**** RVIEW 4.5 Revision 1 **** October-2001, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. By Turbo Pascal, cyber_pascal@yahoo.com Overview: ========== Rview is a program that let you open Tomb Raider levels and show you each room full textured on in and you can import/export the rooms to a DXF file format so you can edit them in a CAD program. Also with Rview you can do some editing in the room: - Put different textures to each face in the floor,walls,ceiling. - Rotate the faces in the room. - Put white Lights intensities for TR1/TR2/TR3/TR4/TRC and colored lights for TR3,TR4 and TRC levels to the floor/walls/ceilings - Cut faces in the room. - Zone editor that can be used for custom levels. - Change Ambient room Light that will afect Lara and Objects in the room, white ambient light for TR1/TR2/TR3/TR4/TRC and colored ambient light for TR4 and TRC levels. - Support for Trscp.exe program. This program belong to the unoficials level editor tools: - TReditor3d: For build all rooms from scratch. - Trtexture : A texture manager for export/import textures set in the level. - Rview : For make a great Modeling & texture & lights work to the rooms. - TRitem : For populate the level with items/triggers. - TRviewer : For import/export Items from others levels. - Severals others tools for different task. HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM. ========================= Keys Guide: ------------ In the render window. - RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON = Rotate the rooms. - RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON + CTRL = Zoom In/Out the rooms. - RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON + SHIFT = Pan the rooms. - CLICK = Put Primary texture or Light or Zone value. - CLICK + SHIFT = Put Secoundary texture. - CLICK + CTRL = Pick Texture from face. - CLICK + ALT = Rotate Texture. - CLICK + SHIFT + CTRL = Cut Face. - CTRL + U = Undo. - CTRl + R = Redo. The Texture Panel 1 -------------------- Select from the menu the option "Textures", "Panel 1", to bring a panel with the most comun textures to be used in the level. The textures are grouped in the 4 comun sizes: 64x64, 64x48, 64x32, 64x16. Use 64x64 for texture complete tile, 64x48 for 3/4 tiles, 64x32 for 1/2 tile 64x16 for 1/4 tile. - Click left mouse button over a texture to select it to the primary texture. - Click right mouse button over a texture to select it to the secoundary texture. The Texture Panel 2 -------------------- Select from the menu the option "Textures", "Panel 2", to bring a panel with the whole textures availible in the level. - Click left mouse button over a texture to select it to the primary texture. - Click right mouse button over a texture to select it to the secoundary texture. The Animated texture Panel --------------------------- Select from the menu the option "Textures", "Animated Textures", to bring a panel with the Animated texture list avaible in the level. Select from the list the animated texture set, Rview will show you a real time animated sample. - Click left mouse button over the animated texture picture for select it to the primary texture. - Click right mouse button over the animated texture picture for select it to the secoundary texture. Controls Dialog **************** There are 3 folders in the Control dialog: Main Control, Light Intensity and Colored Light. Main control ------------- In the Mian Control you choose what room to show and edit, you can show 2 rooms at the same time, but only one can be edited (the current). When you open a level the Room #1 and Room #2 are selected and room #1 is the current, the camera is focused in the room #1, this mean that the center point for the ROTATE function is the center for the current room. Each time that you select a room from the combo box it will be drawn at his position, but the camera still focused in the previous position, this way you can focus a room and see drawn the others rooms relative to the current room. Press
for focus the camera at the current room. If you put check to the option then only one room will be draw, (the current one) and the camera will be center automaticly each time that you select other room. You can see the rooms in wireframe, solid or textured mode; the wireframe mode is the fast mode when you zoom/move/rotate a room. When you are in render textured and the option is unchecked, you can put/pick textures for the faces (texture mode). If you check the option then the rooms are shown with lights/color intensities and you can put white or colored lights to the faces (light mode). Light intensity ------------------ In the light intensity folder, you select what kind of light you will put each time that you click a face: "White light" or "Colored light." colored light only will work if you are editing a TR3/TR4/TRC files. The intensity bar will let you to adjust the white light from Clear to dark; you can select dark intensity for put shadows in the room. There are 4 check controls, one for each corner of the face, when you put a white light to a face rview will apply the light only to the corners that are selected. NOTE: this corner selection are affected if you rotate a face. Colored Light (for Tr3/Tr4/trc) --------------- When In colored light mode, you can select the light color