DXTRE3D Help

[Felix Kroft]

Is there any DXTRE3D expert still around here?

I've been having several weird problems, that i cannot solve, even with manual and the power of reading.
Joke aside...

Enemies unable to move between rooms / surfaces:
Why enemies sometimes can't go through the door / portal, and sometimes even stairs?

Yesterday it worked, in manual it was stated that there's a 1 click height rule between each step, otherwise the enemies won't be able to cross that floor, and yesterday the lions followed Lara everywhere, it worked, but today even that method won't help, the enemies seem to be magically blocked by invisible wall.

Triggers and cameras:
Another thing, i still can't recreate that St Francis Folly 4 lock door + camera, and a boulder trick combo. The door opens, 4 keys, 1 for each lock, that opens 1 metal lock at a time on the door, but camera shows only the first lock when it opens.

Lighting:
What's the best default setting for Lara, and light ambient?
I suck at lighting, or i just don't understand how it works at all it seems.
Is it possible to recreate the same effect as in original PSX Tomb Raider?
Lara was partially lit, or shadowed and it looked cool. In my levels Lara's either super bright, or just barely shaded, and i can't make her blend with super dark environments, or is it just how TR1 engine works?
I'm pretty much always using the value 19 for rooms ambient lights and -1 for Lara, and then i'm just manually placing light spheres.
But then some movable objects look too bright, or too dark when compared with environment, and manual light spheres have no effect on them too, but mostly with those settings, it looks decent, problem starts when i move pushable block between to differently lit sectors.
So when the room is dark, and there's a hidden movable block in the wall, it looks too obvious sometimes.
Right now i have 3 glitched rooms, in which no matter what setting i use, Lara is very brightly lit when standing in some spots, i guess that's because i forgot to remove all the light spheres from the room, before hitting "Rebuild" button.

Sounds:
And i've encountered new problem with sounds, lava sound plays only when pausing the game, or entering inventory, but it corrupts every other sound until the game is reloaded, or inventory is reopened. I think it might have something to do with level file? Like some sounds aren't supposed to be there, or are placed in the wrong slots?

[LoreRaider]

I can try to help you out on a few of those things...

Enemies problem: is the level where you're using these enemies very complex geometry-wise? I'm sure TR1 and TR2 have a bigger amount of boxes and overlaps for enemies than TR3 upwards, but make sure to check how many you have in that level, because when you reach the limits enemies tend to stop working properly
I wonder if also static objects (like some stairs objects used on the floor) are a problem for them...

Camera trigger: I've checked how Core made the setup through fexinspect and I see they used 4 different cameras, one camera for each lock, maybe there's a limit on how many times you can trigger a single camera (also the triggers are on the same place as the key trigger)

Lighting: I've heard lighting on DXTRE it's quite messy, but what I know for sure is that to have good-looking lighting, the first thing to change is the room ambience light by setting it dark (something that goes around RGB 30 or 40), then just work with the single light sources, this way you will have nice contrast and brighter parts due to your lightbulbs
If you can't even do it in this way, there should be a way through Rview to improve the intensity of the lightbulbs (I'm not sure if it's compatible with the TR1 PSX converter though, but worth a try)

Sounds: it looks like you have either reached a limit (so too many sounds inside your file) or that your sounds slots are messed up as you say
If the issue it's the first one, clearing unused sounds in your levels might help, for doing that you can use Daro's tool which you can find here (this works with the converter too)
https://www.tombraiderforums.com/sho...d.php?t=224277

[Felix Kroft]

Thank You LoreRaider.

I'll be coming back from time to time to this thread, to complain, or to give some update on progress.

[Topixtor]

Short answer: Dxtre3d is what it is. If you just recently started building, I suggest you to immediatly switch to Tomb Editor to avoid the trouble of "switching" editors later on, as in my experience that can prove a bit difficult.

Long answer: about enemies, again, that's just how it is. Countless times I had enemies able to reach Lara by going down some stairs, but then unable to go up the same way they arrived. In such cases, only some trial and error (and maybe some experience later on) can help, maybe by using "zones" to modify the AI of enemies or by adapting the room to their arbitrary needs: for instance, I noticed that (just like with the stairs example) enemies tend to go down with less problems compared to going up. Statics shouldn't be relevant with their AI, afaik.

Speaking about zones, if you applied them in room "X" and just in front of the portal to room "Y", enemies will not normally cross the portal. In that case:
1) put the same exact zone(s), ID included, in the needed sectors of room Y;
2) apply such zone to the portal sector(s) between the two rooms: that's the purple, trigger-tile like sector that goes "out" of the room to signal the presence of the portal, in the 2D grid it's the black square instead of the normal grey "wall" ones. While doing that, be sure to not have any room set as neighbour as it can interfere with the process.
Doing that by clicking the sector in the 3D window is impossible, for some reason, and you also can't just click on it in the 2D one: you have to select at least one normal sector AND the black square in 2D grid, then click on the "apply ID" button just below the zone ID selector. You have to repeat this in both rooms, it seems like the editor treats portals like two different sectors based on what room you are in.
I have no idea if any of that was intended, but it seems the only way to make zones work between rooms. Doing that with vertical portals seems impossible to me, in case of flying enemies this may be problematic.

