View Full Version : CutWorm Progress
My CutWorm project for wwp has entered an interesting phase of development recently that I wanted to share some information about with the community.
A few days ago I underwent some research of the land.dat file that worms creates when you play a game. Through this research I discovered that it would be possible to create a new map format for wwp. (which I have named .lnd files) With this format you can do a number of neat things, such as:
1. Choose whether or not to add a border to a map.
2. Set the water height for the start of a game.
3. Select the terrain type to use in a game.
4. Select the water type to use in a game.
5. Choose where to place worms/mines/barrels at the start of a game.
6. Customize the 3 different map layers worms uses. The 1st layer is the picture you see. The 2nd layer is the land mass that objects can collide into (this is invisible). The 3rd layer is used to decide where destroyed land should appear. Combining these 3 layers in various ways can create some unique effects.
7. Create maps with up to 112 colors. (not including transparent)
8. I have tested playing a .lnd file online, and it does work.
I've been working on adding a .lnd developer kit to CutWorm. With it I was able to create the map shown in the linked image.
http://etho.wormsrenegade.com/misc/2hooks.png
As you can see, I was able to add a custom background to the image by adjusting the visual and collision layer to match in a certain way. I thought it was cool and interesting; I hope you liked it too. :)
5. Choose where to place worms/mines/barrels at the start of a game.
Very nice! Previously, such a feature only worked with the WWP mission editor or with the Fiddler.
6. Customize the 3 different map layers worms uses. The 1st layer is the picture you see. The 2nd layer is the land mass that objects can collide into (this is invisible). The 3rd layer is used to decide where destroyed land should appear. Combining these 3 layers in various ways can create some unique effects.
That's something quite uniqe. Now you'd only need to find a way to make one of those layers indestructible.
7. Create maps with up to 112 colors. (not including transparent)
Does this work online too?
That would be one heck of a feature for WWP then.
[UFP]Ghost
11 Aug 2006, 15:36
wow etho thats very good, while your at it could u work out that pink screen thing in wwp, i used tweakui and i closed all my other junka nd i still get it. i'm not quite sure what 'might' be stealing focus, but if youd on't thats still very very cool. :)
Ghost']wow etho thats very good, while your at it could u work out that pink screen thing in wwp, i used tweakui and i closed all my other junka nd i still get it. i'm not quite sure what 'might' be stealing focus, but if youd on't thats still very very cool. :)
What pink screen?
That's supreme work, EthoCryptic. It'll be great to see maps with fully-graphical backgrounds. For example, the insides of houses could have a darker grey than the walls. This is brilliant stuff, Etho. I can't really express how cool I think this is. :)
It's too bad it's for the inferior game. Shouldn't all developers focus on one of the three games so that it can be superior to the other two? There's really no reason to split the effort among the games. I'm currently trying to convince Des to work on WA instead of W2 also.
Don't let Ghost steal your thread with his unrelated question. This thread is worth much more than that. Once again, nice job. :)
I originally intended CutWorm to be merely a snooper program for wwp. However, I realized it had a lot of potential so I kept adding more and more features to it, little by little as time progressed. CutWorm could be fairly easily converted to work with w:a by changing the syntax of certain things and by adjusting a few of the features. However, I plan on finishing the wwp version before such a thing happens.
Most people do not realize that wwp is actually the most active version of the 3 games. w:a may have more people in WormNet, but the majority of these people are afk or on snooper. At least twice as many games are hosted on wwp and there are far more new players coming to wwp each day than w:a. Really, wwp is the version that should have been patched in the first place.
[UFP]Ghost
11 Aug 2006, 18:41
2 things:
1. :O but why patch wwp when u can patch the way better wa? (retorical)
2. The pink screen meaning when you load into a game the backround in black and if u press the button to switch backrounds you get to a pink backorund with the colors distorded.
3AM - I'm tired as hell but can't fall asleep. Home page's news are old news, then I check out my Bookmarks and go here... O_O YAY!
8. I have tested playing a .lnd file online, and it does work.
Grrr! Why I'm never online when things like that going on xD
Most people do not realize that wwp is actually the most active version of the 3 games. w:a may have more people in WormNet, but the majority of these people are afk or on snooper. At least twice as many games are hosted on wwp and there are far more new players coming to wwp each day than w:a. Really, wwp is the version that should have been patched in the first place.
Fully agree. Unfortunetly, while new people pouring in, the veteran wormers leave... This had a major effect on CBC league as an example(inactivity).
The pink screen meaning when you load into a game the backround in black and if u press the button to switch backrounds you get to a pink backorund with the colors distorded.
I have that issue when I leave photoshop on and try to start a game. I supose it crashes - in some sort of way. Try closing any program related to Adobe via the Task Manager.
Really, wwp is the version that should have been patched in the first place.Perhaps that is the case, and the many issues I had with WWP originally could be fixed easily initially, to make way for greater game additions and bug fixes.