to use, press button to bring the color picker window. Select the color that you want to use. There are 4 check controls for the faces's corners to be used for colored lights. Ambient Room Light. ------------------- In the "white Light" dialog you found a control, each time that you change this value rview automaticaly will update the ambient room light that only will affect to Lara and objects in the room. This control work for TR1/tr2/tr3/tr4/trc levels. In the "Colored Light" dialog you found a control, each time that you change all values Rview will update the colored ambient light for TR4 and TRC levels only. You can also press the button for put the current color picked in the color dialog picker. Note that if the control is used, then these RGB values are overwroten for the correct RGB white light color calculated value. The REPLICATE control: ---------------------- Each time that you click over a face to put a texture or light, the function will be repeated the amount times selected in the control. You must note the direction that Rview replicate the function, for the floor and ceilings alway from back to front, and for the walls from down to up. (for Rooms built with Treditor3d). How to use the zone editor. ***************************. In all TR series, the enemies can be restringed to determined areas in a room, these areas are called zones. A enemy only can walk in the zone where he is when was activated. For default treditor assign all tiles in the room to the zone #0, this mean that the enemies can go anywhere in the room. With rview you can now assign to each tile different zone values so the enemies will be restringed to some areas in the room. The enemies only will try to get Lara when she walk in tiles with zone # same that they are. When Lara walk on tiles with zone #1 only the enemies that are in zone #1 will try to get her, when she walk to the zone #2 then enemies in the zone #1 will not bother with her, but the enemies in zone #2 will try to get her now. To assign a zone value to the sector do this: - Select the render mode. - Put the value zone number in the field. - Click the sector that will have this zone value. In Rview there are only 6 different zone values availibles with one different color for each, these mean that for each room you can only have 6 different zones. For Originals levels from the CD the sectors with zones higer that 6 will be showed with grey color. There are 3 clase zones for TR1/TUB: - Ground Zone1 - Ground Zone2 - Fly Zone. Seems that some kind enemies will use the ground zone1, other kind enemies will use the ground zone2 and other kind enemies will use the fly zone. The animals that run in the ground (wolfs, bears, lions etc) use the ground zone1; the animals that fly or swim (Bats, birds, cocodriles, fishs etc) use the Fly zone. I don't know what enemies use the ground zone2, or for what is used. For TR2/TR3/TR4/TRC there are 5 clases zones: Ground zone1, Ground zone2, Ground zone3, Ground zone4 and fly zone. (i am not sure if in that order) I don't know what enemies use the ground zone 2/3/4 or for what they are used MSH file format. **************** The MSH is a custom file format created for RView and TReditor. It only contains the data for the vertex table, rectangles, triangles, textures, lights and zones for all rooms in the level. Note that for textures it only contains the textures ID for each polygon but not the actual texture data in the level. With the MSH file you save your work made with RVIEW and be restored later if the level was recreated again with Treditor, or for send your work to another person for be applied to a original level from the CD. NOTE: seems that i have a bug with MSHs and DXFs, sometimes the info for room #1 is corrupted in the MSH after importing the room from DXF in the same sesion; so if happen to you then import the room from the DXF, save the Level in TR format, then re-start Rview and build the MSH. DXF file format import/export. ******************************* The DXF is a ASCCI file format created for AUTODESK, some popular CAD program support it. The DXF file only include the polygon data and texture numbers, so lights and zones are not stored in DXFs. When you import from a DXF the current lights and Zone info are preserved. When you open a DXF created with RVIEW in your CAD program, all faces are asigned to a Layers named Texture_x where "x" is the texture number for that face. example: Texture_150, Texture_200, Texture_10 etc. You can draw/edit all faces and assing them to the layer with the texture name that you want the face will use. Only 3d faces (rectangles or triangles) can be imported from a DXF file, so don't expect to import circles, lines, text or other 2d figure from your CAD program. NOTE: In DXFs there are 2 ways to store the polygon data: - Using VERTEX list, where all faces are stored using a continuos list for all polygon's corners. (i guess draw using Triangles) - Using a 3dFACE list, where each 4 corner is defined independiently, (draw using rectangles), and if a triangle is defined then the corner 4 is the same that the corner 3. Some CAD program build the DXF using VERTEX entities, others use 3dFACE entities, RVIEW can only import from 3DFACES entities, so make sure to use that option when you