BCCS...

Catchy.

This thread is kinda... dead, i think... but is the BCCS?

Oh oops lol forgot after I returned from Egypt. I'll continue work on it soon

I finally kept my word. BCCS now has its own registry keys so it doesn't have to share them with 1.10o JCS, which gives stupid path issues. Also the JCS.ini is now called BCE.ini (E=Events) and I'm slowly removing anything BC doesn't support (like object illumination and secret/bonus levels).

Jerry you are the man! If you need any help or questions, PM me.

What is done so far then?

Sigh. See first post.

lawl

I think it's legal now, so check this out.

http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/dow...p?levelID=4835

Nice. Commented it Just to keep you busy.

I readed back some pages. Nice work!
But when ready the BCCS?
Or already ready?

Jerry probably forgot about BCCS (again)

Were away some time and busy the other time but hope to work on it this week again. Biggest problems atm are with the events, as I completely don't understand how BC handles speed and distance settings for moving objects.

I'd like to know in which order the event number, illuminate surroundings, difficulty and parameters are saved. That might give me a clue on why there are easy and hard events in binnen.j2l where BC doesn't support difficulty settings.

When this is released, i'll be happy to convert 1.23 tilesets to BC/1.10o tilesets for anyone who wants.

EDIT: See here.

Maybe you want to view some screenies.
http://jerry.webwideworlds.com/zooi/...y07%20bccs.png - A little outdated picture of BCCS with the About dialog. I changed the stibat URL, that's all.
http://jerry.webwideworlds.com/zooi/...displayset.jpg - A funny dialog window I ran into with Resource Hacker. It tells you BCCS needs big screens and 16bit colors for working with 256 color tilesets. Hurray.
http://jerry.webwideworlds.com/zooi/...niwritable.jpg - Another one I ran into which is less pointless This dialog is also fully BCCS'd.
http://jerry.webwideworlds.com/zooi/...20levprops.jpg - Clean yer room m8s. Pointless stuff is to be removed, rite?

Nice work.

Also got some BCE.ini news: it's updated again.

1 =One Way               |One   |Way
17=End of level          |Level |End
29=Start position        |Level |Start
 33=Battery holder       |Batt  |Holder|Global ID:     6|Direction:     1
 35=Liferaft             |Life  |Raft  |Water ID:      6
 41=Water pump           |Water |Pump  |Global ID:     6|Full water ID: 6|Empty water ID:6
42=Recharger             |Re-   |charge|Direction:     1
 46=Water                |Water |      |Water ID:      6|Width (tiles): 5|Height (tiles):5|Filled:  1|Mode: 1
50=Dripping Water        |Drip  |Water
51=Small enemy           |Small |Enemy |Hanging:       1
52=Large enemy           |Large |Enemy |Hanging:       1
53=Freddy the dragon     |Fred- |dy
55=Monitor               |Moni- |tor   |Hanging:       1|Direction:     1
56=End boss              |End   |Boss
60=Extra life            |Extra |Life
 61=Upgrade Battery holder|Upgr. |Holder|Global ID:     6
62=Battery               |Bat-  |tery
63=Super battery         |Super |Batt
65=Set water colour      |Water |Colour|Surface colour:8|Deep colour:   8
66=Button of Death       |Death |Button
70=Leaking energy        |NRG   |Leak


38=Elevator              |Ele-  |vator |Global ID:     6|2:             3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|5:    3
39=Elevator stopper      |Stop  |Elev  |Global ID:     6|2:             1
40=Platform              |Plat- |form  |Global ID:     6|2:             3|Direction:     1|Speed:   3
 43=Door                 |Door  |      |Global ID:     6|Start low:     1|3:             1|Stop low:1|Speed:3|Stomps:6
44=Stomper               |Stom- |per   |Global ID:     6|2:             3|3:             3|4:       3|5:    4
 47=Belt                 |Belt  |      |Global ID:     6|2:             2|3:             4|4:       4|5:    4
48=Transporter           |Trans-|porter|Global ID:     6|Height (tiles):4|3:             4|4:       4|x:2
54=Rain                  |Rain  |      |1:             1|2:             1|4:             1|8:       1
58=Umbrella              |Umbr  |ella  |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|5:    3

