Search found 732 matches

by Colourless
Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:21 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Maximum Number of NPC
Replies: 3
Views: 3099

Re: Maximum Number of NPC

Origin ran out of NPCs when developing The Silver Seed and used something of a hack to get around the problem using temporary npcs (monsters). I can't remember the exact details and how it worked with usecode.
by Colourless
Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:15 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Question about the Help spell
Replies: 1
Views: 1528

Re: Question about the Help spell

Exult just replicates what the original games did so if the original games did something wrong exult will be the same unless someone makes a mod to change things

as to which is correct, the game or the manual, we don't know
by Colourless
Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:38 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: The myth of the clean sheet of paper.
Replies: 3
Views: 1888

Re: The myth of the clean sheet of paper.

my opinion there is very little that could be in common between u8 and u7. the engines are very different and do most things very differently even if some engine concepts are the same. u7 and u8 use completely different memory mangement systems. U7 does things in an unusual way by putting the cpu in...
by Colourless
Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:48 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: How the z ordering is handled in Exult/Ultima 7?
Replies: 17
Views: 5633

Re: How the z ordering is handled in Exult/Ultima 7?

Generally exult should be able to handle higher. Its the on disk format where the limitations come in as it largely matches how the original games stored the data as few bits as possible. It's also possible the usecode of the original games might get confused if "lift" values are out of ra...
by Colourless
Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:40 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Movement and animation issues
Replies: 28
Views: 9362

Re: Movement and animation issues

The high res issues could probably be fixed by rethinking how it works. At the moment its trying to closely emulate the behaviour of the original games. Doing it like that seemed like the right idea at the time
by Colourless
Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:35 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Movement and animation issues
Replies: 28
Views: 9362

Re: Movement and animation issues

There really should not be any performance issues with running at a higher res on any fairly recent system. however there are places where running even slightly above 320x200 will break the game logic Do not attempt playing forge of virtue at a high res or you'll get stuck. Certain events trigger wh...
by Colourless
Thu Mar 14, 2019 2:21 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Movement and animation issues
Replies: 28
Views: 9362

Re: Movement and animation issues

Smooth Animation was a bit of an experimental hack more than anything else. fixing its problems would require extensive changes to the way exult works and i didn't want to do that
by Colourless
Sat Oct 27, 2018 7:29 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: i want to do new game with Unity
Replies: 13
Views: 2856

Re: i want to do new game with Unity

don't. just don't it's not worth the risk of a lawsuit and will damage whatever reputation you were hoping to build. only ever use art from sources you know you have permission to use
by Colourless
Sun Apr 08, 2018 5:30 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Reverse engineering earlier Ultima games
Replies: 25
Views: 9642

Re: Reverse engineering earlier Ultima games

The DOS versions of the earlier ultima games are often among the worst versions due to awful graphics (cga) and sound (pc speaker) so engine reimplementation of the other more feature filled versions would be good thing. I don't know anything about the specifics of them though
by Colourless
Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:53 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: paperdoll men/women
Replies: 5
Views: 1281

Re: paperdoll men/women

Exult only knows the gender of the npcs that are meant to be in the party. Defaults to female cause those shapes were first in paperdol.vga.

If someone were to create a patch that sets the genders of all the npcs in the paperdoll data, i dont see why it wouldn't get applied to the code.
by Colourless
Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:53 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: FYI
Replies: 6
Views: 2607

Re: FYI

It's a shitty thing to do, but legally allowed if they provide the source code to the exact used version/provide a means to obtain the source code when requested. Some projects include a notification in the program that it is FOSS and uses GPL to make it a known when using the program that it should...
by Colourless
Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:24 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Option --buildmap changed
Replies: 5
Views: 907

Re: Option --buildmap changed

Old file formats like pcx and tga are very simple which makes writing an export function exceedingly easy. You don't even need any external code really. Pretty much just write the header and then the image data. Even though PNG has it's own standard library, libpng, because it exposes completely fun...
by Colourless
Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:46 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Explorer 6
Replies: 7
Views: 1492

