Making Patches for Games (was KQ7 - Brand New Patch Files for Art Fixes)

[Tawmis]

http://larrylaffer.net/non-lsl-games/ki ... -partygoer

Thank you for saving it. Looks great.
I’ve begun work on even more. Spent a few hours today cleaning up Valanice’s walking sprite, which I discovered was riddled with odd purple pixels that, admittedly, are hard to spot when she’s in motion. But if I’m doing this, I want to be thorough.

That's awesome! If I had the knowledge on how to tear out the game (I know with SCI/AGI, because there's tools for it) - but KQ7? No idea! - I'd totally do it (and I'd probably do it for Torin's Passage to see if it needed anything!)

EDIT: I split this from the KQ7 Patch thread since it veered off from that.

[Collector]

You don't really need to know SCI just to make graphics patches. For SCI0-1.1 you can just use the pic or view editors in Companion to edit or recreate a pic or a view. For SCI32 use FotoSCIhop. If your change does not involve the location of something that needs to be interacted with it most likely will not involve any changes to the scripting.

[Tawmis]

For SCI32 use FotoSCIhop. If your change does not involve the location of something that needs to be interacted with it most likely will not involve any changes to the scripting.

SCI/AGI I've tampered with the images (both character and backgrounds).

However, for FotoSCIhop and SCI32 (which I assume is what Torin's Passage / King's Quest VII fall under?) - I've never looked into using FotoSCIhop or whatever. So no idea how to export/import. That's all I am saying.

Just like changing oil in a car. I know it's under the hood, near the engine, but never did it myself.

[Semi-Happy Partygoer]

For SCI32 use FotoSCIhop. If your change does not involve the location of something that needs to be interacted with it most likely will not involve any changes to the scripting.

SCI/AGI I've tampered with the images (both character and backgrounds).

However, for FotoSCIhop and SCI32 (which I assume is what Torin's Passage / King's Quest VII fall under?) - I've never looked into using FotoSCIhop or whatever. So no idea how to export/import. That's all I am saying.

Just like changing oil in a car. I know it's under the hood, near the engine, but never did it myself.

It's actually very user-friendly. It allows for importing and exporting of individual frames and even allows you to swap palettes if necessary. I had to do that for a few of the KQ7 files for various reasons.

The "Deadfall Death" animations were among the most time consuming for me, especially Rosella's. For whatever reason, the original game file used a completely different palette to her usual one. You don't even have to look that closely to see all of Rosella's colors shift, from the blue of her dress becoming more purple to her skin looking oddly jaundiced.

Oddly, I think the "black cloak" death palette had all her original colors, so I imported that one to the v56, exported each frame as a bitmap, then painstakingly re-painted every cell until she matched her usual appearance. There might've been a faster way to remap the colors but I did it all manually just to make sure it came out right. I was able to listen to nearly an entire audiobook modifying that one file alone!

A few animations of her knocking on Dr. Cadaver's door suffer from similar issues, but I haven't gotten to those yet. All in good time.

[Collector]

You can use SV for viewing/extracting SCI and AGI resources. https://wiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/S ... rce_Viewer

SCI Companion is free:

https://wiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/SCI_Companion

FotoSCIhop is part of Enrico Rolfi's SCI free translation suite. These are tools he developed for the Italian translation of GK2.

https://wiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/TraduSCI

Even if you do not manage to do much with them, grab them and take a look. It won't cost you anything but a little time.

[goatmeal]

I believe I read that you simply put these files in the KQ7 "Patch" folder?

What if a game... say "Betrayal In Antara"... DOESN'T have a patch folder; is there a way to alter/patch the original resource file itself and use IT as a replacement?

As noted before, I have "fixed" several of the overhead map screens (as BMPs) that do not match the finished "on the ground"/first-person gameplay perspective. How would one be able to include THOSE files instead within the resource file?

Or is that too involved to explain here? Please bear in mind that I am strictly a layman. Thanks for any help or suggetsions, and sorry for thread-jacking, Semi-Happy Partygoer!

[Collector]

That is for SCI games and Antara is not. Any patches for SCI games meed to be where the game will look for them. This is specified in the config file, usually the RESOURCE.CFG file. There should be a line of "patchDir =" that specifies where the patches are. If none is specified the game will look in its base directory. These will override the resource file embedded in the volume file. Note that the earlier SCI games does not recognize this flag and only find patches in the base directory. Also, the first couple of SCI games do not accept external patch files and cannot be patched without recompiling the volume files with the patched resource. My Sierra Version Tool can display the known flags of your game. It is a way to determine if it accepts the patchDir flag. https://wiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/S ... rsion_Tool

[goatmeal]

Thank you for the information, Collector. I will definitely take a look at your Sierra Version Tool.