Backdrop starfield

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Backdrop starfield

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ual002
XWAU Member
Posts: 983
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:23 am

Post by ual002 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:58 pm

Quoting from another post:

"I don't want to start a tangent but someone did mention the backdrops and it did sort of make me curious about what keeps the default backdrop from being modified thru hex edits, IE, blacker background and bigger/brighter star pinpoints. The backdrop star field replacer is a great idea but with all the crazy exe edits you guys have been doing I find it curious there is no solution."

I guess what I'm trying to say is the game comes with a default starfield that doesn't require placing the well done starfield maps in the editor in the left, right, front, back, up, down quadrants... the ones added in the super backdrops pack added to DSUCP.

I always assumed that this solution was created because the starfield default to the game looked grey, and the distant star spots were tiny and weak giving the feeling of playing the game in a grey soup on more modern systems with modern resolutions.

My point is, that with all of the great, major exe changes people have been finding as we (you guys) sort of crack this title open nearly 20 years later, I guess I just find it curious someone hasn't found a way to make the vanilla backdrop more to the community liking. I'm not talking about adding a galactic axis haze or anything. I'm just taking about making the black blacker and the stars pop more.

Someone mentioning the TIE fighter total conversion missions needing those star field backdrops just made me think there was maybe a more direct solution.

Now mind you the starfield added with the super backdrops is a drastic improvement over the vanilla starfield as we have it currently, it just occasionally shows seems and can interfere strangely with the planets you add on the galactic axis because of that star haze on that plane.

Thoughts?
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keiranhalcyon7
Lieutenant JG
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Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:41 am

Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:52 pm

Sort of a tangent, but I've read that JaggedFel has an app to scan multiple missions for various characteristics. It shouldn't be too hard to adapt it to add the backdrops to all the TFTC missions en mass. I've been trying to build something like that myself using his back-end from Yogeme, but I haven't had much luck so far.

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JaggedFel
Galactic Empire
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Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:01 pm
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Post by JaggedFel » Tue Mar 06, 2018 12:48 pm

keiranhalcyon7 wrote:
Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:52 pm
Sort of a tangent, but I've read that JaggedFel has an app to scan multiple missions for various characteristics. It shouldn't be too hard to adapt it to add the backdrops to all the TFTC missions en mass. I've been trying to build something like that myself using his back-end from YOGEME, but I haven't had much luck so far.
That tool you mentioned does scan through every mission file for whatever value you're looking for, but was also written before I wrote the DLLs to handle mission files so that's working from raw hex. However, since I added Super Backdrops support to YOGEME I already have the basic routine down. Would still need SBD installed, obviously, but I could make a new tool to add them to all missions that are missing them, or a user-selected batch.

Back to the OP: in the end it comes down to finding the data in the EXE. My guess would be that it's an embedded resource rather than generated, but I haven't played around with the EXE in quite a while; these days I leave that to folks like Jeremy who are a lot better at it than I am.
Ye Olde Galactic Empire Mission Editor v1.15.6
Current software WIPs: TIE Layout and Cutscene Editor, TIE/XvT Cockpit Editor
Libraries / Format specs: *.tie, *.plt, *.tfr, *.lfd , *.act, *.dat image files, *.fnt

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