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Old 18-05-18, 10:54   #1
dcw123
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Default Modding TRC impossible?!

OK so for all 4 TR games and the GOLD expansions, I have been editing the textures and swapping them for other TGA tiles - really nothing major.

They all work fine..

However, when i try and do this for TRC, the game will just crash.
I can't even open the level files to inspect them in ANY program which views TR levels (TRViewer, TRueview, FexInspect,TRPlayer)
Can the PSX version be used to access the same level files in some way instead or would that still crash

EDIT: Is there any way to view the TRC levels so I can study them.. any program at all which will work

Last edited by dcw123; 18-05-18 at 12:02.
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Old 18-05-18, 13:58   #2
archfiend
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TRViewer doesn’t support TRC data file. And even modding a little bit with fexmerger breaks the triggers and therefore you can’t proceed in the game. You can only mod TR 5 for showcase. You can’t fix anything unfortunately.
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Old 18-05-18, 14:12   #3
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There's a small program which "converts" TRC files to TR4 for extracting objects, perhaps you could try it and try opening converted level files with level viewers.
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Old 18-05-18, 18:42   #4
The Great Chi
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Not impossible, but it is difficult and a bit frustrating to avoid crashes

TRC is the most difficult game out of all the classics to mod due to the data files being bigger, which does not leave much room for modding an existing level.

In the past i have modded TRC but only little bits at a time. As I just use these moddings for Youtube video purposes, I can take say five duplicate levels and modify each level a little bit with a different mod, so it does not crash or give the dreaded black screen of death jamb up

The viewer of the video thinks its all the same level, but its just different segments of video from each of the five almost identical levels, merged into the one video.

Another problem due to the data size, is some levels cannot be modded at all, as they are almost full. For example by experience trying to mod....

IRELAND DARK ISLAND
Level 8: Gallows Tree..can be modded a bit.
Level 9: Labyrinth...can be modded a bit.
Level 10: Old Mill...can be modded slightly.

The only TRC video I have left now on Youtube is LAZER HEADS in Level 2: Trajan's Market, and that took a few almost identical versions of the level to get all the modding in, for the video.


Last edited by The Great Chi; 16-08-18 at 19:01.
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Old 19-05-18, 05:23   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dcw123 View Post
I can't even open the level files to inspect them in ANY program which views TR levels (TRViewer, TRueview, FexInspect,TRPlayer)
FexInspect should work. I can open the official TRC levels with it.
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Old 19-05-18, 07:29   #6
The Great Chi
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There are plenty of TR modding tools that do work on TRC, as you can see in my video above, where I used a lot of TR tools.

But the main problem is the lack of space available for data changes in the data file of the existing levels, as I stated in my above comment.

Every modding change adds data. This increases to the inevitable limit of the data that can be put in, and the game crashes or you get the black screen of death.
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Old 20-05-18, 13:36   #7
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https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=53121
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Old 22-05-18, 13:31   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Great Chi View Post
There are plenty of TR modding tools that do work on TRC, as you can see in my video above, where I used a lot of TR tools.

But the main problem is the lack of space available for data changes in the data file of the existing levels, as I stated in my above comment.

Every modding change adds data. This increases to the inevitable limit of the data that can be put in, and the game crashes or you get the black screen of death.
This is worng!. you can mod it if there was a tools that support TR5, atm there is no tool or program that support TR5 this what case the crashing...
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Old 22-05-18, 16:11   #9
The Great Chi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Salem150 View Post
This is worng!. you can mod it if there was a tools that support TR5, atm there is no tool or program that support TR5 this what case the crashing...
Well how did I make the above TR5 modified video then? he he

I agree with you that some TR tools do not work, because they do not have TR5 format/support, for example...TRviewer.

But most TR tools work fine on TR5, (NOTE that I use winXP and win 7 computers to get my TR tools working) for example.....
Fexinspect, Fexmeger, PixStr, TRtexture, 3D meta, Rview_50_R3, Hex editors, and many more TR tools.

As I said the only real problem is the existing bigger data files of TR5, which cause crashes and black screens if you modify them too much.

The other solution is to create a TR5 level from scratch, but there are only 19 custom TR5 levels on TRLE net for some reason, so were not as popular as TR4 custom levels.

Problems with modern computers not allowing some TR tools to work....

Some TR tools do not work on newer win versions, like the TR tool 'Scripter4', which works on winXP easy, but not win 7 or above. Maybe you have a more modern computer like win 10. Do the above TRtools work on it, for TR1, TR2, TR3 and TR4?. If they do not work for them, then they are not going to work on TR5.

Last edited by The Great Chi; 16-08-18 at 19:04.
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Old 22-05-18, 16:16   #10
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OK so for some reason, I got FexInspect to work fine now..

It didn't wanna work back when I posted this OP, but now it works..
still would have been nice to see the entire level as a whole (like in TRViewer)

TRC levels looks very cut up, the rooms are all in bits - random corners of rooms and stuff (instead of being all one room)
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