Re: Explorer 6

I'm not sure why you'd be wanting to play exult on something that old. It wont perform well
by Colourless
Fri Jan 01, 2016 2:41 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: U8 with Speech Pack... with subtitles viewable... posible?
Replies: 8
Views: 1249

Re: U8 with Speech Pack... with subtitles viewable... posibl

Yeah doing it in Pentagram would be *a lot* easier.
by Colourless
Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:16 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: U8 with Speech Pack... with subtitles viewable... posible?
Replies: 8
Views: 1249

Re: U8 with Speech Pack... with subtitles viewable... posibl

It might be possible to hack the v2.12 u8.exe to display text and play voice at the same time. Probably wouldn't work well though and would act a bit weird. The sonarc tool wouldn't be able to be used *as is* to compress sound. U8 does a few things a little differently to the how the tool works. In ...
by Colourless
Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:39 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: SourceForge?
Replies: 23
Views: 2901

Re: SourceForge?

Yeah, don't see why that would affect anything
by Colourless
Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:30 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Picture of Ultima 7 @4k :)
Replies: 7
Views: 1287

Re: Picture of Ultima 7 @4k :)

Just be warned that some game functions only work when objects go off screen. With a play area that big, expect some problems, in particular in Forge of Virtue and Serpent Isle. (unless there has been workarounds implemented, been far too long since I touched the code and I really don't remember eve...
by Colourless
Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:18 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: How do I Load the Source Code in VS Express 2013
Replies: 6
Views: 836

Re: How do I Load the Source Code in VS Express 2013

You should be able to upgrade the solution in the MSVC9 directory. Will need some updating though as it's awfully out of date
by Colourless
Mon May 04, 2015 9:16 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Ultima 8 Free on Origin temporarily.
Replies: 8
Views: 1642

Re: Ultima 8 Free on Origin temporarily.

Possibly. It's not even for sale in the Aus store.
by Colourless
Mon May 04, 2015 5:23 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Ultima 8 Free on Origin temporarily.
Replies: 8
Views: 1642

Re: Ultima 8 Free on Origin temporarily.

US only I think. But if you connect to the origin website through a us vpn it will let you get it and you'll be able to download it in the client.
by Colourless
Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:12 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: List Field chests
Replies: 1
Views: 630

Re: List Field chests

Those chests are used by the game to store your inventory when you go to fight. Don't mess with them please :)
by Colourless
Wed Jun 18, 2014 7:40 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Will a PC CD-Rom version work on my Mac?
Replies: 8
Views: 1248

Re: Will a PC CD-Rom version work on my Mac?

O_o

Had no idea. Came up as 'New' and I didn't look at the dates.
by Colourless
Wed Jun 18, 2014 2:03 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Will a PC CD-Rom version work on my Mac?
Replies: 8
Views: 1248

Re: Will a PC CD-Rom version work on my Mac?

The CD Rom filesystem is pretty much universal across all operating systems. Each OS adds its own extensions, and if exact format isn't supported the disk can usually be read using a compatibility fallback. U7 disks were meant for DOS so they will probably just be standard ISO 9660 that everything s...
by Colourless
Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:47 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: First mod starting point...
Replies: 88
Views: 25169

Re: First mod starting point...

A mod is a constructed as a patch. In effect the mod's data patches the original game's data. The alternative is creating an entirely new game that doesn't use any existing content, which isn't classed as a mod.
by Colourless
Thu Feb 27, 2014 4:35 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Exult on GitHub?
Replies: 5
Views: 2357

Re: Exult on GitHub?

