Blitzkrieg Banzai? (SP1 Conversion)

[MarkSheppard]

Most of my data issues are resolved...now I have to nail down such things as bombardments, as well as unit facings; but I can get the scenario running and units shooting at each other.

[MarkSheppard]

I have bombardments in now; along with correct unit facings.

Now I have to tackle dug in status + map fortifications + minefields.

[MarkSheppard]

Minefields, Dragons Teeth, Foxholes, and Sandbag Emplacements now are dumped into JSON format from SP1; will look at SP2 next... Also need to look into how small unit loading is handled.

Also had to create a Icon OOB slot icon # dumper; as MOBHack's CSV export feature only handles regular icons, not Winter or Desert.

This also opens up an option --- "randomly use regular icons" -- to represent early Afrika Korps stuff or early Barbarossa winter stuff when stuff hadn't yet been painted into desert or whitewash yet.

[MarkSheppard]

Got winter/desert icons in, along with a randomly select summer icons option:



EDIT: Now working on SP2 importation; I have to wait now until Saturday morning to work on it; thanks to Claude running out of my weekly allotment. I'm at the point where I have to use the bigger, more expensive models since this is complicated enough to require them.

[Blazing 88's]

Off topic question... Any chance down the road that this process (or something like it) could be used to convert the two SP1 Mega Campaigns (SPWaW MegaCampaign: Desert Fox & SPWaW MegaCampaign: Lost Victories) to SPWW2 as a working system?
That would be really cool.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Blazing 88's

Off topic question... Any chance down the road that this process (or something like it) could be used to convert the two SP1 Mega Campaigns (SPWaW MegaCampaign: Desert Fox & SPWaW MegaCampaign: Lost Victories) to SPWW2 as a working system?
That would be really cool.

The problem with that is the "SPWAW" bit.

Camo Workshop <> Matrix/Waw

Matrix own the copyright to those campaigns, which they expect folks to pay for. So if you want a version of these then you would need to do it yourself manually using our campaign editor. Which would likely be fine if you kept that to your local hard drive.

But we would not host any such work here on Shrapnel, since that is piracy of another development teams IP. A big no-no

And if it were to be put up on your own website, say - then along would come Matrixes lawyers with writs in short order.

If you wanted to issue such a conversion it would be best to approach matrix and float the idea with them yourself as to how they would like to handle that. because it is their product and diddly-squat to do with us at Camo Workshop after all!


(Since we do seem to get users who seem to think that 2 completely separate competitors happen to be the same team and are all together in one happy-clappy big boat since we develop 2 entirely different games based on differing versions of the SSI SP engines, and the WaW developers may once have worked with us on Don's original hack of the SSI product at one point in the far past, I'll teiterate what I said above aagain:

Camo Workshop <> Matrix/Waw

i.e. - direct anything to do with matrixes WaW to their forums, for we are not they.)

[Blazing 88's]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, and duly noted. I should have known better.

For what it's worth, SPWW2 > SPWaW, by far.

[MarkSheppard]

Another technical issue is this:

SP1 and SP2 are much simpler than SPWW2 and SPMBT in terms of technical complexity; i.e. for obstacles, we just have dragon's teeth and mines; which are easier to reverse engineer than say, firing trenches.

To translate a MegaCampaign would be really hard; because Matrix had the full source code for SP3 to build them; and we don't know how complex they got with their if/then branching statements, whereas with SP1 and SP2, they're simple enough that with enough guesswork, we could try converting them over.

[MarkSheppard]

I've got SP2 importation running (need to doublecheck to make sure I didn't break SP1 Importation); but the big thing now is I need to make picklists for a lot of stuff now; i.e. the USMC OBAT needs:

[/\b3in Support\b/gi, '3in Naval Guns'],
[/\b5in Support\b/gi, '5in Naval Guns'],
[/\b6in Support\b/gi, '6in Naval Guns'],
[/\b8in Support\b/gi, '8in Naval Guns'],
[/\b16in Support\b/gi, '16in Naval Guns'],

...

[/\bAH-1 SuperCobra\b/gi, 'AH-1W Sup Cobra'],

to help translate from SP2 to SPMBT with a lot less pecking by the end user.

[MarkSheppard]

Here's a rough V1 RELEASE.

https://archive.org/download/AltWars...V1_Release.zip

I had to upload it to my Internet Archive Test Location because it wouldn't let me attach it to this post, despite ZIP being a supported file format.

=======================
BIG NOTE
=======================

I have to halt development of this until the 7 April; so don't expect any support from me or posts, due to personal commitments.

=======================
Here's the readme runthrough:
===========

Guide:

Here is the order you run things in:

================================================== =====

0_SPCONVERT_MAP_v3.html

this converts/dumps SP1/SP2 maps; as well as dumps the scenario in question into your /DOWNLOADS directory.

