Carnivores, Carnivores 2, Carnivores Ice Age

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 2:53 am

Visit:

http://carnivoresgames.tk (my fansite)

http://machf.tripod.com/Hunt/Carn/MenuEng.htm (another fansite)

http://s3.invisionfree.com/The_Carnivor ... hp?act=idx (The 'officialy' unofficial Carnivores Forum)

There are currently three filetypes that support can be added for: .car, .map, and .rsc

If these can be added, we would much appreciate it!

friendsofwatto · Post by **friendsofwatto** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 1:20 pm

Hi there,

I have downloaded the specs from the forum you posted - but are you able to supply us with some small example files from the actual game (for testing etc.) If they are too big, is there a place where we can download the game or demo?

Also, what do you hope us to do with the files? If you want us to convert the textures into images you can view, or anything like that, I don't think MexCom will be able to do it. All MexCom can do is read archives, unless we specifically sit down and write a plugin just for that game. Please clarify what you want done, and we will try to help you out.

Thanks mate!

WATTO
watto@watto.org
http://www.watto.org

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 11:36 pm

Sorry for all the links here, but to post the nessecary content for you here would have made this post extremely long. Anyway, here goes...

Okay... Let's see... For an example of a .car file, go to

http://www.geocities.com/dinoguy1000/downloads.html

and select where it says "Click here to download the archeo.car file. (It's in a zipped folder)". It will proceed to download and you can examine it. If you want to see what we have determined (this will also give you hints at what I want, as I don't exactly know myself

), go to

http://machf.tripod.com/Hunt/Carn/car.htm (the page is in both Spanish and English right now...).

Next, the .map fliles. If you go to

http://machf.tripod.com/Hunt/Carn/files.htm,

you can find four downloadable .map files (at the bottom of the page)(they are ones edited by Machf, the mastermind behind the veiwers you see further up

... They will still serve your purpose, right?). To veiw the structure so far ascertained, visit

http://machf.tripod.com/Hunt/Carn/map.htm.

As for .rsc files, I can't think of where to get ahold of any aside from downloading a demo (if you have enough time, try a google search). However, you can look at what we have done with them at

http://machf.tripod.com/Hunt/Carn/rsc.htm.

Basically, they are the main source files for the levels, and the .map files merely act as 'pointers' for them.

Now, for what exactly I want, I can't explain clearly, but basically veiwers like the ones seen on Machf's downloads page. Once again, I apologise for the number of links, but there was no way around them. I just hope you have the patience (and time!) to read down this far...

friendsofwatto · Post by **friendsofwatto** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:37 am

OK, thanks for that, We will take a look at them whenever we get the time.

WATTO
watto@watto.org
http://www.watto.org

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 2:59 am

You're welcome!

I hope you get the time soon (but I'm not trying to rush you or anything...), because we would really like to see these files supported in a "professional" veiwer...

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:06 am

Before I forget to tell you, the Carnivores game uses slightly (I think) different formats than Carn2 and Carn Ice Age.

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 8:25 am

As WATTO said, we'd have to create a viewer first to plug into MexCom. Currently, only standard formats are supported for viewing/listening such as tif, bmp, jpg, gif, wav, xm, mod etc.

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 6:41 pm

Well, these files are essentially archive files. The major obstacle would be the fact that they are in a raw, uncompressed format (basically, it's like they made the different details - graphics, sounds, and animations - and used a hex editor to "dump" all of it into one file. Do keep in mind, though, that that's not how it was done, they had editors of their own that they used).

According to Machf, it would be very simple to extract the graphics and sounds and export them to .bmp and .wav files, respectively. As for the animations, based on what I know of .gif files, they could probably be exported to .gif formats.

However, I don't know as much about this stuff as all that gibberish might lead you to believe, so I could be wrong about it in multiple areas...

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 9:40 pm

Okay, no problem, if we can extract it, we will.

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:40 pm

Thanks!

machf · Post by **machf** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:42 pm

Well... I'd suggest you start with the .car files, which are sort of "universal" between all three games. They each contain, among other things, a single texture (which is always 256 pixels wide, the length in bytes allows you to calculate the height; each pixel is 16 bits, or 2 bytes, long, stored in the same format as old-style TGA files - saving it on a 16-bit BMP file would just require flipping the line order), and a variable number of sounds, stored as raw PCM data, sampled as 16-bit mono files at 22050 Hz. If you could just extract and/or add them back into the original file, it would be more than enough.

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:00 pm

Hey, FriendsofWatto, d'you think you could take another look at this if you get the time? I tried to get help writing a script for the .car files, but apparently everyone else just doesn't want to deal with a n00b such as myself...

friendsofwatto · Post by **friendsofwatto** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:25 pm

Hey,

I did start writing a script for these files, but I ended up scrapping it because the format is just too messy. I *may* have another look at it but don't know if I will end up writing a script for it. The other reason why I probably won't end up doing a script is because I have only done 2 scripts before for pretty simple archive structures - I don't know if I can do something for the structure in the *.car files.

Alternatively though, I may be able to help you correct any of your scripts.

I will take another look at it over the next few days - I don't have anything else to do at the moment - and will see what I come up with.

WATTO
watto@watto.org
http://www.watto.org

Post by **Dinoguy1000** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:19 am

Okay. From what you said, I won't get my hopes up, but I will keep my fingers crossed. Indeed, when I started shadowing here, and saw how simple most of the other formats were as opposed to these, I am beginning to doubt whether MexCom could even handle them. And I don't have a clue how to handle the 3-D models, other than exporting the whole chunk to one file...

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:20 am

Dinoguy1000 wrote:Hey, FriendsofWatto, d'you think you could take another look at this if you get the time? I tried to get help writing a script for the .car files, but apparently everyone else just doesn't want to deal with a n00b such as myself...

Well, the problem is with having this as a hobby, and not as a permanent job, that one has to find time to do it in free time.

My work in research does not allow much free time, and I love time with my family as well.

Besides that, I have just come back from a weekend in Paris to visit some old friends...

XeNTaX

XeNTaX

Carnivores, Carnivores 2, Carnivores Ice Age

Carnivores, Carnivores 2, Carnivores Ice Age