I think I might just add, mirrors of the Exult repository are unofficial. Only the SF repository is official.
by Colourless
Fri Jan 17, 2014 3:01 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: I was wondering: how do fans feel nowadays about Ultima
Replies: 77
Views: 10342

Re: I was wondering: how do fans feel nowadays about Ultima

When we first started playing around with Ultima 8 and started experimenting and then developing Pentagram it was impossible to play Ultima 8 with Dosbox and the hack to run it in Windows made it virtually unplayable too. Would be nice to polish Pentagram up a bit at some point though. Probably the ...
by Colourless
Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:19 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: iOS / iPhone / iPad
Replies: 82
Views: 19585

Re: iOS / iPhone / iPad

There is a couple of issues. Mostly comes down to the restrictions that the App Store places on Apps sort of violates GPL (v2) Term 3. Term 3 states "You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form". The intent is that the ...
by Colourless
Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:49 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: selecting terrain tiles in code
Replies: 8
Views: 1937

Re: selecting terrain tiles in code

Thinking about it, and looking at the code, would be simple enough to say extend UI_click_on_item to have an extra two elements returned (shape+frame) and then add a function to return the entire Shape_info structure for a shape.
by Colourless
Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:36 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: selecting terrain tiles in code
Replies: 8
Views: 1937

Re: selecting terrain tiles in code

I think what agentorangeguy really would want is to be able tell what index+frame the tile is.

Thinking about it, it would be like implementing the 'is_water' water intrinsic as usecode itself.
by Colourless
Tue Jun 25, 2013 6:40 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: selecting terrain tiles in code
Replies: 8
Views: 1937

Re: selecting terrain tiles in code

8x8 terrain tiles aren't items and I don't think there is anything in the code that would allow you to do what you'd want. An 'idea' could be to place specially crafted invisible items where you'd want to be able to dig, but that doesn't sound like what you'd want (a general solution). I think modif...
by Colourless
Sat Jun 01, 2013 10:44 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: text over palette fade
Replies: 2
Views: 753

Re: text over palette fade

Its not possible to put text over a palette fade in Exult. Would need to rewrite the way the graphics rendering works. Maybe if you were lucky you could try excluding certain palette entries from the fade, but you'll have problems if those palette entries aren't used in the background that you are f...
by Colourless
Sat May 25, 2013 9:02 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Rendering in U7
Replies: 9
Views: 1427

Re: Rendering in U7

The most peculiar thing about how Exult renderers is all the objects are sorted as they are added into their 'chunk'. Exult doesn't do sorting when doing actual rendering. (Note I haven't checked the code in years, it may have changed, but I doubt it)
by Colourless
Mon May 06, 2013 6:36 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Lost Vale
Replies: 32
Views: 5395

Re: Lost Vale

If what I know is correct, Lost Vale was still in pre-production when it was cancelled. If what they did was released, it wouldn't be of any use to anyone other than as a curiosity.
by Colourless
Thu Apr 25, 2013 8:38 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: xBRZ scaler update
Replies: 4
Views: 892

Re: xBRZ scaler update

*glares at Dominus* I have seen your various hints at me writing a scaling library. It would be quite handy for the reasons you state. I am yet to decide if I want to do it or not.
by Colourless
Thu Apr 18, 2013 1:44 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Corrupt disks for Serpent Isle, please help!
Replies: 25
Views: 3831

Re: Corrupt disks for Serpent Isle, please help!

Being pedantic you don't make ISOs of floppies you make disk images. ISO is used for CDs because ISO9660 its the filesystem used by CDs. The extension .iso says this file contains an ISO9660 filesystem. Floppies don't have a FAT filesystem so its wrong to call the disk images ISOs. Typically you'd u...
by Colourless
Sun Apr 07, 2013 12:48 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: SI Fixes more chaos ghosts.
Replies: 8
Views: 1130

Re: SI Fixes more chaos ghosts.

You don't need Linux to svn
by Colourless
Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:00 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: stat cap
Replies: 16
Views: 1395

Re: stat cap

Differences in the SI save game format meant that the stats couldn't be raised as high as BG. Can't remember if Exult's savegames have that limitation removed.
by Colourless
Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:13 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Pentagram still alive?
Replies: 181
Views: 56260

Re: Pentagram still alive?