build a DXF in your CAD program. I don't have 3d Studio MAX but seem that it only export DXF using VERTEX list. I use AUTOCAD 13, also Rhinoceros 3d work fine, and seems that 3d Caligiari true space also work. Finding a Sector: ----------------- Rview work exclusive with the room mesh data, but i also include a option for find the sector belong to the faces. When you get a texture from a face using , Rview will try to find at which sector this face belong and will show the "Column & row" info at the status bar. This info is useful when you use scripting files for put items/triggers in levels built with RETURN2 & REMAP tools. Note: If you get a invalid column & room number (like 223455668 value) just try again. Undo & Redo ----------- Just press for undo what you did in the last click. Press for Redo the last undo. You have a max of 10 undo/redo levels back. This feature is not availible for the zone editor work. THE OPENGL PROBLEM ------------------ Rview use OPENGL APIs for draw the rooms, i tested this program with the software version OPENGL32.DLL from Microsoft also with the version from SGI, with both, Rview run fine. The people say that the DLL from SGI run fastest that Microsoft's DLL, but in Rview in did't note difference. Also Rview use the Opengl utility library GLU32.DLL from Microsoft, the version from SGI make Rview Crash, so don't use it. Some Video Cards come with his own Opengl hardware accelerated drivers included, so i suggest you to try Rview with these drivers first, RView run Fast in a simple Pentium 150 mzh with not hardware accelerated video card, but seems that Opengl is not 100% compatible and does not work the same in all hardware accelerated videocards. If Rview get bad perfomance in your especific video card, then try to do the following things: - Update your Opengl drivers for your especifiq video card. - Switch to different resolutions and color depth. I get reports from people telling that they resolve the problem switching from 16 bits to 32 bits color, or switchig from 800x600 to another uncomun screen resolution. - Disable all hardware accelerated features in your video card setup program. - Use gldirect program from scitech software for run opengl programs using your Direct3d drivers. If you still having problem runing Rview after that, PLEASE, DON'T EMAILME ASKING ME TO DO SOMETHING, there is nothing that i can do in Rview for making it run in your especifiq/problematic/Rview-uncompatible video card, sorry. There is not plan to migrate to Direct3d, i hate direct3d, my head want to blow out when i try to learn direct3d, sorry about that. TR4/TRC support and the time loading a level. ------------------------------------------ Yes, Rview can open Tr4/TRC levels, however severals data are not full tested in tr4/TRC levels, some data could be interpreted different in Tr4/TRC vice tr1-tr3. For the moment i only found that there are some TRiangular texture infor problems for TR4/TRC, mean that some textures availibles in the texture panel work incorrect when they are used in the room. If you found stranges thing in your Tr4 levels after saving it with rview, please let me know. Loading a Tr4/TRC level realy take some time, due that Tr4/TRC levels are in compressed mode, so it take some time to desscompres it; also tr4/TRc files are biger because they include WAV sound files on in. In TRC file format levels, the room section data is stored in different format so i have to made a extra work converting the room section to the same format used in Tr1/tr2/tr3/TR4 levels. My load_level rutine is a litle complex because deal with all tr file format, there are severals "if..then" instructions, also for making my life ease, each time that a level is loaded severals calcs/conversions are perfomed, Also rview load all textures to opengl memory buffer, and build bitmaps table that are used for panels textures and animated panels textures. Invalid float point operation error. ------------------------------------ Yes, there is a problem between Delphi4 and Opengl, sometimes you will get the message error "invalid float point operation". Don't worry about this, just ingnore the error and try again the operation. Multiresolution. ----------------- The main problem for a programmer is to built a program that look the same in another user windows screen resolution. Rview was coded in 800x600 and normal font, so the first time that you run Rview the window maybe are not in good position. I coded a new feature that i am including in all my tools, Rview now "remember" all the windows size and position that you choose. So after running Rview, resize the main windows, tools and move the textures panels in any position that you want, Rview will keep this size & position next time that you run the program. TRC AND LAYERS. --------------- Warning: In TRC levels, all rooms for the originals levels are built normaly in 4 pieces (called "Layers"), i guess that this way the TRc engine render the room faster, however Rview (and all my tools that save TRC files) save back the rooms using just one layer, so i suggest not use these tools with your originals levels from CD if you are runing them from hard disk. ----------------.--------------.----------------.-----------.--------.---- Good luck, Turbo Pascal, October-2001