User talk:Zarevak/Archive/1

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Greetings from Angies
Hi Zarevak! You are really doing some great work on this wiki. Let me know if they is anything I can help out with! angies (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Angies, thank you for your support. I'm fighting with some technical difficulties. Some pictures are not uploaded correctly and reuploading them doesn't help - the whole image article is then doomed. It is interesting that viewing older versions of the image displays correct image, but reverting doesn't solve the problem. The affected images are:
 * Image:Blade.png
 * Image:Knowledge.png
 * Image:Flamethrower.png - this image can be deleted, because it is not used - correct image is Image:Flame Thrower.png
 * Can you please also delete Template:Logoicon? I created it not knowing there is already existing template for Logos icons here.
 * I have two more questions:
 * Is there possibility for me to delete articles in my user space? User:Zarevak/Logos/THt,User:Zarevak/Logos/T2t and User:Zarevak/Logos/TMt should be deleted.
 * There is article Engineering:Thermodynamics, but there cannot be Image with the same name, as the MediaWiki software automatically changes colons ':' to hyphens '-' (the image is now at Image:Engineering-Thermodynamics.png. This name change is only done on upload, but not when I reference to this image. Is there way to automaticaly convert colons ':' to hyphens '-' using template, some parser function or extension? (spaces ' ' are already on the fly converted to low lines '_')
 * → Zarevak 22:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not clear to me what was wrong with the images, but they seem fine to me at the moment.
 * As for deletion, you can't delete your own pages. Generally, deleting pages isn't something to focus on except for special cases like intentional redlinks, typos in title, etc.
 * Changing the article name would be the easier solution, since it avoids meddling in pseudo-namespaces. If that's not an option, you can use from StringFunctions.
 * - Dashiva 00:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just retested the image problem. The images work fine in Opera. They don't work in article pages in Firefox, but can be displayed by using full image URL. In Internet Explorer these 3 images don't work at all. :(
 * Thank you for pointing up the StringFunctions extension. I didn't know about it. I was already thinking about using some special system for changing the image names similar as Itemref and Logosref templates are for. (I'm against these templates and I'm slowly working on removing the need for them)
 * → Zarevak 02:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just tried in IE7 and FF2, and the images show up and look as expected. Could it be a caching issue on your end?
 * As I believe you've noticed before, there is a hard limit on the number of template inclusions that can be done on any single page. Therefore culling redundant templates, especially nested ones, is always a Good Thing (tm). On the same note, keep in mind that the StringFunctions calls might count as inclusions.
 * - Dashiva 02:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your patience. The culprits were AdBlocker plugins I'm using in my IE (IE7Pro) and FF (Adblock Plus) :(
 * I haven't yet run into the template inclusions limit. The second problem with images are short Logos names (Is, It, ...) as this wiki forbids uploading of images with such short filenames. My first icon (PNG) naming idea was to name all icons same as the article with the exception of Logos Elements, which are named without the (logos) part. I've already managed to solve Trap (logos) vs Trap (ability) and Lightning (logos) vs Lightning (ability) issue, but now I've run into Fire (logos) vs Fire damage and Ice (logos) vs Ice damage - moving the Fire.png to Fire damage.png would need to move EMP.png to Electromagnetic pulse damage.png as per User:Zarevak/Icons/Damages, which is not very user firendly :(a On the other side here is no official ingame name for EMP damage so we can rename the article to EMP damage or EM damage as the P meaning Pulse is form of delivery and not type of damage. Thinking about it Electromagnetic damage is the best name for the article.
 * → Zarevak 03:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Game data
I notice you're already well into taking apart some primary data sources but only give the results. It might be too deep into the grey area for the wiki, if so is there an alternate community? - Dashiva 00:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm using the game data file as sources for clear versions of the icons. Someone was already doing this, because many icons were uploaded in the same format before I came to this wiki.
 * As for the Logos list I put up a few hours ago: I've already noticed other websites are putting up similar logos list and I've also found out that some Logos articles on this wiki were based on information found on other websites and not based on the game content. I'm hoping this list will help us to clear up all the logos articles and standardize their formating.
 * I'm not going to do any reverse engineering of the game or change the game in any way. I'm just using the game data as reliable source of game information and it's much easier to copy and paste text from game files than to rewrite it from the game. (You can extract trpython.zip data/game.zip, search in the extracted files for a part of the text you are trying to rewrite and copy the text to the wiki ) The only problem I see is, that the game data includes some unpublished work in progress (like the [[Image:Mycon.png|18px]] Mycon planet icon)...
 * → Zarevak 01:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry I've mislead you - all ingame text is in the data/game.zip file. → Zarevak 04:00, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm all for it myself, I just tend to err on the side of caution until there's safe ground to stand on. I still haven't managed to find the images, though. My experience lies in text mode. :) - Dashiva 02:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Image files are little bit more tricky. The icons are stored in data/ui.glm file. The file is stream of many DDS files one after another. At the end of the GLM file there is table of filenames which can be used for reconstructing the original filenames and for understanding what each icon represents.
 * To extract the DDS files I'm using homemade tool in C# (.Net). After the extraction I just convert the biggest mipmap in the DDS to PNG for uploading to this wiki.
 * BTW: data/ui_map.glm contains images of all maps, but without any labels :( We are doing much better with ingame screenshots that contains labels and POI icons.
 * BTW: data/[lq]image0x.glm contains textures for ingame objects, which are useless for this wiki.
 * I haven't extracted any other gamefiles.
 * → Zarevak 03:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, thanks for the pointers. Saved me a lot of fumbling in the dark. :) - Dashiva 09:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've managed to separate out the images from the stream, but how do you know you've reached the filename table? I haven't found an easy way to calculate the size of a DDS file yet, so I just split when I find a DDS header. This obviously doesn't work for the table. And do you know if there is anything useful in the data following the filenames? - Dashiva 14:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The DDS files are shorter then from one header to another, because the files are padded with NULL characters. I've just attached an email to my wikia account so you should be able to sent me email through this wiki with your email and I will send you my tool with its C# sourcecode. If you want to dig through GLM files yourself, there are some hints:
 * Moved to: User:Zarevak/GLM
 * With this data you should be able to decode the GLM files with ease.
 * → Zarevak 09:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Heh, I spent all of yesterday writing a parser that could recognize DDS, TGA (I now officially hate formats that put the magic word at the end of the file) and JPG (Add formats that don't have a length but force you to jump from segment to segment to the list) and pick out only the non-padding data for each. Found out too late the filename table isn't synced with the order of the file data. It was a good exercise anyhow.
 * But yeah, now that I know there's a FAT it should be almost trivial. Combined with me using plain-ole' C and not C#, I think I'll pass on the source. Thanks for the offer, though. - Dashiva 11:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm always trying to find the easiest solution and trying to understand the files inside GLM wasn't looking like so. Now I have one tool to extract the files from the GLM. Next I use tool from NVIDIA's DDS Utilities package to convert the DDS files into TGA files of all mipmaps inside the DDS. Lastly I use another tool I've writen to convert the TGA files (with Alpha channel) to PNG files in batches. I tried other ways of extracting the icons from the game (and from the DDS files), but I always kept losing the Alpha channel :(
 * I was offering the source code with my tool for you to be able to check, what you are running and or compile it for yourself with full control over the source code - In todays word its hard to trust executables downloaded from the internet.
 * If you find any new information (eg.: about the last 6 bytes in FAT each record or anything about the second file size) let me know ;).
 * → Zarevak 11:45, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Great work
Just wanted to let you know you are doing a great job from what I can tell. If there is anything you could use a hand with, feel free to let me know. reverend@theconclave.org -Witchboon