Pentagram's music system is quite complicated and can't trivially be extended to play oggs, nor do I think it should. My recommend using FluidSynth (Pentagram should be built with it) with something like the Fluid soundfont for great music in Pentagram. High quality string and piano samples make a b...
by Colourless
Sat Dec 08, 2012 11:42 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Is exult actually using the mt32 emulator or just the record
Replies: 47
Views: 6749

Re: Is exult actually using the mt32 emulator or just the re

Need to remember about all this midi code is I developed it all on Windows. I can not say anything about the quality of the drivers used in Linux compliations. My experience looking at the midi code for linux was midi support in linux is awful. *shrugs*
by Colourless
Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:39 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?
Replies: 115
Views: 39349

Re: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?

I really like what it looks like. Just find the sprites having only 4 directions they face a little annoying. Really needs 8 (or 5) direction sprites like other games have.
by Colourless
Sat Sep 29, 2012 4:22 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?
Replies: 115
Views: 39349

Re: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?

Looks nice! Good job
by Colourless
Tue Sep 11, 2012 1:25 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Ultima Remakes
Replies: 17
Views: 2305

Re: Ultima Remakes

The problem with this is the effective world size of U7 is smaller than the games before it. 1 Tile in U6 is bigger than one tile in U7. It gets worse if you consider the other previous games. Those games had an overland map and then separate town maps. The effective world size in those games is sig...
by Colourless
Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:32 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?
Replies: 115
Views: 39349

Re: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?

You'd need to split the rendering into 2 different parts and composite them together (world and everything else). The simpler scalers should preserve alpha channel so you could draw gumps into a buffer thats got a background colour thats got an alpha value set (need to edit the palettes for this) th...
by Colourless
Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:38 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?
Replies: 115
Views: 39349

Re: Rotate graphics 45 degrees to be upright?

You'd want to upscale and rotate at the same time to get much nicer looking rotation.
by Colourless
Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:14 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Javascript port
Replies: 2
Views: 603

Re: Javascript port

While is probably technically possible there will be licensing issues. No one would be able to host the data except for EA so there would be no point.
by Colourless
Mon May 21, 2012 9:12 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: The infamous 'objects disappearing bug'
Replies: 115
Views: 24799

Re: The infamous 'objects disappearing bug'

Exults use of 'rand' will make this difficult to get to work properly, in addition that Exult doesn't work with a concept of 'frames' so playback could vary depending on the speed of the machine recording and playback. Its a nice idea, but for Exult its more technically difficult then it seems.
by Colourless
Thu May 17, 2012 9:55 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Developers: Don't waste your time.
Replies: 10
Views: 1545

Re: Developers: Don't waste your time.

DrCode you should keep an eye on IRC.
by Colourless
Thu May 10, 2012 1:05 am
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Kickstarter and Exult?
Replies: 1
Views: 587

Re: Kickstarter and Exult?

This is answered in the FAQ. http://exult.info/faq.php#exult_donation

Putting it simply we do not want money for our efforts. Read the FAQ for the reasons why.
by Colourless
Fri May 04, 2012 11:07 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: Bug: Possible start to "disappearing objects" problem?
Replies: 11
Views: 3204

Re: Bug: Possible start to "disappearing objects" problem?

If that is happening there is probably issue involving 'static' object being removed and cache out. I don't think its likely to cause the 'disappearing objects' problem. Exult doesn't use any sort of object ID system, it just uses pointers to objects so it can keep allocating new objects until you r...
by Colourless
Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:34 pm
Forum: Exult Discussion
Topic: The loading screens
Replies: 2
Views: 712

Re: The loading screens

I think the only reason is the SI load screen is a fixed size 320x200 so if your resolution is bigger than that it wont fill the entire screen