

Is this module thing something this new mod manager can do? Otherwise I have no idea how this could be done.

Anyway, my idea was this: A base build made with english language only is created. I'd recommend Ricebug's newer version as a base to build that base build on. Only after tests have shown that this base build works should other languages be put in (and the english one moved into "english" sub-folders).

What cannot be done (if you ask me) is that we build something like "t2x_german.zip" with all German-only resources inside, and then magically meld this into an existing T2X.zip.

Quote Posted by voodoo47

not sure how to handle NecroAge and hdmod versions yet, but again, if the base build can be kept separate, and the hires assets converted into separate modules, then I would see that as preferable. need to check whether the fm/mod loading system is able to handle such a situation, my experience from the SS2 ecosystem tells me it should be doable, but there will be conditions (or rather, a need to set the resources up in a very specific manner).

I don't have any idea what exactly you mean by this.

The NecroT2X and HDMod versions of T2X are available as separate .zip or .7z files that can be used just like any other FM. You do not have to install the NecroAge pack for Thief 2 or the HD-mod for Thief 2 in order to play these T2X variants, they're standalone versions. I believe that these T2X versions are basically Ricebug's T2X NewDark version plus some textures. At the moment I cannot rule out that there are changed miss*.mis or *.dml files in these two T2X versions, but I dimly remember that all .mis files except for miss27.mis ("House of Ill Repute") are identical in Ricebug's T2X version as well as the NecroT2X and T2HDMod versions.

Quote Posted by voodoo47

linking my ancient very basic fixup zip, it may have a few bits that aren't available anywhere else (ooh, and looks like I actually did dynamic skies too).

So far, it looks like Ricebug's newer version used your one as a base, at least concerning the DMLs and some book text fixes. I intend to have a second look into that, though.

However, what exactly is this rather small (19 MBytes) EP.crf file? It does not look like a full version of any Enhancement pack. It does contain parch and parch3 book art, including a font for these parchments, most likely to prevent a situation where these two parch book art sets (from the EP?) are combined with a non-EP font, leading to unreadable parchments.

That EP.crf also contains some sky and moon textures, and lots of object-related files. There's also a folder called "Thief1" in there - why?

Quote Posted by voodoo47

I also have one very old bugreport, I'm guessing all of the below has been fixed;

Quote:

"Shadowing the Enemy": There are fixes in the DML fortuni published here that deal with pickpocket count. Apparently, the number is decreased by two. Looks like the fix you want.

"A Question of Knowledge": no DML fix available, so it does not seem to be fixed.

"Ill Repute": Not sure, but AFAIK, DMLs can rarely fix textures. There is, however, some part of the DML that vaguely looks like it adresses Z-fighting of textures. Could this be a fix for that?

"Grand Hotel": fortuni's comments on that DML suggest that the pistol-pickpocket problem was adressed.

Quote Posted by voodoo47

has sausages being just stretched apples been fixed, btw?

A newer DML fix for miss27 ("Ill Repute") has entries that change the model of several objects to "sausage". I guess the vegetarian days are over in the House of Fleshy Desires.

Quote Posted by fortuni

We can open a testing thread at Shadowbox or Discord, I would suggest Shadowbox is better as both Glypher and Jax are already there.

I cannot get an account on Discord anyway, nor delete my half-functional one either. Probably linked to the fact that my family name and therefore also my mail account contains the letter sequence "porn". My brother also had problems getting a Microsoft account with his real family name, but once he used a fake name, everything went smoothly. Antivirus (Over)protection syndrome in algorithms strikes again.-sigh-

First test results

Unfortunately, I am already getting non-trivial error messages in the logs when using Ricebug's T2X version, and other non-trivial ones when putting the newest DMLs (from this thread) in Ricebug's version and zipping that up. One group of messages suggests that a modified version of NVScript for T2X is often not loaded - seems to be something that needs an investigation.

fortuni on 25/3/2024 at 08:11

Quote Posted by marbleman

As for newer DMLs not working, it's not the T2Fix version as I've been playing on 1.27e. Examples of the ones that didn't work for me are DMLs that attempt to fix pickpocket count in Shadowing and Grand Hotel as well as the fix to the gem objective in Cure. Even with the DML, you need to frob the empty chest for the objective to check off.

I've checked the pocket counts with the dml's installed for Shadowing the Enemy and The Grand Hotel and the dml's do work correctly, so not sure why they didn't work for marbleman (did you install them correctly, shouldn't need to manually install them as all the dml's are in the FMDML package already)). I haven't checked the gem objective in the Cure yet but I do remember testing this dml way back in 2019 and it worked then, so as far as I'm concerned all the dml's in post #54 are good.

voodoo47 on 25/3/2024 at 10:29

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

lots of stuff

yes, as already mentioned, lets forget all the language packs and hd additions for now and focus on a base EN build that would have all the available fixes and not contain any bloat. once we have that, we can figure out where to go from there (what I meant in my previous post is that ideally, language packs and hires textures should be loaded as separate mods, so the base build could be left alone. but again, don't concern yourself with that at the moment).

I think I just flat out included EP1 to get more hires objects - one of the issues T2x has is that some objects are quite lowres, and they stick out like a sore thumb (as the custom resources are quite hires). either way, yeah, definitely get rid of it, shouldn't be included (once the base build is sorted, we may consider cherry picking a few objects and re-adding them manually).

nontrivial messages? post them here?

//also I'm very sure that apart from relighting into 32bit, I did very, very few fixes (on that old fixup pack), so even if they are lost, it shouldn't be a big deal. and I remembered what the deal with sausages was - they indeed are just resized apples, and this works ok as long as the vanilla apple object and texture are used. buuut if any kind of object pack is active, then it becomes apparent the sausage is just a resized apple.

this should be step number 2, once the base build fixes are sorted out, it should be tweaked to work well with fixed/enhanced resources. so for example, we should create a separate object with a separate texture for the sausages, and use that.

fortuni on 25/3/2024 at 14:30

Quote Posted by voodoo47

one of the issues T2x has is that some objects are quite low res, and they stick out like a sore thumb (as the custom resources are quite hies). either way, yeah, definitely get rid of it, shouldn't be included

So you are planning to significantly alter the design and look of this campaign by removing objects you don't like and adding new objects that you do, this not only goes against the ethos of this community but is expressly barred in the read me file.

Quote:

You may not alter the Thief2X mod and redistribute it. This includes, but is not limited to, changing or altering game files or game content. You may not redistribute Thief2X: Shadows of the Metal Age with any files missing, including cutscenes and briefing movie files. You may not include any Thief2X resources in any fan mission package, but you may create fan missions specifically for Thief2X using the Thief2X resources.

Repackaging the zip to include all translations and to include all updated dml's is fine but to alter files, textures, objects etc is not.

The current dml's work, most other issues can be fixed via updated dml's, all we need to do is get people to report anything broken and we at Shadowbox can fix it, but nothing has actually been reported for some time, but if anyone wants to go through this campaign with a fine tooth comb I can get them added to the testing forum at Shadowbox where we still have the testing thread from 2019.

voodoo47 on 25/3/2024 at 14:43

yes, I absolutely plan to make the sausages into proper sausages, and not just stretched apples. I am evil like that.

lets focus on the proper, fully bugfixed EN build, once that is good to go, we can argue about the sausages (btw by that logic it's already too late, as the levels have been relit to 32bit, which both modifies the levels and also alters their appearance. but again, lets set that aside for now, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).