 * I second that. just lemme get into it and i'll post some more walkthru that people can improve upon.--Stargrazer 15:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your appreciation. It means a lot for me. I have to thank you as well as both of you have done lot of good work here :). Feel free to continue writing Walktrhoughs or any other guides, item/monster/npc/... descriptions. My English is not my primary language and I'm not good at writing so I'm trying to help by using my technical skills - updating templates, automatizing some tasks, updating articles to have same design, ...
 * I hope more users will come and help us with this wiki as it needs clearing up from the outdated information and standardizing the article styles. I feel a bit sad for user with IP 67.79.14.246‎ as he did a great job clearing up the articles of abilities and we aren't able to thank him or encourage him and give him support for more of his good work.
 * → Zarevak 16:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Map vs Minimap
http://dashiva.net/misc/ui_radar_1378_0_24.png

I see two of you are extracting artwork from the source files. I have yet to bother looking around, however I have an idea/request. Can the map images used for the minimap be extracted? This is a much more detailed version then the ingame map and could be very useful for showing more detailed quest/location/mob information. Thanks in advance. reverend@theconclave.org
 * Only maps I found are form Map images. I wasn't able to find minimap images yet and I don't know if there are any - they may be created from vector data by the game. As I wrote before the Map images are not very useful, because they don't contain any points of interest or labels. We are doing much better with ingame screenshots. (But if you want to have a look how the maps in game data looks like, I can upload one - for some skilled artist they may be useful as clean source for his/her work.)
 * → Zarevak 16:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll reply here instead of on my own talk page to keep the discussion coherent. Is this image the kind you were thinking of? If so they exist, but can be a bit tricky to use as the full map is chopped into 64 subimages (8x8 grid). On the other hand there are also separate minimap images for caves and structures, which is very practical. The images are found in data/ui_radar/. - Dashiva 20:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Any source file would be helpful. I am, however, curious were the minimap artwork comes from. Hm. Yes, whatever source files for map would be helpful. That and the icons used on maps/minimaps. I wonder if there is a way to take coords from a wiki article and auto-draw waypoint icon onto a standard blank map. Probably not via wiki, though. :( -Khajja


 * Thank you for pointing out the location of minimap images. I've uploaded all Wilderness maps available in the game files:

(effect map is used for mouseover effect. You can duplicate it in Adobe Photoshop by adding the effect image as second layer over the map (you have to resize it to have the same size) and setting Blend mode to Screen)
 * http://tabularasa.zarevak.net/map_wilderness_t.jpg
 * http://tabularasa.zarevak.net/radar_wilderness_t.jpg
 * - valign="top"
 * map_wilderness.png
 * map_wilderness_effect.png
 * map_wilderness.png
 * map_wilderness_effect.png
 * radar_wilderness_0.png
 * radar_wilderness_1.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_34.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_45.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_46.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_53.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_54.png
 * radar_wilderness_cave_55.png
 * }
 * If the images are proven useful we can upload maps for other zones. I don't know why there are two versions of Wilderness minimap images - they are different only in a few pixels by value of 1-3 in RGB.
 * → Zarevak 23:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * → Zarevak 23:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * These are MUCH higher resolution! I think these would assist in more detailed Walkthroughs and Strategies for anyone wishing to draw over top of them. I am sure there are a million uses. -Khajja

Software
(in relation to previous post) Do you have the software to examine the .glm files in the TR directories? If so, feel free to share. I can do tons of work while I'm @work so... I could use a ton of artwork from the source. Your call. Khajja