Editing Ufopedia Entries...

[Sorrow]

I need to edit some ufopedia entries for my mod - does anyone know how to do it?

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

..Well I know you can edit the backgrounds, but the text I am at a loss. ._.

if anyone was to know it would be J'ordos..

too bad hes never on D:

[Guest Azrael Strife]

The actual text? it's in the executable.

[Sorrow]

No, the text is in PAEDIA.MT file. The question is - how to edit it without breaking it?

[Guest Azrael Strife]

Odd, Zombie showed me the UFOPAEDIA text in the executable.

[Zombie]

Actually I later found out that the stuff in the executable is the tool tip text - you know, the pre-research text when you hover your mouse over the topic.

 

If you open up UFOPAEDI\PAEDIA.MT in notepad that should work. Just make sure not to edit/modify any of the special characters. I usually edit stuff with MS-Edit myself. It seems to give better control over the editing process. Each piece of header text ends with a null byte, not a space - so be careful there. The actual articles start with a double null byte and end with a single so don't remove them or bad things could happen. I believe those special characters determine how the ufopaedia is ordered, but haven't got that far into editing Apoc yet. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

Edited September 17, 2007 by Zombie

[Sorrow]

I tried editing the file in ms-edit and it seems that changing the text results in dissapearing of some entries...

[[NKF]]

Did you make sure that you edited the file in binary mode, and were you sure that the null string terminators and the double null headings weren't erased or overwritten? Binary mode's a bit of a pain, but you can at least see whether you're under a null or a space by the ascii value in the corner, and saving in binary saves everything by their actual values and no text translation is performed.

 

- NKF

Edited September 17, 2007 by NKF

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

me has a question---

Who the heck uses the ufopedia in game anyways xD!

[Guest Azrael Strife]

We probably all did when we first played the game.......

 

I still do it when I do, it's fun to let oneself immerse in the world of Apoc..

[Sorrow]

I still do it when I do, it's fun to let oneself immerse in the world of Apoc..

You can't immerse yourself into the world of Apoc. It's not FPP .

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

whats Fpp? ._.'

 

first person... uhhhh.. ..... peanuts? >>

[Sorrow]

Yes, according to gaming "journalists" games that were made non-FPP (X-Com or Fallout, for example) were made so, because there wasn't a sufficient technology to make FPP games .

Because, like there weren't FPP games like Doom, Ultima Underworld or Quake in those times ...

Edited September 17, 2007 by Sorrow

[Guest Azrael Strife]

I still do it when I do, it's fun to let oneself immerse in the world of Apoc..

You can't immerse yourself into the world of Apoc. It's not FPP .

I did not understand anything in that post.

[[NKF]]

First Person Pespective. Then there's good old third-person-perspective, which is just as for that old out-of-body experience.

 

Some of these so-called journalists have incredibly high expectations. Games don't always have to be first/third person persective. It's not that it couldn't or cannot be done - it just doesn't need to be done. You don't need to turn a simple game like Pong into a MMORPG with all the bells and whistles.

 

You can immerse yourself in an isometric view game, but perhaps not on the same level as looking through the eyes of that little guy walking about the street. That's approaching total immersion. Instead, you end up immersing yourself in the atmosphere and narrative of the game.

 

As for the ufopaedia entries: Well, some of us do end up reading them at one time or another. I like them when they're short, sweet and descriptive. I think Aftermath overdid its entries, so I never bothered reading them.

 

With games like UFO, TFTD and Apocalypse, there are a lot of literary aspects of the game that you pick up by just reading the entries that you don't get to see in actual play in the game. For example, in the Apocalypse there are companies that don't really do a thing. Like the Gravball league. However, after reading the ufopaedia entry, your mind starts filling in all the blanks that the game producers left out and you suddenly have this idea of what they're all about.

 

The most obvious reason for editing the ufopaedia would be to maintain consistency when you're making mods. There's not much sense in your new Ultimate Derrigible of Doom having the entry for the Blazer Turbo Bike!

 

- NKF

[Sorrow]

First Person Pespective. Then there's good old third-person-perspective, which is just as for that old out-of-body experience.

 

Some of these so-called journalists have incredibly high expectations. Games don't always have to be first/third person persective. It's not that it couldn't or cannot be done - it just doesn't need to be done. You don't need to turn a simple game like Pong into a MMORPG with all the bells and whistles.

I wouldn't call it high expectations - they want games to be less diverse and more similar to each other - these are rather low expectations. What they can't understand is that isometric and topdown are valid viewpoints.