Notes:
-Events with a space before their event number have shown up in different difficulty modes.
-I found out stuff about the 'Door' event, but I have no idea what parameter 3 of 'Door' could possibly do. I just see nothing changing.
-I also found out stuff about the 'Transporter' event. At first I honestly didn't know what it could be, but then I decided to try it out in the original levels and it turned out to be something to move upwards. Still I couldn't figure out more settings than just the height.
-Tried to sort out the 'Umbrella' event but still have no idea what parameter 5 does, though I defenately see things changing when I change its value. I did figure out the 'Tracks' parameter: it lets you decide how many times the umbrella may turn about when it reaches a wall. Just couldn't come up with a better parameter name.
-That's it.

About the first screenshot, the icon in top left corner needs to be changed. Can you change the colour of the interface?

1) As you can see in the first post icons are not yet created.
2) Sadly no. Maybe the colors are easily editable with a hex editor, but even then you'll need to know exactly which bytes you must be changing.

I can make the icon for you, just say what format do you need it in. About the chm file, maybe http://abeetech.com/chmmakerpro/ will help (haven't tried it).

I installed it and because I installed it it's no longer usable. Read this:

Originally Posted by CHM Maker help file

Unregistered version limitations:
You can use the program for 30 days for evaluation purposes. In this case, you will see its nagscreen each time you start the program. Besides, you could't make CHM with more than 10 items at one level of TOC with unregistered version. So if you want to create a full-featured CHM in our program, you should buy it. After the purchase, all these limitations will be disabled and you will be able to use the program as long as you want.

It's impossible to finish both BCCS and the help file in only 30 days. I could have used it if I could start making a CHM right now, which I can't. Why don't they state you can't use it after a month on the website!

Got a good one now: www.vizacc.com free and professional

Oh, didn't know it was trial because it was not stated on the website.

Evil corporate corporateness.

I might have missed something....

but...

what in the world was Battery Check creation station?? I heard it had to do something with sending (real) batteries to those guys to recycle them (yap, I lost the word for it).
Nevertheless, it sounds like fun.

Years and years ago Stichting Batterijen (Stibat), a Dutch company that was founded to make people recycle batteries, started to give away a game called "Battery Check". If you could beat all three levels and the end boss you would get to see a text and if you send Stibat this code you can get prizes. Battery Check was made using a pre-release version of the JJ2 engine, somewere around JJ2 version 1.10o. 1.10o has been given out to a very limited number of people as a so-called 'press release'. In 2004, one community member leaked it out. 1.10o comes with its own version of JCS which happens to be compatible with Battery Check's levels!

Battery Check Creation Station is the name of the 1.10o JCS makeover I'm currently making.

1.10o JCS can open the levels, but it can't interpret the events and some other stuff correctly. Fixing this is part of the BCCS project.

Battery Check also included some nice tilesets.

I picked up on this project again. I want to see it finished, I've come so far...

Though a few weeks ago I re-installed both of my computers. And it was after that, that I realised the back-up I made somehow failed after copying files and folders with names beginning with the letter C. I had BCCS, along with BC itself, in a subfolder called 'Spellen' (Dutch for 'Games'), so I lost my progress. Luckily, I had some notes and screens stored elsewhere, as well as the BCE.ini copies in this thread, so today I've been pretty much re-doing all the cosmetic changes I made to the UI (name changes, the image found in windows like the About one) as well as some behind-the-scenes changes (like BCCS using its own registry key instead of JCS's).

There's only 2 things I haven't re-done yet:
1) Remove all options BC doesn't support (I did gray most of them out already, but they are still visible etc.)
2) Clean up the BCE.ini file (it still contains JCS junk that's no longer needed/supported)

And then I'll get back working on the events!