To use, you can load either individual SP1/SP2 DAT files, or load them from a ZIP pack (i.e. from the following Hapschott compilations):

https://generalstaff.org/Games/SP/Hapshott_sp1_scen.zip
https://generalstaff.org/Games/SP/Hapshott_sp2_scen.zip

It will automatically detect the format of the DAT file:

SP1, SP2 Uncompressed, or SP2 Compressed.

You select the Output Filename Number, then click on:

CONVERT & DOWNLOAD

Button

Your web browser may ask you if you want to allow/download multiple files. Say yes.

Inside your /DOWNLOADS directory will be:

spmap998.dat (or whatever # you chose)
Original Scenario DAT
Original Scenario CMT (if present)
Original Scenario TXT (if present)

================================================== =====

Place our new map (spmap998.dat or whatever # you chose) into the MAPS folder of either SPWW2 or SPMBT and open the game in question.

Select EDITOR.

Select CUSTOM MAP

Load the map that we just "downloaded" with 0_SPCONVERT_MAP_v3.html

Save the scenario (don't touch anything else) as an appropriate number, something like scenario 999 or whatever.

================================================== =====

Now we got to dump the original SP1/SP2 scenario information.

Load up

1_SP_READER_v16.htm

and within it, load the DAT file in question (either by clicking on the screen or dragging a DAT file onto the browser window).

A successful load will show you a lot of information like:

Filetype:
SP1
SP2 Uncompressed
SP2 Compressed

Location, date, battle type, etc etc etc etc.

In the upper right corner there will be a button labelled

"⬇ DUMP JSON"

Hit that.

Do "Allow multiple files download" again.

In /DOWNLOADS you'll find:

[name].JSON
[name]_OOB.txt

The JSON file has all the useful data (so far) from the scenario extracted into a format that can be read by other programs; and the _OOB.txt file has useful stuff like:

────────────────┠€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â ”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€
SIDE A / P1 — USA
────────────────┠€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â ”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€â”€
Formation A (4 units) (US Hmv Tac Cp/3, US HMV Tac Cp/4, US M2 HQ/Trp F, US M2 TAC CP/2)
Formation B (3 units) (3x M551 Sheridan)
Formation C (3 units) (3x M966 TOW HMMWV)
Formation D (4 units) (4x M3A1 Bradley)
Formation E (4 units) (4x M3A1 Bradley)
Formation F (4 units) (4x M3A1 Bradley)
Formation G (2 units) (2x M2A1 Bradley)

TOTAL: 24 units in 7 formations

As well as giving you a warning if one side is totally entrenched (to remind you to entrench in the scenario editor).

====================================

Now we need to import that data into our blank SPWW2/SPMBT scenario.

Load 2_SP_EDITOR_SPCAMO_v48.htm

and load the blank scenario you created with the custom map in SPWW2/SPMBT.

You'll see a lot of information, but the things that really concern us are the multiple buttons below "Import SP1 / SP2"

IMPORT SCENARIO PARAMETERS (JSON)
IMPORT VICTORY LOCATIONS (JSON)
IMPORT UNITS / LEADERS (JSON)
IMPORT ENTRENCHMENT (JSON)

Click on each one in turn, and select the JSON dump that we made earlier in your DOWNLOADS directory; this will pull the data from the JSON and put it into the scenario.

Yes, I know it's tiresome clicking/loading each set of parameters one by one, but this approach let me "modularize" loading each individual section of the scenario dump into a SPCAMO game file; so I could work on one thing at a time.

The IMPORT UNITS / LEADERS (JSON) one will bring up a pop up menu with suggestions for which SPCAMO unit to select for a converted unit -- I dumped the databases for SPWW2 and SPMBT into

SPCAMO_UnitsMBT.js
SPCAMO_Icons_MBT.js
SPCAMO_UnitsWW2.js
SPCAMO_Icons_WW2.js

Unfortunately, I don't have the time at the moment to work up a COMPLETE translation list -- the translations are contained in:

SPCAMO_UnitImport_Names.js

This early version will have to do (for now) as a "proof of concept", but I do have most of Germany in SP1 set up for automatic translations, as well as I think the SP1 Russians.

Once all of the JSONs have been imported; click on the

"⬇ DOWNLOAD"

button in the upper right corner.

Your modified .DAT will be in your DOWNLOADS directory. Load it in SPWW2 or SPMBT and play away.

====================================

KNOWN ISSUES:
Entrenchments (sandbags or foxholes) aren't automatically done. You'll have to remember to load it up in the scenario editor and hit the ENTRENCHMENT button for that side.

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EXTRAS/TOOLS:
====================================

0_OBAT_String_Dumper_v6.html -- this extracts text strings from OBATs into a form that is usable in SPCAMO_UnitImport_Names.js -- designed to help future development.