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Old 12-11-14, 23:04   #1008
Gh0stBlade
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The latest commits sound great! I have yet to try them!

Anyways, I decided to add support for Tomb Raider Chronicles Dreamcast level files. It works *almost* perfectly. There are some changes to the format in comparison to PC. I've finally figured out that these changes weren't that drastic as I had originally thought and subsequently can now load them.

The current problems are:

1. Misc texture format is unknown.
2. Some very small lighting bugs. Values will probably need converting to PC ones.
3. Sound effects are not ADPCM encoded. It looks like a custom encoding to me so they don't play.
4. Dreamcast only has 16-bit textures. PC has 32-bit ones as well. Not really a problem since OpenTomb converts them anyway *i think* and it loads 16-bit textures just fine!
5. Files have no version info, they cannot be distinguished between PC files without a cheap *hack*. There is no magic/identifier.

Luckily there are many similarities between the two plaforms. Tomb Raider 4 Dreamcast level files are identical to PC anyway. They just based Tomb Raider Chronicles' Dreamcast level format on PC then altered it for platform specific optimisation purposes.

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Most people will probably wonder why I chose to do this. It's simply because I'm interested in the 4 leftover test levels on disc. 3 which are completely unknown. These levels are:

DEL.TRC (Already known, Del's test leve. Leftover on PC version)
TOM.TRC (Unknown, Tom's test level. has beta Rome textures)
GIBBY.TRC (*Now known*, Gibby's test level)
JOBY1.TRC (Unknown, Has mansion textures)

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All these level files have a slightly different format to the final game. This is clear evidence these files were not built for the final build but from a range of different beta versions. Currently I have figured out the format differences for DEL.TRC, the format also matches GIBBY.TRC so they both load now! I will most likely look into the format differences for TOM.TRC/JOBY1.TRC and try get them to load within OpenTomb because evidence suggests they both have their own unique format which is why I can't load them yet.

These files have baffled me for years now! I finally might be able to uncover what each of these levels hold for the first time in 14 years.. 2 more to go

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Video of DEL.TRC/GIBBY.TRC




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Notice the weird ammo in the inventory?

BETAAAAAAAAAAAA

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Is the source available for the Model viewer that used to be distributed with OpenTomb? Perhaps there are more different items hidden, or I could just change what items are in the inventory I guess...

Regards.

Last edited by Gh0stBlade; 12-11-14 at 23:07.
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