 

You can immerse yourself in an isometric view game, but perhaps not on the same level as looking through the eyes of that little guy walking about the street. That's approaching total immersion. Instead, you end up immersing yourself in the atmosphere and narrative of the game.

Taking in account the incredibly low level of FPP technology, I wouldn't call it more immersive than isometric view.

Actually, when I'm playing Operation Flashpoint, for example, I can see all it's flaws:

1. I'm looking at a monitor, not through the eyes of the soldier.

2. My field of view is much bigger than the field of view in FPP games.

3. When I'm walking out I usually constantly scan the surroundings, searching for possible threats or interesting objects, using my neck and eyeballs - the FPP view is fixed, sometimes it allows to look up and down.

4. When I look down, I see my legs, my torso, my arms and other parts of my body. It doesn't happen in game.

 

As for the immersion in atmosphere and narrative - I agree - more, I find such immersion superior to FPP immersion.

 

With games like UFO, TFTD and Apocalypse, there are a lot of literary aspects of the game that you pick up by just reading the entries that you don't get to see in actual play in the game. For example, in the Apocalypse there are companies that don't really do a thing. Like the Gravball league. However, after reading the ufopaedia entry, your mind starts filling in all the blanks that the game producers left out and you suddenly have this idea of what they're all about.

It adds a lot to the game - theoretically, it's a simple tactical/strategic/economical game, but the descriptions make it a living, interesting world.

 

 

Hmm...

I tried editing in binary mode, but it corrupted the ufopedia anyway...

Edited September 18, 2007 by Sorrow

[[NKF]]

Perhaps I should've said an attempt at mimicking total immersion. It never quite works though. Just a few thoughts there:

 

1. Agreed. But it's the next best thing short of using a VR helmet.

 

2. Again, agreed. Unless they use letterbox format or play it on a widescreen aspect on a really-really big screen.

 

3. Worse, you look wherever your arm points - with gun or whatever pointy stick you have in your hands at the time. Try doing that in real life! It's rather ridiculous. Would've been nice if the arm stayed where it was until you entered some form of ready stance (i.e. pushing the attack button).

 

4. You know, I'm surprised at how many games with a first person mode completely neglect this. How hard could it be? It would make some FPS take on ye-olde platforming action so much easier if you could see where your feet where when you make that leap of faith. Often you just cascade over the edge or jump short of the mark. I've only seen one or two games with a first person perspective that showed your lower body when you look down. But I think that advantage was not all that great on account of jetpacking being your primary form of travel. Or something like that. In either case, this is what leans me more towards third-person views more for all the horrible-horrible platforming fun.

 

Excessive realism - too much and the game just gets ruined. Where's all the fantasy gone these days? (Fantasy as in imagination, not in swords and sorcery fantasy )

 

---

 

With your ufopaedia editing, did you save over your previous edit or did you start from a fresh copy?

 

- NKF

Edited September 18, 2007 by NKF

[Guest Azrael Strife]

First Person Pespective. Then there's good old third-person-perspective, which is just as for that old out-of-body experience.

 

Some of these so-called journalists have incredibly high expectations. Games don't always have to be first/third person persective. It's not that it couldn't or cannot be done - it just doesn't need to be done. You don't need to turn a simple game like Pong into a MMORPG with all the bells and whistles.

I wouldn't call it high expectations - they want games to be less diverse and more similar to each other - these are rather low expectations. What they can't understand is that isometric and topdown are valid viewpoints.

 

You can immerse yourself in an isometric view game, but perhaps not on the same level as looking through the eyes of that little guy walking about the street. That's approaching total immersion. Instead, you end up immersing yourself in the atmosphere and narrative of the game.

Taking in account the incredibly low level of FPP technology, I wouldn't call it more immersive than isometric view.

Actually, when I'm playing Operation Flashpoint, for example, I can see all it's flaws:

1. I'm looking at a monitor, not through the eyes of the soldier.

2. My field of view is much bigger than the field of view in FPP games.

3. When I'm walking out I usually constantly scan the surroundings, searching for possible threats or interesting objects, using my neck and eyeballs - the FPP view is fixed, sometimes it allows to look up and down.

4. When I look down, I see my legs, my torso, my arms and other parts of my body. It doesn't happen in game.

 

As for the immersion in atmosphere and narrative - I agree - more, I find such immersion superior to FPP immersion.

