Nemon

I quite often see a "nemon" playing GRAW multiplayer, don't know if it is the same guy or not though. It wasn't me. Were they cheating or something?

Burning myself out is my speciality.

That's fantastic, i had no idea. Being mentioned atall is an honor. I can't thank GRIN enough. Awesome!

Well yes if it has to be on a per mission file basis that's easy todo. It's only about 5 lines of code and overriding the mod files in the bundle is easy with the local folder dealy. Just pop the modded mission script in the local mod folder and it works fine. What i actually meant was that the camera would tilt, rotate and aim as it does already. Im not sure that the aim mechanics for third person can be modded outside of just the camera distance and angle.

Mods should all be in a single mod folder. Mod bundles should contain an XML file in the root of the bundle with the mods name, version, author and other pertinent info. The game should load all mod bundles "config.xml" file letting you choose in game which mods to enable. Enabled mods should be in a second list of active mods and allow you to adjust each mods priority. Mods with a higher priority would override same modded files from other lower rights mods. Ofcourse if a lower mod requires a file modded and a high ranked mod undoes its modification, it can break the game, but there you have incompatible mods. When playing multiplayer only mods that are enabled on the server should be loaded... Oh, autodownload of missing server mods and HTTP redirct would be a bonus.

I have a feeling that might be the only way to run in 3rd person mode. Tweaks to camera position and angle might be possible but i susspect it will only work the same way.

I made another video to better illustrate the 3rd person mode. I wasn't going to bother uploading this but it apears i uploaded it anyway so i may aswell post it. http://nemon.myby.co.uk/GRAW_ThirdPerson2.wmv

http://nemon.myby.co.uk/GRAW_ThirdPerson.wmv The camera might not be in the right position, i think Vth_F_Smith is working on that.

Stuck on a GUI. DSF files are source files.

Dont get too excited, it's just the same editor already available but enabled via the menu. So i think i've got a handle on how the scripts interact with the UI now. Neat system too.

I think i can pretty much decompile and mod any script in the game now. There are a few quirks that need manual fixing but its a 2min job. Im gonna play with menu code now.

First working script mod. Yea i know its not exactly the best mod ever but it is working on a 1.5K line script which required only 1 line of manual editing to work.

GRAW will compile on the fly. Decompiling uses some techniques used in compilers, but i really dont want to write a compiler aswell..... All i've done is applied techniques pionered by others. I've had to do alot of research, i spent the most part of the last 2 weeks reading a dissertation and i just aint that smart. If anyone's interested, i used alot of work done by Cristina Cifuentes (the woman is a god damn genius), Lutz Roeder's .NET decompiler and a few bits of info on Java decompilers. Most of my code for the CFG(Control Flow Graph) analysis is based on GPLed source by Cristina Cifuentes thesis. One thing that makes this especially interesting is that i dont know the complete language syntax. I have to guess what opcodes are in source, which can be quite fun.

There are only a couple of problems that i can identify atm. Ternary operator, i dont know the syntax and it decompiles gookey but can be easily identified and corrected by hand so i'll probably leave that as it is.

I've spent the last week or two doing nothing but working on a DXE decompiler and today i'm close to being able to decompile any of the DXE files with only minor issues. The deal is this, i can't publish my app because it uses some GPLed code and as such i would need to distribute source with binary. I dont want to distribute source unless i'm happy people wont point and laugh while reading it. I dont think i can legaly distribute dxe reversed source files either but would like some feedback from the GRIN or someone in the know. I cant even begin to describe how complicated decompilers are. I started the project thinking it would only take a couple of days but now realize just how mind bending and challenging decompilers really are, even for simple scripting languages.

may I suggest that you download UltraEdit? thats what most of us here at the office use to work with the XMLfiles I vote UE too.

I got bored and wrote a lil app that lets you extract and preview files without extracting. http://nemon.myby.co.uk/bank_manager.exe

Awesome outro music btw, dunno who is responsible but its great.

repacking and loading would take longer than loading the game unbundled i'd expect.

I've succesfully written a disassembler for the games compiled script files. I re-implemented one of the compiled mission scripts in source code and had the game load the mission. There are a few things i need to figure out but i think i have about 95% figured. http://nemon.myby.co.uk/disassembler.jpg I know it doesn't mean much to most people but its a good result for me. This tool isnt going to help you guys, its for me to use to write the source code of the scripts. Here is the reimplemented source of the compiled script levels/mission01/mission01.dxe import Application; import World; import Underlay; import Global; import Math; import Sound; import setups.Setup; import utils.dev.editor.WorldHolder; object _world; object _backdrop; init( ) { Setup.start_loading_video(); Sound.set_default_environment("street"); Sound.add_soundbank( "mission01_sound" ); Sound.add_soundbank( "music_act01_sound" ); Application.add_to_dynamic_texture_scope( "/data/levels/mission01/texture_scope.xml" ); Application.load_global_material_manager(); World.load( "/data/levels/mission01/mission01.xml" ); Setup.init( 0 ); object var1 := Math.string_to_vector( Math.Vector3( (((160000-29250)-250)+40000), ((((-80000)-38250)-250)+40000), 0 ) ); Global.mission_name := "mission01"; Global.mission_center_pos := var1; Global.mission_camera_height := "70000"; Global.mission_time := "day"; Global.mission_ambience_soundbank := "ambience_industrial_day_sound"; Sound.add_soundbank( Global.mission_ambience_soundbank ); Global.mission_tacticalmap_posteffect := "tacmap_day"; Global.long_path_distance := 11000; Global.level_difficulty := 1.3; _world := WorldHolder.WorldHolder().init( "/data/levels/mission01/xml/world.xml" ); _world.create_world( "world", "all", Math.Vector3(0, 0, 0) ); Global.script_lightmap_manager.load_lightmaps(); _world.lock_unit_groups(); _backdrop := WorldHolder.WorldHolder().init( "/data/levels/backdrop/world_m01.xml", _world ); _backdrop.create_world( "world", "static", Math.Vector3((((160000+500)-29250)-250), ((((-80000)-38250)-250)), 0) ); Global.mission_compass_offset := 12; Setup.last_init(); } update( p0, p1 ) { Setup.update( p0, p1 ); } paused_update( p0, p1 ) { Setup.paused_update( p0, p1 ); } render ( ) { Setup.render(); } save ( p0 ) { Setup.save( p0 ); } load( p0 ) { Setup.load( p0 ); } It's still not perfect but apears to work.

last line in context.xml there is settings for it.

Actually they do update for me on their own. Perhaps a setting i put on. I am almost 100% sure that the bin files are for optimization purposes. Parsing 100s of XML files every time you load the game and every time you load a map would probably increase load times about ten times, so instead they cache the in memory view of the XML file into a bin file which is much faster to load.

Two Qs. Is there a mod competition or something, and if it's already been done why redo it? I think you are getting tested Nemon J/K I was genuine in my question because in the last post he mentioned something about before tonight, i'm presuming he isn't hinting at a patch so... My interest in GRAW is really out of an interest in game engines than is in practical mods, ofcourse if i find anything usefull i can share and more the better for everyone. If i want todo anything with GRAW atm its reverse the script files. Reversing the script files would remove any/most limits that you're going to face in any future mod. I fully expect GRAW to release mod tools tho, so im iffy on whether or not its worth the time it would take.

Two Qs. Is there a mod competition or something, and if it's already been done why redo it?

That's interesting, i tried 6 but just died on map load. I guess i could of changed something else along the way and not realised. Perhaps you could try it on another map?