Xenus 2: Back to Hell (mod WIP)
 

The project is still work in progress.

I was able to make an alternative program to edit the .map files, (because the mapplanner from the Prec beta was buggy) so finally I can start work on my dream mod, a Xenus remake for Vital Engine 3.0. :) I hope there are somebody, who are interested in Xenus 2, and mods for it!

More information, pictures/videos will be soon!

Here are the first screenshots:
I need to recalculate the lightings on the levels, so it will be looks better :)
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/120403/…toltes.hu_.jpg
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http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/120403/…toltes.hu_.jpg
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http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/120403/…toltes.hu_.jpg
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Cool! So does this work for The Precursors too? Because there are some half-finished planets already in there so maybe someone could actually create an ending for it…

Unfortunately its not yet, I get a strange error, but I will fix it in the days!

Fantastic work myers90, glad to see Xenus is still getting some love.

BTW, Meyers. If you want to recreate Xenus, you surely need to know how to set mission marker coordinates and mission conditions. Can you tell me where to find those so I could fix some that are wrong in White Gold and The Precursors?

You can set them in the world.map file. A mission looks like: mission ID, mission flags, mission stages, and descriptions. Descriptions only for developers, but in mission stages you can set the location of task, the stage's ingame text, and kind of mission (like kill XY, get in a car, go to XY), so you can give markers to object PID (object reference id on levels). I will send you my editor today, or tomorrow (it will works only with Xenus2 yet), and I will release it for the forum later, if it will be full finished.

This doesn't sound as if this can be done easily in a patch.

Thanks, but can you just edit map entities like mission markers with it without the need to recompile the whole map? This would be enough for me…

Hey don't worry, you can! I try to explain it.
So the Xenus's big world is made from lot of smaller levels. For example, the whole 3D world is cutted to 1 km2 parts. These parts are can be found in 'Xenus 2/lev' and 'Xenus 2/levobj' directories. A level part is not one file:
1, .lv2 file - its the level geometry
2, .ai3 file - its the AI node network of the level
3, .net file - its the old AI system's file (the game use now the .ai3)
4. wld file - its the geometry collision
5, .lvo file - its the collection objects on the level, like NPCs, vehicles, scripts, etc…
and this .lvo files are in the 'Xenus 2/levobj' path.
There are .nad and.prt files too, but I don't know what is them.

You can open .lv2 files in the Level Editor, its opens of course the other files (.ai3, .lvo etc..) with the same name, if there are. The Level Editor can do everithing with the level parts. If you just want to move an objects, because the developers has been put it to wrong place, you can do it, and you don't need to recompile the level with the geometry and everything, when the save dialog came up, you can give an option to save only the level objects and you can release only the .lvo files in the patch. So this is the level.

The .map file (needs only the world.map, the others are just test worlds) is like a puzzle game. The puzzle pieces are the "cells". A cell have an ID, a name, an image, and a path to an .lv2 file. In the original _mapplanner program its exactly looks like a puzzle. So you can take the level part's to correct place, to make a big world from little parts. The .map file also contains the missions. A mission have a ID, flags, descriptions (only for dev, can not see ingame), and mission stages, with other options, like mission text, kind of mission stage (for exmpl: Kill this NPC or Go to XY, etc) and here is the marker's source. If you have a Kill XY stage, then you have to set, who to kill. You can give the pid of the NPC (pid: The NPC's reference id on the level, putted by the Level Editor). The game will take the marker to this NPC on the ingame radar.

I hope it will be helpful, but If you have any problem with this, I can help you, just tell me what is the bug, and in what mission, and I'll fix it, and send it to you. :)

"I hope there are somebody, who are interested in Xenus 2, and mods for it!"
Awesome work myers90. I am sure many will want to play your mod in different countries around the world. Stay inspired!
I am using the Cryengine1 Sandbox Editor to make a FarCry mod at the moment. I think this is one of the easier game editors to use, but I can imagine how hard it is to make a mod for Xenus with the incomplete tools and instructions. Good luck with it! :)

Thank you, I hope everything will goes fine. :) And good luck to your Far Cry mod!

Hello!
Could you upload your program? I develop my Xenus 2 mod. It called "No-limit's", maybe u have heard about it? And i need to edit the worldmap.map
It will help me a lot.
Your sincerely, Nikolay

Hey Nikolay!
Of course I can! I will send it to you, and to Wesp5 too, a bit later today. Just I need to finish some things on it. And you have to know, its an early version yet, so Its not use the gridview style "map" like the original MapPlanner, just a listbox for SMIDs, but I will implement in the later version that too! :)
P.S: Good luck to your mod, its looks awsome!

I have sent the app in private message to both of you!

Here is a screen from the latest version of my program. I started to work on "puzzle style" gridview like the original mapplanner.

http://kepfeltoltes.hu/thumb/120417/…toltes.hu_.jpg
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Hi myers90, I'm keen to have a look but none of the links you've provided work for me.

I have a bad news: It seems there will be a little problem with AI network, It seems the levedit2's AI node generate function is not working, so until I can't fix this (if it can be fixed), I will working on other mod for Xenus 2 without making any new level with AI… But my program is not unuseable, because it still useable for mission development. The other project what I'm thinking on is a whole new game with neoaxis engine. This game would be a Xenus like RPG/FPS. I will take contact with Deep Shadows about can I use they models and textures, and if not, I'll have to get 3d modellers and texturers for the project.

badmofo: I can send you the previous version of my program if you don't want to wait for the new version, that use listbox for the world-pieces, I still working on the "puzzle style" version, what you can see on the picture that I posted.

