other files in the FPKs?

alpine · Powder Monkey Posts: 17 **1120 Gold** -

OK, I know what the DDS and BMP files are for, but what are the other files in the FPKs? I assume some of it is 3D modelling, some of it looks like map information.

.bhi - seems to be map related
.cue - ?
.dta - data file of some kind
.fnt - font files
.kf - ?
.kfm - ?
.nif - ?
.nl9 - ?
.pcx - seems to left over from Pirates Gold (in pak6.fpk, for example)
.dat - ? map info?
.csv - comma seperated files, seems to have something to do with sound
.tga - map related (strange, I have GPS software that uses TGA files)
.xml - xml files for various things

Davos · Powder Monkey Posts: 36 **301 Gold** -

The .nif files are the 3d geometry files. The ships, the islands, the palm trees etc.

uly · Powder Monkey Posts: 27 **783 Gold** -

And .tga are targa images used for texturing.

Rahly · Powder Monkey Posts: 37 **376 Gold** -

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

cue files probably set up dancing cues.

maplabel.dta determines how the city labels are drawn onto the world map. 4264 bytes are organized as 1066 double words (4 byte signed integers with least significant byte first).

Text label section:
Header: 4 dw
Red, Green, Blue for the color of an unselected city label
Font selection (0,1,2)
Data section: 44 x 3 x 4 dw.
Data is listed per city in the usual ordering from Antigua to Villa Hermosa. First there are 44 dw for the zoomed out map, then the medium map, then the zoomed in map. The batches are x-offset, y-offset, font size, orientation

Gold/Hearts/Cannons icons section:
Header: 6 dw
The 5th dw has to be 0 or the flags disappear.
Data section: 44 x 3 x 4 dw
Then data is the same 44 x 3 x 4 dw giving the x-offset, y-offset, magnification, and orientation of the icons.

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

Looking into the cue file further, I translated them from binary to text and found some patterns

Captain Teague · Rigger Posts: 1185 **12207 Gold** -

I remember reading that all the dance tunes are either 3 beats per measure or 4 beats per measure. Could that be what this is?
_________________
The Code is the Law.

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

The cue files are named dance34normal-*.cue and dance44normal-*.cue, presumably breaking them into the 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures. I think that the different files in each time signature are for the different dances (which use different combinations and are also at different speeds).

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

OK, a little experimentation has yielded some fruit. I wrote a script that can scale up or down either set of numbers.

The second set of numbers (the bigger ones) appear to do nothing. Perhaps the SMP creators entered raw numbers here in a spreadsheet and then translated them (dividing by 22.05) to make the first set which actually affect the game.

Scaling the first set of numbers changes the tempo of the dance. Speeding it up works fine - in fact, dancing at 2.5x speed is quite a challenge. It's been a long time since a governor's plain daughter has told me I couldn't dance!

Slowing it down runs into a problem - running out of music before finishing the dance causes the game to do a soft hang. Presumably a mod to slow down the dancing would also have to slow down or extend the music. Come to think of it, if you really want to slow dance with the governor's daughter, the music and dance steps ought to change altogether... and maybe the lighting too.

But this accounts for everything in the cue files - so the dance moves themselves are stored elsewhere. Perhaps they are in the executable itself.

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

I found the dancing code in the executable, and it can be patched!

Rusty Edge · Rigger Posts: 1977 **2992 Gold** -

A new step? Shocked

So I could be doing fencing type leaps? Razz

It seriously sounds as if you are beginning to understand the complexities of this obtuse code.

I wonder what Rupert would say about a dancing mod?

corsair91 · Sailing Master Posts: 8262 **207856 Gold** -

themodelcitizen · Gunner Posts: 865 **14671 Gold** -

Is parrot.nif used anywhere? I can't recall an actual parrot in the game anywhere although I may be tripping

Pirate · Helmsman Posts: 5589 **109759 Gold** -

No and there is a pirate Captain nif thatâ€™s in the fpk packs that isnâ€™t used in the game. It works though like he can be used as a dancer or replacing the Jesuit.

corsair91 · Sailing Master Posts: 8262 **207856 Gold** -

This mod makes use of the Parrot

rupertlittlebear - Parrot Mod
http://www.hookedonpirates.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8446

Fraxis may have intended to included a Parrot in game
but NIF file is unused