247 replies to this topic

[Ridder Geel]

Apollo's plan was not to make a tool that reads the APT files and uses that to recreate the entire menu, it was made merely to visualize the positions of buttons a bit

[Kwen]

I do agree with Gwan though, if it cannot translate directly to apt, what good is it being able to position the buttons? They need to be able to function at that position. Do they? If so, then this is a good tool indeed.

[Elric]

They give you the x y coords to the to main Ratios 4:8 and 16:9. Then you don't have to guess where the points are. It also will be able to edit xml files and convert them between the 2 stages. And it have a bit of customability

Edited by {IP}Apollo, 08 December 2012 - 06:52 PM.

[zezkersar]

I have never even looked into this stuff. It seems interesting. Maybe ill check it out..

[ModdingMaster]

Hello everybody, I have a question please, I would like to want how to understand the .RU file in the APT files, and have you links where find informations for understand the XML line code please, it's enough hard for me. Thanks a lot for answers !

 

NB : Sorry for my bad english I'm french, I don't want to use the translate =)

 

See you

[Gwanw]

There arent tutorials for the bfme apt's. At least I didn't find anything and I'm lazy about writing a tutorial.
I think you should ask some c&c modder, perhaps they have tutorials.

For questions you can add Arathorn in Skype, too.

[DeeZire]

The team at thundermods.net are rumoured to be working on a fully-functional APT editor, primarily for C&C3 as part of their WrathEd project for Kane's Wrath but it should also work with other games i.e. BFME. You can see it in a news post at http://www.moddb.com...s-wrath-mod-sdk

 

Gwanw - they are also a German team, perhaps you could ask them about progress or help out? The main guy to speak to is bibber.

Edited by DeeZire, 30 April 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[Gwanw]

Hey DeeZire
Haven't heard from you for a long time.
Thx for the information, I'll try it^^.

[ModdingMaster]

Thank you very much for your answers I will thus test your proposals, thank you :)

 

See you.

[thepinking]

Hey Apt editing guys, with the c&c tools i made a small gui interface. All you gotta do is Type in the name of the File.

Download

If i have MainMenu.apt and MainMenu.const then select the apt2xml.exe option. Then in the second textbox type: MainMenu. Press Run and there ya go. same goes for xml2apt.

 

Link is down.

Could you upload it again please?

[ModdingMaster]

And say thanks to members like you that today I am able to change the position of the menu buttons, it's something I would really like to create a seventh power in the palantir.

[Ridder Geel]

A seventh power in the palantir, not sure if that is possible (thought I had already tried that but failed, not sure though) But sure, go ahead and try

Edited by Ridder Geel, 08 March 2014 - 12:30 PM.

[ModdingMaster]

I've collected the black button, outline, white light, but the power, not yet LOL. As you say, I do not know if it's possible, I think it is the system that manages it.

 

APTs is complicated enough, there are still things I do not know : flags, depth, character, ratio, clipdepth, unknown, what is it ? LOL

 

I managed to apply the Gwanw's tutorial about the main menu XD.

[逊Arathorn妻]

To answer your questions:

Flags: are a bitfield with a size of 4/8 Bytes size  converted an integer. It does have information like HasFlags (0/1), HasClip (0/1) etc.

Depth: Is the position of the object along the z axis (into the screen). This is deciding factor which object is rendered on top of other objects (try rendering 2 buttons that overlap with different depth to see this=

Character: I'll tell gwanw to explain that here, because i am not that good in explaining

Ratio: the ration between width and height (= width/height)

Clipdepth: pretty much the same as depth, just for the clip

Unknown: If i remember correctly it is always the same, the source code said it is just use as a runtime pointer and you don't need to modify it

 

If you want more information about apt read http://web.archive.o...mat_spec_v9.pdf (SWF 9)

The .apt format is a modified version of .swf format created by macromedia/adobe (flash). Gwanw and i figured that .apt is like .swf version 6 (currently swf is a much higher version).

Only like 90% is identical so don't be suprised if there are some other things...

With best regards

Arathorn

[ModdingMaster]

Thank you very much ! This is the explanation. Just a quick question about the "flag" for main menu buttons (six of BFME 1), I've seen "flags =" 192 "". This is why I do not understand. It is a bit or a byte? When I change (for exemple : 191) it's doesn't work.

[逊Arathorn妻]

Here is an example: https://ideone.com/aOlari

This struct is exactly one byte big and has 8 flags in it. Every flag does occupy one bit, so you could also represent that struct as uint8 (a number up to 256). so if u wanted to have every second flag checked the byte would look like this: 10101010

Now the apt2xml tool does print this out as a number: 128+32+8+2 = 170 (conversion from binary to decimal). The object would have the following flags then: PlaceFlagMove|PlaceFlagHasMatrix|PlaceFlagHasRatio|PlaceFlagHasClipDepth. It also works the other way around obviously , so you can check whick flags are activated for objects.I'll see if i can write a tool till tomorrow that does that annoying math for you

With best regards

Arathorn

[ModdingMaster]

The math is not boring for me LOL , I graduated with a BAC Pro in Electronic Systems and Digital (in France) I know so well the binary, it's just the process used by EA which is which is enough weird and requires reflection. Actually easier to do, I understand better when I have an example and a result XD. Could you make an example please? With the flag?

 

Edit : What is it please ? : PlaceFlagMove|PlaceFlagHasMatrix|PlaceFlagHasRatio|PlaceFlagHasClipDepth

Edited by ModdingMaster, 09 March 2014 - 11:00 AM.

[逊Arathorn妻]

Depending wether or not the flags are true things get ignored or not. You couldn't scale/translate/rotate an object for example if it had no matrix (didn't check though).

If you have any more questions contact me via PM so i can give you my skype id 

Greetings Arathorn

Edited by 逊Arathorn妻, 09 March 2014 - 04:16 PM.

[Gwanw]

Cause Arathorn is to lazy for that :

The Character is a referral to the right PlaceObject.
For example:
The Character "10" feeds the PlaceObject with the id of "10" into the current position.
So you can stack objects with the right changes at the right frame.

[_mclovin]

Hello everyone!

Master Yelloh suggested me to post my problem in this topic...

I need to add a row to the hero select menu at the bottom of the screen. Is it possible?

I simply need to select every hero I summon, but it seems that there aren't enough slots 

Edited by _mclovin, 12 March 2014 - 11:10 AM.