samah

Long time, no update... Shai-Hulud 2000 is having an official name change to simply Shai-Hulud, the latest version being 2.x (as in Windows 9x and Windows 3.x) I pulled it out of the garbage can not long ago, and have done about 30 hours of work on it this week. I'm about 50% to a completed version. At the moment it's a fully skinned application, with 2 default skins. It's running fairly fast too, which is amazing considering the graphics intensive nature of the new version. You can look at a couple more screenshots of the work in progress using these links - they're about 200kb each. http://sh2k.dune2k.com/upload/shot1.jpg http://sh2k.dune2k.com/upload/shot2.jpg Here's a list of the features yet to be coded (don't forget I started this from scratch so I wouldn't have redundant code): Multi-level Undo Selection/Clipboard features Block Browser/Placement Default Map Templates (ie New Map... - only Open Map works at the moment) Save/Save As... New File Format (.shd), with a file tag at the beginning - I should have done that a LONG time ago... Old file formats will definitely be supported. Laterz...

Well, I decided to just get my arse into gear and do some work on the new SH2K, and I couldn't be stuffed learning Delphi or waiting for the 'other guy' (no names mentioned) to help me out with it, so I started from scratch in VB. Here's a screenshot of v2.0.0, work in progress. It doesn't do any editing at the moment, I've just got the interface finished. It's gonna be really cool, cos it's fully skinnable, and comes with a default (although pretty crap) skin. I'm good at 3d art, but pretty shoddy at 2d... Here's the link, but beware, it's pretty low compression: http://sh2k.dune2k.com/upload/sh2k_v2b.jpg (104kb) Don't expect any miracles too soon, but I'd say I'm about 15% to a final product (and that's after 3 days work).

I know it's not really D2K related, but... Myself and a friend have made some desktop wallpapers, and I thought I'd promote it here. Check out Corona Studios at: http://www.crosswinds.net/~samah I think there's 37 images at the moment, most of them are 3d-rendered, and they're available in four different resolutions, all in high quality jpeg. Let me know what you think, guys!

OK, I'm currently in-between jobs and doing uni work, so that's why I haven't been working on SH2K for a while. The problems with having a real life... So here's something to make your lives a little easier. I made a new installer for v1.2.1, so you don't have to go through all those patches. It's made using Nullsoft's installer system, which is absolutely brilliant. They used it for WinAmp, etc... Here's the link: http://sh2k.dune2k.com/upload/sh2k121.exe To save download time, it doesn't include the VB runtimes, just the custom controls I used. If you have a previously installed version of SH2K, I'd suggest you uninstall it first, but leave the VB runtimes there when it asks to remove shared files. Please let me know if you have any problems with this. I can't really test it on my computer... Also, I have been receiving many emails from people with problems. I haven't replied to most of them for the same reason I haven't worked on SH2K, however some of the questions are just stupid, since they are answered on the FAQ. Sorry to be blunt, but it's very annoying when people send me the same message 6 times with an attached bitmap (not jpeg) and it takes me an hour to download the bloody thing... :P I will eventually release a new version at some stage :)

Ok all, here's a small download which will allow you to convert any file type (except Domination) to any other file type. This is still a beta and is in an experimental stage, so try it out and let me know if you have any strange problems. You will need to have the VB6 runtimes installed to use this program (they should be on your system if SH2K is installed). On another note, I'm working on making an installer for 1.2.1, to save people downloading so many patches! Here's the link: http://sh2k.dune2k.com/upload/sh2kconv.zip

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but I've decided to let someone else help me with the editor. It's got too difficult to manage on my own. A friend of mine is helping me rewrite the entire program in Delphi, instead of Visual Basic. It's just too unstable. The new version won't be out for a while, and unfortunately, I can't fix the bugs in the current version of SH2K since I lost the source code. The most recent backup I have is of version 1.1.0. I may release an extra program to convert shm files to sh2, so that they will work with the current version. Oh yes, and I might even be putting skinning support in the new delphi version. Anyway, make do with what you have, and I'll release a much more stable version in a month or two hopefully. Ya Hya Chouhada...