Another reason why enemies may refuse to cross portals is beacuse portals are bugged in the first place: this often happens when you reset a room without first deleting portals from both that room and the connected one: the glitched portal remains in the second room even if it's not connected anymore from the first room, and may remain glitched even if you connect them again (this can be useful for some wacky gameplay, but not in this case). Simply delete the portals from the 2D grid and re-do them.

Sometimes, however, nothing really works so you just need to come to terms with it, move the enemy, replace it... sometimes the final result could even be better that what you originally planned, who knows!

Lighting: PSX had a very different feeling for the lighting; to recreate that you may need Tomb1main, if I remember correctly you can set PSX style contrast/lighting with it (and it's generally a good idea to use it with TR1 engine). Anyway, As Lore already said, your best bet is to set the ambient light to something a bit darker than 19, usually around at least 21/22, but this of course depends on what lighting you need. 31 should be the darkest value, 16 is max brightness instead (1-15 values I'm not really sure, and it may change based on engine anyway, I mostly work with TR2).

Objects like blocks, traps etc. only partially react to lighting, statics rarely do (at least with this editor): to make them match with the ambience, you have to set an internal light intensity to them while you place/replace them: there is a small selector with the default "-1" in the static/object placement section from where you can set a lighting value that is dependent to the ambient value you chose for the room: this made basically no sense to me honestly... what I understood is that using tiny values like 1-8 may produce some ok results, but in the cases of statics with infamous pitch-black spots you may need to raise the values a bit. You may also want to rotate it so the lit section matches the light source position...

It's a mess, honestly. I still don't know 100% how those values work. Some entities also don't even seem to react to that internal light value... but with some trial and error, you can surely get a grasp of how it works. The rView alternative was used by DaroRaider, maybe he could help you with it, results can be much better but it's far more work to do.

Hope this can help a bit, sorry for the lenght but it's an unofficial, unfinished, decades old program, some things """work""" in very precise manners

[Felix Kroft]

Thanks Topixtor!
Some tricks worked, other didn't.
But still that's a lot of helpful, and time saving information.



I can't transfer some objects with their intended sounds.
One level is missing or isn't properly playing lava and fire sounds.

The other level is missing Atlantean death scream, that sound they make when they explode, and also exploding sound is absent aswell.

I tried cleaning some sounds, but it did nothing.
And the more that i change and transfer objects between level files, the more broken, and corrupted they become.

Oh, and who knows how to swap some animations in Tomb Raider 1 PHD files?
I'd like to change Atlantean monster default run animation, to let's say Larson's, or Pierre's default running animation, is that possible?

[Topixtor]

Originally Posted by Felix Kroft

Thanks Topixtor!
Some tricks worked, other didn't.
But still that's a lot of helpful, and time saving information.



I can't transfer some objects with their intended sounds.
One level is missing or isn't properly playing lava and fire sounds.

The other level is missing Atlantean death scream, that sound they make when they explode, and also exploding sound is absent aswell.

I tried cleaning some sounds, but it did nothing.
And the more that i change and transfer objects between level files, the more broken, and corrupted they become.

Oh, and who knows how to swap some animations in Tomb Raider 1 PHD files?
I'd like to change Atlantean monster default run animation, to let's say Larson's, or Pierre's default running animation, is that possible?

Which program(s) are you using to delete/add sounds? And which ones for objects?

Boiling lava sfx is probably just a sound source added to the level, but of course the sfx itself must be included in the .phd file. Same for the other missing sfxs: you have to add them manually, some sounds get added alongside the relative object when you add it, some don't. You may also use the original Atlantis file as a base and then add every other extra object, doing so *should* ensure those sfxs are already included. Keep in mind there is an sfx limit, but I don't think you will hit it and maybe Tomb1main raised it already.

From what you said, you are probably using FexMerger to add objects to your level; sometimes that program likes to corrupt textures and cause all kinds of problems, without a precise reason. Try adding the same object from a different source file. You can also already check inside the FexMerger window if the "merging" was succesful: check the newly added item after merging, if broken you should already see it from there without needing to save. Often, opening only the base/source file and clicking "merge" (so without actually merging anything) before actually using the program has helped in my experience if I remember correctly.
If nothing works you may check if your files are actually broken, maybe they came from an old CD or whatever (also something I learned with experience).
You may also use TRViewer, but that program also comes with its problems (of course ), sometimes the last version works and sometimes you may need an older one. It also may not open at all something that has already been touched by Fexmerger or other programs (there a couple of fixes for that but I know mostly TR2 stuff, again). At least tomb1main raised the texture limit for TR1 by a lot, so the texture bloating both of those program can cause shouldn't be a problem anymore.