Thank you for reminding me that there are tools to edit all those little popup windows and things JCS is full of. What did you do for registry keys?

I used Resource Hacker for the popup windows and menus. The registry keys can be changed by editing the exe with a HEX editor, I used SweetScape's 010 Editor. (Does anyone know a good, free HEX editor?)

Olly Debugger

I found out how the Platform and Umbrella events work. Their parameters appear to be identical, but are somewhat surprising.

1 =One Way               |One   |Way
17=End of level          |Level |End
29=Start position        |Level |Start
 33=Battery holder       |Batt  |Holder|Global ID:     6|Direction:     1
 35=Liferaft             |Life  |Raft  |Water ID:      6
40=Platform              |Plat- |form  |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Tracks (x8):3
 41=Water pump           |Water |Pump  |Global ID:     6|Full water ID: 6|Empty water ID:6
42=Recharger             |Re-   |charge|Direction:     1
 46=Water                |Water |      |Water ID:      6|Width (tiles): 5|Height (tiles):5|Filled:  1|Mode:        1
50=Dripping Water        |Drip  |Water
51=Small enemy           |Small |Enemy |Hanging:       1
52=Large enemy           |Large |Enemy |Hanging:       1
53=Freddy the dragon     |Fred- |dy
55=Monitor               |Moni- |tor   |Hanging:       1|Direction:     1
56=End boss              |End   |Boss
58=Umbrella              |Umbr  |ella  |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Tracks (x8):3
60=Extra life            |Extra |Life
 61=Upgrade Battery holder|Upgr. |Holder|Global ID:     6
62=Battery               |Bat-  |tery
63=Super battery         |Super |Batt
65=Set water colour      |Water |Colour|Surface colour:8|Deep colour:   8
66=Button of Death       |Death |Button
70=Leaking energy        |NRG   |Leak


38=Elevator              |Ele-  |vator |Global ID:     6|2:             3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|5:           3
39=Elevator stopper      |Stop  |Elev  |Global ID:     6|2:             1
 43=Door                 |Door  |      |Global ID:     6|Start low:     1|3:             1|Stop low:1|Speed:       3|Stomps:6
44=Stomper               |Stom- |per   |Global ID:     6|2:             3|3:             3|4:       3|5:           4
 47=Belt                 |Belt  |      |Global ID:     6|2:             2|3:             4|4:       4|5:           4
48=Transporter           |Trans-|porter|Global ID:     6|Height (tiles):4|3:             4|4:       4|x:2
54=Rain                  |Rain  |      |1:             1|2:             1|4:             1|8:       1

For some totally weird reason they split up the 'Tracks' bitfield, inserting Direction and Speed in the middle of it. So you've got 2 parameters that control how many tracks (does anyone have a better word for it?) the platform/umbrella completes: parameter 2 ('Tracks') and parameter 5 ('+Tracks (x8)'). The number you enter in the '+Tracks (x8)' field, will be multiplied by 8 and added to the number you entered in the 'Tracks' field. Don't ask me why they didn't just make it a single 6-bit parameter.

Also, setting both 'Tracks' parameters to 0 wouldn't make any sense, so the game automatically corrects this to 1. So even with 'Tracks' set to zero, the platform/umbrella will move one time.


EDIT: now also updated screenshot links in this thread to point to where they're really to be found.

Elevators appear to work just the same.

The Rain event has one 5-bit parameter that specifies how much energy each drop of rain takes from you.

I thought the Dripping Water event could have the same parameter, so I tried it out to see if I could get it to hurt you. Turns out it has an 8-bit parameter to specify the delay between drops. I tried the same with Leaking Energy, but this event works completely random, it seems.


In search for unused events, I tried to place some unknown events (in fact I tested all events up to #173, after which I got tired of it) in a level to try them out. While some events crash the game, most of them simply do nothing. Though I did find something!