However, WormPot would still be a difficulty to sort out, considering its lack of organization. It's not part of the scheme format and many people like its illogical methodology, so the updater would probably not be allowed to make the healthy decision of scrapping it and adding its features to the scheme format.
wwp could have been programmed so that you can include the wormpot settings into the scheme format. An option box next to the wormpot reels could have been added to decide whether or not wwp uses the wormpot setting saved in the scheme. If disabled, the player would be free to use the standard wormpot reels.
However, that is redundant and would probably be unlikely to be implemented for that reason.
However, that is redundant and would probably be unlikely to be implemented for that reason.
I don't agree. Tweaked wormpot would be very beneficial - at least from my point of view. Veteran players won't have to mess with the wormpot each time they set up a scheme, and newbies would have the ability to use the scheme as it is, or to ease it up a bit for their needs. More freedom of choice ^^'
Edit: By the way, will CutWorm deal with the slow menu and laggy ingame play?
I think that would be possible if I programmed it to automatically replace the drivers with the ones that work fine when you start the program, and then automatically replace them with your normal ones when you close the program. However, to do this someone would have to tell me what drivers actually work because I do not know. (yay for radeon)
Problem is, the old drivers don't support the new cards.
Maybe a little prog to emulate an old version of DirectX, but so far I failed to find anything like that. Building one is not an option as well, since you'll have to get those old version files anyway.
:mad: If only I waited just another month before buying my PC... Could've ended up with a Radeon. Prices are going down you know!
Um... most game disks have an old DX version included (WWP as well!)
PS Can I beta test? Or have you already got someone for that? Or don't you need it?
That still leaves the newer card compability problem. I could be wrong of course... I remember the menu went slow when I had a GF4 so it most likely was the display drivers problem. I'll try downloading and installing some old drivers for the sake of humanity(and worms).
Edit: None of the drivers would recognize my 7800GT -.-'
Luckyman
14 Aug 2006, 18:15
I have this problem only when I install directX newer than 7.0.
[UFP]Ghost
20 Aug 2006, 05:43
if cut-worm can start wwp, can u add an option to start mario for xp, alt-tab it then start wwp? it fixes the black/pink in-game screen when the backround and oclors r bad (as ppl say is the stuff on top, which i could not fix). can u add an option for that/
What is this "mario for xp" you mentioned?
A mario game which you can run on an emulator I supose(except no one ever told him that)... -.-'
What is this "mario for xp" you mentioned?
Some game that obviously does something (I guess switching resolutions) which positively affects WWP in not messing up the color palette.
I find it a bit stupid to make a WWP launcher tool automatically launch some (unlicensed) 3rd party Mario game just to workaround a bug which obviously is limited to certain system configurations.
BTW, you could always write a batch file which launches that Mario game and then CutWorm.
robowurmz
21 Aug 2006, 09:57
NEED....CUTWORM....*drool*
Yeah, it looks awesome with what you can do with the maps!
[UFP]Ghost
21 Aug 2006, 13:22
Some game that obviously does something (I guess switching resolutions) which positively affects WWP in not messing up the color palette.
I find it a bit stupid to make a WWP launcher tool automatically launch some (unlicensed) 3rd party Mario game just to workaround a bug which obviously is limited to certain system configurations.
BTW, you could always write a batch file which launches that Mario game and then CutWorm.
1. uhhhhhh u lost me after the word batch.
2. I wanted him ot just have an option to do that, not required
Mario = :O i actually used this game wihtout realizing it was a clone, anyhoo: http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/angelo/
Ghost;526328']1. uhhhhhh u lost me after the word batch.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file
Ghost;526328']1. uhhhhhh u lost me after the word batch.
Something like this written in notepad as a simple text file and saved as *.bat would do the trick.
e:\games\superangelo\superangelo.exe
c:\programs\cutworm\cutworm.exe
Hmm... Not really since Mario has to be running minimized to protect wwp (If I understood it well) and that batch would wait for mario to be closed before starting wwp.
Hmm... Not really since Mario has to be running minimized to protect wwp (If I understood it well) and that batch would wait for mario to be closed before starting wwp.
Hmm... I might be wrong there.
Isn't there a function to start programs minimized?
A VB script would do the trick I guess.
Sorry ghost, but I'm not going to be doing that. - Now, for all you artist out there...
http://www.cbc-wwp.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=19913#19913
You are hired!!!
Woohoo! Yeah baby ^^' I'll start working on that water thingie right away :P Never worked on an animated images before though, but I'll figure it out. I've some ImageReady experience xD
Edit: Hmm... Do you think you can add the ability to add another animation on top the water animation while it's, erm, animating? Like a shark jumping out of the water for examle. Another layer.
DeeKay, that would look very bad, making the shark jump out of the water with every loop of the animation, on every single water sprite, of which there are many displayed simultaneously.
Actually I was thinking of randomness.
I do working on water with some fish atm. Just to see how it looks...
Edit: turns out there's no room for fish -.-'
Can't make the bloody thing appear right >_<
I give up.