About the animations, I'm not an expert on that; I remember it involving swapping meshes or whatever... However, something "crazy" like a human enemy animation on an atlantean will probably produce some... fun results, IF it even works. A very different approach can be to re-texture and maybe modify some meshes of Pierre to make it look like a more "humanized" atlantean, if that's something you wanted to do.

[Felix Kroft]

Ok, so i've found out what was causing most of those problems.

I'm using combo of old programs, fexmerger, pixstr, trviewer and Daro's TR1 Sound Editor.

Lava SFX was glitching, because i used different base level.
I used City of Vilcabamba as a base, because it's the most friendly one when it comes to modding, in my experience at least.

So i had to apply lava, and sparks sounds to available slots, originally Fire ID is wav#150, lava and sparks are using wav#148, and wav#149 respectively, but those ID's were absent in City of Vilcabamba, so i had to use different slots, that my level didn't use.

So what caused problem? I've discovered this by accident, that when a sound is slightly longer, or shorter than the original one, the game freaks out, and cannot loop them properly.
Now it works

But, there's still one big problem.
If i want to have Atlantean monster sounds, Fire, and lava SFX in one level, i'm forced to use Atlantis level as a base, or The Great Pyramid as a base.
But that corrupts certain colors on my texture pallete. But only some colors, mostly blueish turquoise are affected, which sucks, because my Lara's outfit uses that color, on that specific level.

I need to redo some of my base levels now, from scratch, which is really frustrating, since some of those programs, as helpful, and necessary as they are, can be quite mischievious at times, and i need to transfer the right sprites, sounds, and respect texture limit, and that's kind of tricky thing to do with constant errors that TRviewer causes, and fexmerger sometimes forgets to transfer proper sounds.

I've been working with specific versions of those programs for a long time now, so i'm more or less aware of their glitches. Still i need to find a way to fit all objects into correct base level.

One level needs to have 4 key sprites from St Francis Folly, but also has to contain Atlantean sounds, fire sound, also with fire sprite, Thor's Electric Ball Lightning sound, and lava sparks, with proper SFX.

Other levels work ok, minus 2-3 specific sounds, like Atlantean death shriek + explode SFX.

This is the most time consuming, and frustrating aspect of level building.

Oh and there is one thing that i accidentally f****d up very early on, and i can't just find a fix.
Shotgun inventory animation is glitched. It's not a big deal, but it looks funky.
When selecting shotgun from inventory it's animation gets shaky. Like it doesn't know what to do with that object.

[Topixtor]

Sfxs should in fact always be on the same ID used in the original level, yes, not sure about the lenght but maybe TR1 isn't suitable to for custom sfxs. No idea about that shotgun animation, but maybe if you redo your base files it will naturally fix itself. Daroraider made an "anim fix tool" for levels corrupted by fexmerger, but I think it only fixes some very specific animation issues (like trapdoors disappearing in TR2 levels).

Texture limits shouldn't be a problem if you use Tomb1main. I, again, highly advise you tu utilize it, since it also lifts up many other limits (mainly the object quantity one) and makes the game function in most modern PCs with a lot of extra options.

[Felix Kroft]

But what if the sfx slot is empty / missing, and i can't add fire sound to it's designated slot? The only TR1 levels that use fire with sprites and sound are the last 3 Atlantis levels, and Palace Midas, every other level file just shows empty ID line in the place of those sounds.

The same goes for Atlantean monsters.

Normally i wouldn't mess around with SFX wav's, but i had no choice if i want to use those sounds, they need to be present in the level file. I don't know any other way to transfer them to TR1 PHD level file.

I'm facing a dilemma with base levels, should i stick to my current base levels, and sacrifice couple of sounds, or to have most sounds, but with corrupted colors, have to yet decide.

[Topixtor]

It seems strange to me that you can't "add" the sound IDs in their normal place. I think it's actually possible, but I'm no expert here unfortunately.

Forgot about your color corruption problem, again I'm no expert so this may be completely unrelated but - that's not a bug, it's just how TR1 is afaik: TR1 can't bear too many color shades, to put it simply. Try using a set of texture from TR2 onwards for example, and you will see how they look completely different than usual in TR1 when in-game.

Using default TR1 objects/textures without adding too many different objects than the ones already in the base file could work... but of course that's not the best outcome. Since Atlantis/Pyramid are mostly made of reddish tones, your colder turqoise ones are affected. I also think this may have something to do with dxtre3d... not sure. I also tried mixing Atlantis base file (untouched) and TR1 egypt textures and those textures looked darker, different than usual.