Event 37 appears to clone the Water Pump event (41). I don't know anything about BC's (or Jazz2's for that matter) inner workings, but my totally random guess is that this happens because, by coincidence, event 37 points to the same memory location as event 41.

Event 68 spawns an energy ball as seen in the end boss level. I think the end boss is simply generating this event above his head. Just like with the End Boss and the Button of Death, BC writes a line 'BOSS found at ..' in the Battery.log file. It only shoots once, so it's pretty much useless in levels, but this discovery gives hope that there is a very slim chance that we could replicate JJ2's Generator event in BC.

Event 69 appears to be just a regular Battery pickup at first sight. But you can't pick it up. Can be used in levels to mislead players, or just for eyecandy.




I hope some reverse engineer could, at the very least, have a look at event 37. I really wonder if it's got anything to do with event 41. And of course it would be great if someone could search for unused events 'from the inside out', if this is possible. By simply putting the unknown events in a level I'm going to miss any events that don't cause a visible change.

  1=One Way               |One   |Way
 17=End of level          |Level |End
 29=Start position        |Level |Start
 33=Battery holder*       |Batt  |Holder|Global ID:     6|Direction:     1
 35=Liferaft*             |Life  |Raft  |Water ID:      6
 38=Elevator              |Ele-  |vator |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Tracks (x8):3
 40=Platform              |Plat- |form  |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Tracks (x8):3
 41=Water pump*           |Water |Pump  |Global ID:     6|Full water ID: 6|Empty water ID:6
 42=Recharger             |Re-   |charge|Direction:     1
 46=Water*                |Water |      |Water ID:      6|Width (tiles): 5|Height (tiles):5|Filled:  1|Mode:        1
 50=Dripping Water        |Drip  |Water |Delay:         8
 51=Small enemy           |Small |Enemy |Hanging:       1
 52=Large enemy           |Large |Enemy |Hanging:       1
 53=Freddy the dragon     |Fred- |dy
 54=Rain                  |Rain  |      |Damage:        5
 55=Monitor               |Moni- |tor   |Hanging:       1|Direction:     1
 56=End boss              |End   |Boss
 58=Umbrella              |Umbr  |ella  |Global ID:     6|Tracks:        3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Tracks (x8):3
 60=Extra life            |Extra |Life
 61=Upgrade Battery holder*|Upgr. |Holder|Global ID:     6
 62=Battery               |Bat-  |tery
 63=Super battery         |Super |Batt
 65=Set water colour      |Water |Colour|Surface colour:8|Deep colour:   8
 66=Button of Death       |Death |Button
 70=Leaking energy        |NRG   |Leak


 39=Elevator stopper      |Stop  |Elev  |Global ID:     6|2:             1
 43=Door*                 |Door  |      |Global ID:     6|Start low:     1|3:             1|Stop low:1|Speed:       3|Stomps:6
 44=Stomper               |Stom- |per   |Global ID:     6|2:             3|3:             3|4:       3|5:           4
 47=Belt*                 |Belt  |      |Global ID:     6|2:             2|3:             4|4:       4|5:           4
 48=Transporter           |Trans-|porter|Global ID:     6|Height (tiles):4|3:             4|4:       4|x:2


 37=(Alt water pump)      |W.Pump|Ev. 37|Global ID:     6|Full water ID: 6|Empty water ID:6
 68=(Boss shot)           |B.Shot|Ev. 68
 69=(Fake battery)        |F.Batt|Ev. 69

Got some more updates today. First things first, the events.

