The Lost Artifact PS1 Conversion

[SrDanielPonces]

Thank you for posting this. From my TRLE knowledge, the PC version of sleeping with the fishes definitely has a different engine than regular TR3. I am sure is the issue is some functionalities were probably hardcoded to level number, since it is not the first entry we had these behaviors.
I am however not a programmer and am unable to help you in a technical way, sorry!

[TombHackR]

The green liquid is crashing the game because Reunion is now level 7… which would be Madubu Gorge.

Death tile behaviour is hardcoded per level so I reckon it's trying to find the river rapids death animation, then crashing because it's not in the level.

Are you able to kill Sophia? That's hardcoded too

TR3 and TR3 gold are identical engines however anything level-specific is hardcoded and has to be changed in the exe (this might affect enemy behaviour in SWF)

[Ameliorator]

Hi FindingTheLost, I just wanted to say that the work you’ve been doing is fantastic and it’s great to see that this project hasn’t been left for dead. I think splitting the level is as good of a solution as we can get at this point.

I've been wondering if Croft Manor could be used as an extra level slot? I’m assuming it can’t if it’s separate from the main game’s level structure but I don’t know exactly how it works, maybe it can be utilised somehow

[FindingTheLost]

Originally Posted by mizuno_suisei

While I can't help with this, truly incredible idea for finally getting tr3gold going on the PS1, that is one of the most comprehensive and interesting posts I've ever seen on this forum! This topic comes up sometimes elsewhere so I will be sure to link this reply to people who may be able to help or make use of it.

Your mention at the end about glitches occurring in the repositioned level slot reminds me of the fact the tr3 engine had a fair few engine based level slot specific changes (immortal Sophia, snow/rain) that weren't necessarily tombpc/psx.dat flags. Guessing it could all kinda come back to this possibly?

You are totally right, these enemies, weather effects and certain other behaviours are stored into modules inside of the level files themselves, each with their own memory path to the console's ram. I can't seem to find anything about it except trying to understand the code b'122251 made for tr3pcpsx when he was reverse engineering these modules... so far i'm kinda lost (no pun intended ).

Originally Posted by SrDanielPonces

Thank you for posting this. From my TRLE knowledge, the PC version of sleeping with the fishes definitely has a different engine than regular TR3. I am sure is the issue is some functionalities were probably hardcoded to level number, since it is not the first entry we had these behaviors.
I am however not a programmer and am unable to help you in a technical way, sorry!

Don't need to feel sorry. You sure are right about certain functionalities being hardcoded to level number, it's a pain trying to understand how to modify them.

Originally Posted by TombHackR

The green liquid is crashing the game because Reunion is now level 7… which would be Madubu Gorge.

Death tile behaviour is hardcoded per level so I reckon it's trying to find the river rapids death animation, then crashing because it's not in the level.

Are you able to kill Sophia? That's hardcoded too

TR3 and TR3 gold are identical engines however anything level-specific is hardcoded and has to be changed in the exe (this might affect enemy behaviour in SWF)

Unfortunately, no, i tested the game and Sophia is unkillable... at first i thought i was doing something wrong but she just wouldn't die. At this point, the only thing stopping me from moving forward with the game, are the binaries, which i know very little of... even both parts of sleeping with the fishes run perfectly without any changes to enemies, structures, items or anything at all...

Originally Posted by Ameliorator

Hi FindingTheLost, I just wanted to say that the work you’ve been doing is fantastic and it’s great to see that this project hasn’t been left for dead. I think splitting the level is as good of a solution as we can get at this point.

I've been wondering if Croft Manor could be used as an extra level slot? I’m assuming it can’t if it’s separate from the main game’s level structure but I don’t know exactly how it works, maybe it can be utilised somehow

Indeed, there is no way a level like that would ever work on playstation without sacrificing almost everything that makes it memorable in the first place. Although it could be utilised for something, Croft Manor must remain untouched due to the original also having it. It has to be as close as the pc version as possible. So far, the only difference to pc is a load screen in between part 1 and part 2 of sleeping with the fishes, both which work perfectly already and savegame crystals.

[SrDanielPonces]

is any of this useful?

http://xproger.info/projects/OpenLara/trs.html