It's a pity… But I think you could do a good mod without adding a new levels. With help of your program it's possible to create interesting missions, add new islands, etc. I hope you will finish it!
By the way, if you want to create a commercial project (game, like Xenus), and use Deepshadows' models and textures, you should take contact with Russobit also. Because the rights of this game was sold to Russobit, as I now.

Yes, I know I should take contact with Russobit-M too, and I will :). And I don't thinking about commercial project, just a non-commercial game, that the first reason, why I see a very very very little chance for they give me a free hand to use some models and textures… the second reason is it seems the Xenus and Precursors projects are dead.

Yeap! This project now is "dead". Because this games aren't popular on russian game market, and it's difficult to find the sponsor, because now are popular just casual and online-games (on russian market offcourse), and to find a "West" sponsors - is unreal.
I guess, they give you the right to use models from Xenus)
P.S. How is you program? Have you any success in making "puzzle" view?

Yes I succeed, you can see a picture upper. I have to make only some fixes, and some functions left to rewrite. I think I can complete it in the few next days!

I'll need a few more days for the new version of program, because I have a lot of other works to do.

Project be finished? Where can I download? I have a great desire to play!

No, it was froozen for a long time, because of an AI map problem, but the problem is solved now, so I working on the project again… slowly, as my time let me do it! ;)

Hi myers90, I plan on releasing some updated The Precursors and White Gold patches soon, but one problem with both is that I can only fix errors in the dialogue system, but not bad triggers in the world itself or similar. Do you know an easy way to edit these? Like with Bloodlines I don't need to edit the whole map and recompile it, but there is a tool to just edit entities on the map. Is something like this in the DeepShadows SDK?

Yes, you can use the leveledit from the Precursors beta. Some time ago I wrote an isntruction for it in this topic (first page, a long wrote), but it may contains some of my misunderstandings… but I think I didn't mistaked in the entity editing part :) I will edit this post, and correct the wrong thoughs, and fill with some new.

Ah, I forgot. The problem is that I don't even get the level editor or other tools to work with White Gold! Which files do I need? Just copying over the additional files doesn't work and I don't dare to overwrite existing ones in the White Gold folder out of fear to mess up the game itself. Even for editing the resource file I move it over into The Precursors folder…

I can't tell you exactly which files do you need, because I build my mod from a "clear sdk" what I made, and I don't have an installed Precursors or Xenus 2 on my computer in the moment. But if you want to be safety, then copy the _leveledit2.exe to your Xenus 2 directory, and if you try to run it, it will ask for the missing dlls or other files. You don't have to overwrite any files, but I recommend to always make a backup of resource.qrc!

myers90,are you still working on this mod?
i was looking forward to some new content for xenus 2.

Myers90, would you be willing to look into some Xenus 2 mission issues while you don't work on your mod? It's mostly about bad location pointers or quests triggering again after they have already been finished…

Of course, just write down what is the problem in which mission and exactly where!

Uh, I hope I still remember the problems correctly. This is what comes to my head:

1) On the first island there are two bandits playing chess or cards or something. I think when you talk to them they ask you to kill someone, but the quest pointer is far away in the middle of the ocean!

2) On the second island there is a guy called Sebastian asking for a statuette. As far as I know the coordinates of this are off, it's in the ocean, also the quest triggers again when you go there again!

Okay, I'll take a look on it tonight!

Hi! How did you fix the problem with AI generation?

I didn't really had to fix it, I've just found the solution: you have to run the engine in developer mode, and it generates the AI map for the current level. :)

It's very cool that the work continues. Looking forward to.

Is this still being worked on at all? This would be something amazing to see.

Hi! Yes, sometimes I still working on it, but I can't say that it will ever finished. The current state is:

Game world
All levels are converted to VE3 (world.map also), so you can explore the whole BP world, but only a few has working impostors, and mostly its ugly, because the impostor generator function is broken, and often crashes in LevEdit. And also they are using the old lighting, because the lighting smoothing function also broken and without that it has bad results on level edges if I recalculate lighting.

character models
All character models fixed, so they can use ragdoll when die, and also works with the engine bone control - so NPC's turning to you, and looking at you.

some old vehicles
A few BP vehicles converted to work with VE3's vehicle physics. Cars are not problem, but I still have to figure out how to make planes with wheels, so the wheeled cessna could be used too

game text and game objects
all game text (object names, mission texts, dialogues, etc..) and scenario objects are converted to a new resource.qrc

There are a lot of smaller works left, like recreating the scripts and events for missions (BP has them hard coded, but VE3 uses a new script system), fix the dynamic objects on levels by hand (VE3 doesn't uses some old classes, so this objects ignored on level converting), doors needs to be fixed, etc…

The problem is because of the broken important things (mostly the impostors) I don't really have the motivation. By the way there is always a way, I already solved this kind of things, for example the new .rf2 format, and the physics data in it - I've wrote a 3d editor for, or the .map format, also wrote a new MapPlanner, because the leaked version was broken, and unable to open files.
But from other hand - damn its 10 years since this game has been released… Is there anybody who interested in a mod for this game? :D

im always interested in these amazing games anyway good luck wish i could help you but im just a gamer and even if you never release it thank you for your hard work

Hi!

Good to hear that! Also I have good news, I'm working on a converter for VE2 to VE3 level impostors, its almost done, so another barrier broken. I'll show some new screens soon.