  1=One Way          |One   |Way
 17=End of Level     |Level |End
 29=Start Position   |Level |Start
 33=Battery Holder   |Batt  |Holder|Trigger ID:    6|Direction:     1
 35=Liferaft         |Life  |Raft  |Water ID:      6
 38=Elevator         |Ele-  |vator |Trigger ID:    6|Moves:         3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Moves (x8):3
 40=Platform         |Plat- |form  |Trigger ID:    6|Moves:         3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Moves (x8):3
 41=Water Pump       |Water |Pump  |Trigger ID:    6|Water ID 1:    6|Water ID 2:    6
 42=Recharge Gate    |Re-   |charge|Direction:     1
 46=Water Pool       |Water |Pool  |Water ID:      6|Width (tiles): 5|Height (tiles):5|Filled:  1|Mode:       1
 47=Belt             |Belt  |      |Trigger ID:    6|Speed:        -5|Length:        4|Duration:5
 50=Dripping Water   |Drip  |Water |Delay:         8
 51=Small Enemy      |Small |Enemy |Hanging:       1
 52=Large Enemy      |Large |Enemy |Hanging:       1
 53=Freddy the Dragon|Fred- |dy
 54=Rain             |Rain  |      |Damage:        5
 55=Monitor          |Moni- |tor   |Hanging:       1|Direction:     1
 56=End Boss         |End   |Boss
 58=Umbrella         |Umbr  |ella  |Trigger ID:    6|Moves:         3|Direction:     1|Speed:   4|+Moves (x8):3
 60=Extra Life       |Extra |Life
 61=Save Point       |Save  |Point |Trigger ID:    6
 62=Battery          |Bat-  |tery
 63=Super Battery    |Super |Batt
 65=Set Water Colour |Water |Colour|Surface colour:8|Deep colour:   8
 66=Button of Death  |Death |Button
 70=Leaking Energy   |NRG   |Leak


 39=Elevator Stopper |Stop  |Elev  |Trigger ID:    6|(bool):        1
 43=Door             |Door  |      |Trigger ID:    6|Start low:     1|(bool):        1|Stop low:1|Speed:      3|Stomps:6
 44=Stomper          |Stom- |per   |Trigger ID:    6|Start low:     1|(bool):        1|Stop low:1|Speed:      3|Stomps:6
 48=Transporter      |Trans-|porter|Trigger ID:    6|Height (tiles):4|(0-15):        4|Speed:   4


 37=(Alt water pump) |W.Pump|Ev. 37|Trigger ID:    6|Water ID 1:    6|Water ID 2:    6
 68=(Boss shot)      |B.Shot|Ev. 68
 69=(Fake battery)   |F.Batt|Ev. 69

I have finished the Belt event and made big progress on the Door, Stomper and Transporter events. There are only a few parameters left, of which I don't know their function.

I have also renamed a few things.
-'Water' has been renamed to 'Water Pool' and 'Recharger' to 'Recharge Gate' just for clarification. The 'Tracks' parameters are renamed to 'Moves' for the same reason.
-Although batteries remain full in Battery Holders with a 'Battery Holder Upgrade', none of the devices that are powered by them actually keep working infinitely. On a closer look, I discovered that the 'Battery Holder Upgrade' has a very different purpose: After you have placed a battery into a Battery Holder with a 'Battery Holder Upgrade', your position will be reset to that Battery Holder when you die. Therefore, I have renamed the 'Battery Holder Upgrade' to 'Save Point'. I'll make clear in the help files, that the actual Save Points are the Battery Holders sharing the same ID.
-The 'Full Water ID' and 'Empty Water ID' parameters of the Water Pump event have been renamed to 'Water ID 1' and 'Water ID 2' respectively, because it turns out Water Pumps don't really care about the water level. They just fill a Water Pool if it's empty, or flush it otherwise. They can even fill or flush two pools at the same time, if they have the same state.
-And, finally, all 'Global ID' parameters have been renamed to 'Trigger ID'. Although I still slightly prefer 'Global ID', I decided to rename them to make it much easier to explain what Battery Check uses the 'Difficulty' setting for. I'll make that clear in just a moment.



