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Translating Zak and Maniac V1


a.borque

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Hello!

I know topics like this have been discussed many times and I have read many threads about it. Yet I don't get it.

Recently I got a copy of the old Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion EGA-LowRes-Versions (V1) in english. AFAIK these versions were never released in any other language. As I played the very similar C64 version in german in the early nineties I planned to translate my "new" games and play Zak and Maniac in retro-style.

So I got scummtr and started. And here begin my problems:

I can extract the texts into an editable txt-file and I will hopefully abled to reimport them. But what about the graphics? I read a thread about extracting Indiana Jones and the last crusade, but the method described there does not work for me. I always only get the textfile and nothing else extracted from the lfl-files.

What am I making wrong? How can I get object- and room-graphics in an editable common image-format out of the games lfl-files and afterwards back into?

Thanks for help!

A.Borque

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  • 2 weeks later...

I believe ScummRp (by the author of ScummTr) will let you extract and re-insert any game resource, this should let you extract the image data. Unfortunately I think you'll need to then convert it into a useable format with another tool.

 

http://hibernatus34.free.fr/scumm/scummrp.exe

 

If there isn't any other tool out there that can convert the image format, I might be able to help out (I'd need time to work out the old EGA format though). You can contact me at public@jestarjokin.net

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If there isn't any other tool out there that can convert the image format, I might be able to help out (I'd need time to work out the old EGA format though). You can contact me at public@jestarjokin.net

 

Would it be possible to edit Zak and Maniac V2 as well? If there is a tool out there to do this or if you come up with your own tool let me know. :thmbup1:

 

My e-mail is:

sammymarlo@yahoo.com

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Hello jestar_jokin!

Thanks for your reply to the post!

I have used scummrp to extract the contents of the lfl-files, but as

expected the data there is in no common graphics format.

BMPR is a tool I have found for futher conversion, but it is not able to

decode the graphics.

So if you could take a look at them for analysis and possibly find a

tool or hint on how to edit the images it would be great.

What do you need for that?

Thanks for your reply!

A.Borque

PS: I have also contacted you via mail!

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Would it be possible to edit Zak and Maniac V2 as well? If there is a tool out there to do this or if you come up with your own tool let me know. :thmbup1:

 

My e-mail is:

sammymarlo@yahoo.com

 

Here you go, I've updated my (poor) SCUMM Image Encoder to support V2 images.

 

http://www.jestarjokin.net/sw/scummimg_bin_20110707.zip

 

(Source code (Python, requires PIL):

http://www.jestarjokin.net/sw/scummimg_src_20110707.zip)

 

How to use:

  • Extract game blocks with ScummRp
  • Call scummimg to decode a room's background:
    scummimg -v 2 -d d:\temp\zak_out\LFv2_0001 out.png
  • Edit your image (don't change the colour palette, or you'll get weird results!)
  • Call scummimg to encode the background (will write files in the LFLF\RO directory):
    scummimg -v 2 -e d:\temp\zak_out\LFv2_0001 in.png
  • Import game blocks with ScummRp

 

Some notes on the format, for anyone interested:

  • Compressed with column-based RLE.
  • Uses a "dither table" of the 128 colours used in the last column.
  • Favours using colours from the "dither table", even if it breaks the run of a colour.
  • Dither table is reset every 8 columns (presumably to keep the data in "strips").

 

Next task: V1. (Sorry a.borque, I thought it's easier to work with formats from later versions of SCUMM, so I'm working backwards.)

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[...]

 

Next task: V1. (Sorry a.borque, I thought it's easier to work with formats from later versions of SCUMM, so I'm working backwards.)

 

Absolutely no problem. It's great to see your progress in working on scumm.

Thanks a lot, I am lookoing forward on ScummV1-support.

A.Borque

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a status update, I've got a decoder and partial encoder working for V1 images (I still need to implement RLE encoding, but I have some of the data converted to the V1 format). However, it looks like the background and objects share the same bitmap data. I'll try and work out a way to support this, it may be that the image encoder will need to decode & encode all objects at the same time that it does the background image, though this won't work if objects can be loaded via scripts. I'll see how I go.

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Just a status update, [...]

 

Hello!

Thanks for the update. It's good to see you are still working on it, I have nearly finished translating the text for Zak and MM using scummtr.

Does your analysis mean, that it might be easier to extract or reencode backgrounds and graphic objects at the same time as they are sharing some data?

Thanks again I can't wait to work with your programme.

A.Borque

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  • 4 months later...

I managed to finish up the V1 image encoder in late September. Unfortunately, while it seems to decode and encode images okay, it doesn't seem to produce files useable by "scummrp", so you can't insert the images back into the game resources. (attempting to do so will give an error about an unexpected object image offset)

 

I have a feeling this is a shortcoming in scummrp. Unfortunately, I don't know how to resolve this issue, short of writing my own V1 resource packer, and I don't want to work on that at the moment.

 

Anyway, I'm posting the binaries and source of the image encoder.

 

The V1 image format is quite interesting, since it was developed for the Commodore 64. It's kind of a tiled format, which shares some data between backgrounds and objects. I'd like to post more details but lack motivation, however the ReadMe file should explain the ins and outs.

 

Win32 Binaries

http://www.jestarjokin.net/sw/scummimg_bin_20110924.zip

 

Python Sources

http://www.jestarjokin.net/sw/scummimg_src_20110924.zip

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