 

With games like UFO, TFTD and Apocalypse, there are a lot of literary aspects of the game that you pick up by just reading the entries that you don't get to see in actual play in the game. For example, in the Apocalypse there are companies that don't really do a thing. Like the Gravball league. However, after reading the ufopaedia entry, your mind starts filling in all the blanks that the game producers left out and you suddenly have this idea of what they're all about.

It adds a lot to the game - theoretically, it's a simple tactical/strategic/economical game, but the descriptions make it a living, interesting world.

 

 

Hmm...

I tried editing in binary mode, but it corrupted the ufopedia anyway...

:ohboy:

 

im?merse /ɪˈmɜrs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-murs] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

?verb (used with object), -mersed, -mers?ing.

1. to plunge into or place under a liquid; dip; sink.

2. to involve deeply; absorb: She is totally immersed in her law practice.

3. to baptize by immersion.

4. to embed; bury.

 

Immersion is not about a visual experience *only*, elements that add to the life of the game allow you to immerse yourself into it, you don't need to be from the soldiers POV to feel immersed. If you just need to be on someone's POV for it, you can always think you're the X-Com commander working from the ship, or from the base itself, giving instructions to the soldiers.

 

First time I've seen FPP, said games' genre is called FPS, First Person Shooter.

[j'ordos]

Old topic, but working on the Megapol mod I found it's possible to edit the UFOPaedia entries using a hex editor. Don't think of actually adding text, but replacing it works fine. (it seems as long as the total filesize of paedia.mt matches it's okay, so you can extend one entry by shortening another)

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Jordos, would that not mean you could simply clear some of the more useless entries for room on a more important one? ^^

Or would that simply give an error of not having data and thus needing to leave a word or two anyways o=

 

 

I suppose its alot of work for such a minor feature really, but could be rather useful once we get some more pro going into the mod sectors xd

[j'ordos]

I tried it with the megapol mod, and apparently the length of each individual entry is fixed. So you can't clear one entry to use more characters in another one.

Each entry also has some 'header' data in the paedia.mt file but altering those so far hasn't yielded any results.

[Sorrow]

There were locations of X-Com3, so there must be some way to change the length of an entry.

 

I downloaded a polish translation of X-Com3 and it consists of:

 

SMALLSET.DAT

SMALFONT.SPC

SMALFONT.DAT

BIGFONT.SPC

BIGFONT.DAT

 

PAEDIA.MTI

PAEDIA.MT

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

my guess would be MTI, as I took a look at MT with notepad and there seems to only be the actual text of the game.

 

Would I be able to get a copy of those files for comparison to the english counterparts Sorrow? ^^

I wish to see if they do indeed have the same ammount of charactors in the Polish version as the english, or if there is for sure a non-hardcoded limit for Ufopedia =D

[Sorrow]

Ok. Here it is.

pl.zip

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Polish stats on .mt

pages 20
words 11,795
characters (no spaces) 76,626
characters (with spaces) 88,971
paragraphs 1
lines 1,082

 

English stats (Megapol mod to be more specific)
Pages 23
Words 14,602
Characters (no spaces) 69,155
Characters (with spaces)83,687
Paragraphs 1
Lines 1,022

 

With a 3 page differance, I say its safe to say if that translation works, it is NOT hard coded into the game but lies in one of those files ^^

[Hallor]

paedia.mti file is index file for paedia.mt

 

They created it for faster lookups in paedia.mt (with variable record size).

 

Unfortunantelly i've lost my notes on how does it look like, it's afair something like 4 byte offsets.

 

If you'll be unable to find it pm me - i can try to find it out again.

 

All i needed to do is to extract ufopaedia records, and i've done it without index (brute force rox )

 

BR

H, new here

Edited February 24, 2008 by Hallor

[Sorrow]

Any news about the editing?

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I would Pm J'ordos, if you look into the ufopedia in his recent versions of the Megapol mod you'll notice that a few of the ufopedia's have been changed.

 

as he mentioned in his previous post, if you have the same number of characters it should work fine using a hex editor, but I wouldnt be the person to ask about such things. x:

 

Sorry I cant be of further assistance Im a physics junky not a text junky

[Sorrow]

I found out how it works and modified a single description to see if it works:

 

After each entry there's a border marker FFFF next byte after it is the start of a new entry.

The start is indexed in the paedia.mti.

Now, the problem is that modyfying an entry requires editing every index position after it, which requires a lot of work.

So, making real changes in Ufopeadia would require a program that would assist in it.