Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: TrashMan on November 11, 2010, 03:36:10 am
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I'm wondering if anyone managed to port these to FS2. There's a lot of them and they're all very diverse and excellent. Was thinking of trying to do it myself, but my Starlancer CD is damaged and I can't install it anymore :(
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It appears we have a mutual interest. I've tried picking at this problem myself before, but with no luck.
Here's my findings:
-The Starlancer .hog archive file format is arcane, but there are programs that can get into it.
-More saliently, the head animations exist (I believe) in the bizzaro .fm8 format. I posted a thread about that very thing a few months ago. Nobody here or among my circle of friends had a clue how to deal with them. My guess is that .fm8 is a weird proprietary format; my plan was to get a hold of somebody from the original dev team for some insight. I have not yet done that. (Stupid college)
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Frak. nothing on .fm8 format It really is cryptic.
Well..the only way to get them seems to be FRAPS and video editing software (to cut the unnecessary part). :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :hopping: :hopping:
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Well..the only way to get them seems to be FRAPS and video editing software (to cut the unnecessary part).
Clumsy, but doubtless effective. That method will probably miss some animations, though.
I resolve to try my damnedest to get a hold of somebody who knows something this coming week. Assuming there are any ways left to actually convert those .fm8s to a useful format, I'll convert them myself! IronBeer refuses to let this treasure trove of resources be untapped to the HLP community.
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I've been looking for a converter, but so far I have found nothing...
It is possible that that format is just some OTHER format, with a re-named extension. Game companies sometimes do stuff like that.
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Try to open them with some good, multi funtion viewer and check if it says that it's a file with incorrect extension.
IrfanView may be capable of that.
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HM..good idea.
One could also try randomly re-naming the extension to various video formats.
hope either thing works. there's like 50+ high quality different personans in Starlancer. It would be a shame for that to go to waste.
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But... are we allowed to use them?
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But... are we allowed to use them?
Nothing to stop us until they tell us to stop. I say go for it.
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Agreed with Quanto.
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But they can tell us to stop the bad way, which isn't that convenient IMHO. :nervous:
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Does the company that made Starlancer still exists?
It's an old game and I recall something happening to people who made Freelancer (which is a sequel to Starlancer).
Most of them are most likely retired anyway.
EDIT: Found it, Digital Anvil is now defunct and Chris Roberts is making movies.
Microsoft, of course, is still around, but do you think they'll care about an old game which turned out to be a bomb anyway?
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Thanks for the research! :)
*turns left and pats his copy of StarLancer*
If the situation is so favorable for us, I don't see why we shouldn't import those anis via FRAPS or similar programs. I would do that myself if only I had enough spare time and, of course, FRAPS.
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There were people who didn't know that Digital Anvil had gone tits-up? I figured all the mourning over Freelancer 2 had gotten the word out.
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Shame...Starlancer was REALLY GOOD.
The heroics in the story were a bit over-the-top (in that your enemy had EVERY advantage imaginable, and your squadron did EVERY instrumental mission in the conflict) and it has the predictable evil russians/chinesse.
But the atmosphere itself was great, fighter and ship design was inspired.
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There were people who didn't know that Digital Anvil had gone tits-up? I figured all the mourning over Freelancer 2 had gotten the word out.
Sure, there are. Console gamers and people who don't own Freelancer.
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There were people who didn't know that Digital Anvil had gone tits-up? I figured all the mourning over Freelancer 2 had gotten the word out.
Sure, there are. Console gamers and people who don't own Freelancer.
Digital Anvil's death actually caused a fair amount of tears console-side too because Freelancer 2/Project Lonestar was headed for the Xbox.
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Not really sure if there's been movement on this front, but I'ma just report that LancersReactor is pretty much back on-line. There's probably some folks who might know a thing or three over there.
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Bump for update.
No luck on getting information as yet, but a chance conversation with a friend has revealed that some people may know how to make use of .fm8s. I've got feelers out at the Lancers Reactor and DeviantArt forums (apparently some people at DA can make sense of .fm8s. Yeah, I don't get it either).
Got my fingers crossed for some good news, and possibly some software.
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why no capture the Ani's using FRAPS and than cut them into a usable file? that would seem the fastest and easiest way...
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(TrashMan, I apologize for the partial thread hijack)
why no capture the Ani's using FRAPS and than cut them into a usable file? that would seem the fastest and easiest way...
I don't think so, not when it's (theoretically) possible to work with the files directly.
Also, a little news from Lancers Reactor: .fm8 is in fact an animation format, but there are no known programs that can make use of it. If anybody's got some crazy coding skills, or knows somebody who does, how difficult would it be to make a program that could export the animations to, say .pcx's or something?
[Edit]
A partial breakthrough!
Asked some people on the Lancers Reactor, and eventually got hold of a command-line program that converts .fm8s to .bmps! ...the only thing is that it exports just the first frame.
Uploaded here (http://www.mediafire.com/?w8y424j8h40f60b) is the program and a random .fm8 from the archive. Anybody else wanna take a crack at this? Maybe somebody who knows something about C?
I mean, one frame is better than nothing, but we came here for animations!
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I know this is old as hell, but if you can get me that C sourcecode I'm happy to take a look...
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FYI - I did get my hands on Starlancer ani's for FS.
They look kinda small-ish, but haven't tested them yet. Will do see over teh weekend.