Just try to focus on the waves. The frame dimensions are only 256 x 32, which doesn't leave room for much else.
robowurmz
26 Aug 2006, 10:29
Hey, Etho, I was wondering, I edited the file land.dat, changing the Water dircetory to E:\Data\water\blue2, but I don't know how to play with these settings...
mrtiny999
2 Sep 2006, 23:39
When is this thing coming out?
It'll be a while yet. There are a lot of things that need to be done to the program yet, and I only have a certain amount of free time. This aspect of the project is especially time consuming.
The other day Annelid taught me how to encode/decode .bit files which was a major obstacle I was facing.
Hey etho I got a question
why do you use visual basic? Doesn't vb only work with windows? I took a class in programming two years ago and I hated vb because it felt so obsolete
Doesn't WWP only work with windows, anyway ?
mrtiny999
5 Sep 2006, 14:03
If people wanna know how to create their own map, it's simple.
VB was the program I was introduced to by my brother back in the day. It's what I've learned to use and it is what I like. I would be back at square one if I used C++, which is obviously a better overall language.
And you can make all types of programs with VB. Not just windows ones, but Dos; and other stuff. You can make programs for your T1 calculator or PSP if you wanted.
Ds?
. .
I think I read somewhere on the GameMaker forums that there's a DS cartidge that'll run small .exe programs.
I don't know what the result was though.
Some new screenshots to see. The first one shows me loading the SuperBit (test1.bit) from my .bit files. This generates a monochrome preview in the terrain window. (the collision layer)
http://etho.wormsrenegade.com/misc/test1a.png
The second screenshot shows what happens when I press the "Generate Landscape" button. It displays the visual layer of the SuperBit in full color in the terrain window.
http://etho.wormsrenegade.com/misc/test1b.png
The third screenshot shows me playing (mostly posing) on the test1.bit SuperBit. As you can see, it is a 64 color wfw map with customized water, gradient, and theme. All the worms were placed there at the start of the game according to my pre-selected starting positions.
http://etho.wormsrenegade.com/misc/test1c.png
These SuperBits I developed are actually quite cool. They actually can function in two ways. If you do not have CutWorm running, they get loaded as an ordinary .bit file. But if you have CutWorm running, all the other stuff gets loaded with it. Thanks to some help from Annelid, these files are highly compressed and rather small. This particualar one is only 87 KB. I tried zipping a few of them just to see what ratio they would compress at, and they average only about 1% - 2%. Mapmakers will be able to get a lot more creative.
Very nice O_O Glad to see the project's going well :)
Seems to me the rightmost worm has gasses... Or it's simply fat ';..;'
mrtiny999
8 Sep 2006, 08:50
I want that map!
[UFP]Ghost
8 Sep 2006, 12:51
very nice.
I want that map!
http://www.wmdb.org/3566
Note: This is not a Shopper map.
I thought this map looked really cool and decided to display it. The real thing looks even better than the screenshot. ;)
http://etho.wormsrenegade.com/misc/wfwshot.png
The map stuff is almost all done in CutWorm. I just have a few refinements left to make to it. After that I have a few features to finish and some bugs to kill. When that's done I'll probably release a another alpha version of CutWorm to the public.
[UFP]Ghost
13 Sep 2006, 01:45
nice etho :)
yep etho is amazing all that u do!! seriously! ;)
robowurmz
13 Sep 2006, 17:33
Robowurmz Emotion Center Readout Relay v1.00: GOBSMACKED.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Robowurmz Current Desire Center Relay v2.5.43: I WANT CUTWORM. NOW.
O_o?
Lovely image anyways http://forum.team17.co.uk/images/icons/icon14.gif
hey etho i like your website, what did you use to make it?
there are some errors in it, mostly missing images
I am currently making my own personal website
Shockdude
21 Sep 2006, 01:07
...
sweeeet!
Hypno'Zexy
21 Sep 2006, 10:20
Wow Etho.. These are wonderful.. I could never make programs.. It's all so complex lol Great work, can't wait to see this come out ^_^
You should be gettin paid for this lol or charge fees for users who want the program ^^
Keep it up
-Jake-
robowurmz
21 Sep 2006, 13:12
Maybe you should set up a donation scheme...
Maybe you should set up a donation scheme...
Bad idea.
As soon as there is money involved, Etho would soon find him spending it all on beer.
robowurmz
21 Sep 2006, 17:33
No, Etho should start the donation scheme through PayPal, not through someone else!
Replace "him" by "himself" to get intended meaning.
robowurmz
21 Sep 2006, 17:59
Ooooooooh. I see. But WOULD Etho actually do that? What if he's smart and DOESN'T do that?
If he doesn't spend 99.95% of his income for beer guzzling, he doesn't deserve to get involved with anything T17-Related.
robowurmz
22 Sep 2006, 07:21
Oh yeah, I suppose...W:A is practically programmed with numbers and letters made of beer...
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