Ok dude, I searched through my source code and found the section where it extracts the tilesets. The .r8 files are made up of a whole heap of records like this: 29 byte header - not sure exactly what this is; probably palette info and/or terrain attributes for the game 1024 bytes of image data - 32x32 bitmapped image of 8-bit palette references. You'll need to get a palette to read this images in, or they'll look pretty weird. Try using the palette that comes with SH2K. It's in the Tilesets dir, and it's called d2k.pal. It's stored in the RGBRGBRGB... format, so that 3x256 = a total of 768 bytes. The .r16 files are stored differently since they are a higher image quality. I couldn't work out how to read these files, and couldn't be bothered since the .r8 files worked fine. Sorry to take so long getting back to you, but uni's a bitch... :P

Hi all, I've been real busy this past month, and haven't been able to work on ANY projects lately. Hopefully I should have time now that I'm back from my holidays. One of the bugs that people have been having is that they get strange colors in the preview box in the tileset extractor. I have now determined that this is directly related to the bit depth you have Windows set to. The way the preview is coded will only work on 24-bit color. Unfortunately, I was running 24-bit color at the time, so I never noticed this shortcoming... :P I'll look into fixing this, along with releasing a new installer. Also, people have been having some errors when they try to use the map statistics generator - if you have had problems with this, could you please mail me about it!

Lots of people have been emailing me with problems saying that they activate maps that use other tilesets and they don't show up correctly in the game. This is not a problem with any of the software, either Dune 2000 or SH2K. The problem is that people aren't USING the software correctly in the first place. The way Dune 2000 works, you can only have one tileset available at any one time. When you run Dune 2000, it will use its current tileset for ALL ACTIVATED MAPS. If you activate a map that uses BLOXICE and D2K is set up to use BLOXBGBS you will get a messy looking map. Whenever you want to change the current tileset, you need to use the combo box in the map activator. This will change the tileset D2K uses, and will be saved when the map activator is closed (but not cancelled). In order to change tilesets, I had to make a backup copy of the BLOXBGBS tileset, and overwrite it with the tileset you wish to use. Therefore, changing the current tileset will probably affect single player mode as well. Change back to BLOXBGBS before playing single player. I hope this has cleared these issues up. Have fun!

Sorry guys, I didn't test out the new version properly... It seems it would work fine with SHM and SH2 but not MAP. I've fixed this and tested it (and it works). I haven't given this a new version number though - I've just replaced the 1.2.1 download with the revised version. Sorry to everyone who downloaded the inferior one!

I've just found an error in SH2K 1.2.0 which stops you from loading the old map files that don't have the tileset name stored in them. SH2K tries to load a non-existent tileset, can't find it, and assumes you haven't extracted the tilesets. I've fixed this and released a 1.2.1 upgrade. Also, I've had a look at some of Westwood's other games to see how difficult it's going to be. Red Alert seems fairly easy at first, but Westwood have used some compression system to encode the entire map into about 3 lines of text. Theoretically, I should be able to do it though. Tiberian Dawn might be harder though, because multiplayer maps are stored in the MIX files I think... Oh well... :)

Due to the Dune 2000 nationality problem, some people still can't extract the tilesets and are getting strange results. For those of you who are having problems, you can download the pre-extracted tilesets from the SH2K website under Downloads. Its about 2.7Mb.

OK peoples, I've just uploaded SH2K v1.2.0 to my web site. Get it on the downloads page, or in the toolbar on FED2K when it gets put there. It's an upgrade from 1.1.7 to 1.2.0, but it may work for earlier versions (even as far back as 1.0.2) - not certain though. Don't say I didn't warn you. :) On a brighter note, the new version has FULL SUPPORT for the tilesets in BOTH VERSIONS of Dune 2000. Now that I have the D2K cd, I managed to actually test this, and believe me - IT WORKS PERFECTLY. If for some reason you are having trouble, EMAIL me. DON'T HESITATE. That's what I'm here for... :)

Sorry 'bout that guys, I was too anxious to release it :) I ditched InstallShield - I need to learn it better. Now it's just a self-extractor... It's a little bit bigger, but I think I made the mistake of not even including the files in the previous release.... :P

OK, after much waiting, I've finally released SH2K version 1.1.7. There's heaps of new features - for a complete list, read the news articles I posted over the past few days. The installer for this version was done using InstallShield, so the download is really small (560kb). From now on, I plan to split the editor into two parts. One part will have the Visual Basic runtimes, along with other DLLs the editor uses. You will only have to install this once (unless you've installed SH2K before). Then, you just download the small patch file for the version you want. I'm still learning how to use InstallShield, so this version of the installer doesn't create program icons. Just make a copy of the icons before uninstalling the previous version.