New graphical updates and screenshots
I have managed to change the UI colour! It's now BC-orange. I've used the image you see in the About window to get the right colours and implemented them straight into the exe file using a HEX editor. The active window uses Batteryman's yellow colour, the inactive ones use the colour of Batteryman's gloves and the scrollbars use the colour of Batteryman's legs. For the latter I also had to remake the arrow's graphic.



I cleaned up the Layer Properties window. Battery Check supports Textured Backgrounds, but doesn't support the Parallaxing Stars feature, nor the fade-to-a-specific-colour feature. So I moved the Texture Mode checkbox into the Properties group.



I also cleaned up the Level Properties window again. I had to re-do this because I lost all my work when I reinstalled my computer, as I've told earlier. The outcome is a little bit different from what I had first. I like it better this way.



I have added a little bit of text to the Set Tile Type window. I thought it was too unclear what these things did. Now it's clear.



A small but important change on the Set Event dialog. BC doesn't support object illumination, so I removed the Illuminate Surroundings checkbox. I used that space for the text 'Link event to local trigger group', replacing the text 'Difficulty'. It's the word 'local' in this phrase that made me rename 'Global ID' to 'Trigger ID' in the event parameters, as a 'local global ID group' doesn't make any sense at all. I know you're thinking "what sense does this make, then?" now. I'll explain.


Battery Check uses Jazz2's event difficulty setting for something completely different. All Trigger IDs appear to link to one another only within the same of the four groups of events. So Battery Holders set to Easy will only trigger devices with the same Trigger ID and the same difficulty setting (Easy, in this case). This way, you can re-use Trigger ID's in different areas of your level, hence the name 'local trigger group'. With, once again, the help of a HEX editor, I renamed the difficulty settings to 'White (default)', 'Yellow', 'Red' and 'Purple'. I chose for those names because it wouldn't be clear at first sight if an event is a member of 'Group #1' or 'Group #2' etc. Now the names are simply the colours they get in BCCS.


I've also changed the Search and Replace Events window. Removed Illuminate Surroundings and replaced the difficulty stuff.



I think that'll be everything for now. Last things to do are the icons and the last few event parameters. I must say it's really darn nice to work in BCCS now that it totally has this BC look and feel. Not only because of the colours but also because it's clean from Jazz2 features now.

You are doing some impressive work and implementing some good ideas. Kudos.

Nice work! The enemies are officially called "suckers" by the way, you might want to use that name in the JCS.ini as well ("Small sucker" and "Large sucker" or something).

That's pretty awesome. I wasn't watching this thread because I suspected it wouldn't be anywhere near as impressive as its title suggests. But it turns out it is.

You should consider making a JCS utility by the way, so people can change JCS colors themselves. I've grown tired of purple

Originally Posted by Stijn

Nice work! The enemies are officially called "suckers" by the way, you might want to use that name in the JCS.ini as well ("Small sucker" and "Large sucker" or something).

Hmm, I knew the enemies were called Suckers. I really wonder why I haven't used that name for their events, as I did use names like 'Freddy the Dragon' and 'Stomper'. I'll change that right away.

Originally Posted by Newspaz

That's pretty awesome. I wasn't watching this thread because I suspected it wouldn't be anywhere near as impressive as its title suggests. But it turns out it is.

You should consider making a JCS utility by the way, so people can change JCS colors themselves. I've grown tired of purple

Nice idea. I think I could do this some time. Though if someone else feels like making a little JCS colour picker before I get to that, I'd be happy to help out as I now know exaclty what needs to be changed and what is affected by it etc.

Work on BCCS is kinda.. well, stuck. My HEX editor, after having thought about it for a few weeks, decided that it wouldn't accept the license key I generated with a keygen (yeah I know, I know ) after all. I tried Olly Debugger, but I simply fail to understand its workings. I haven't even found the HEX editing feature yet

So right now I'm looking for a free, more user-friendly (and preferably full-featured) HEX editor. Much like what GIMP 2 is in comparison to Paint Shop Pro and such.