GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[Kerr Avon]

How do you change the colour of the levels (single player, and multiplayer) in Perfect Dark, using the editor, please?

I mean, I take it you load the Perfect Dark (U) v1.1.z64 rom into the editor, highlight the (say) section of the wall in the G5 multiplayer level that you want to recolour, select the colour menu, choose the colour that you want it to be, then select the next section of the wall to recolour, etc, and when finished, you save the altered PD as a .z64 file, and it's ready to use.

But I can't even find out how to load a .z64 file into the editor, so please can someone take me through it, step by step? I'm totally new to game modding, so please spell everything out for me!

Thanks for any answers.

[Fillerthefreak]

I have never fiddled around with the editors much. But I assume Vertex painting?

Again, I don't know anything about Perfect Editor. So that's just a suggestion.
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[Trevor]

I could be missing bits here but :

Open editor

Tools > Preferences > Quick > Convert Rom > Click GE/PD Rom > OK

File > New > Choose Level

Edit > Open Visual

Shade your wall with vertex colouring.

Rt Click room > Export level GE format > Save as *.bgf

Tools > 21990 > Files > click the button next to bg > at bottom click inject from file. Load saved level*.bgf

Write Rom



I think this should do it.

Trev
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[Kerr Avon]

Thanks, Trevor, I'll try that when I get home.

Fillerthefreak, sorry, I don't know what Vertex painting is?

[Trevor]

Vertex Painting is the asigning RGB data to each vertex.

Models in GoldenEye (and most 3D things) are made from Triangles. Triangles are made from 3 connected Vertexes.
To Colour a Triangle you have to colour each vertex.

e.g. To make a Red Tri you colour the 3 vertexes Red.

The beuty of Vertex shading is that you can assign up to 3 different colours per Tri by colouring each vertex a different colour. This generates a colour gradient across the Tri and is used for 'Smooth Shading'

Trev
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[Kerr Avon]

Right, I've tried it, and I'm OK up until:

Trevor wrote:

Edit > Open Visual Shade your wall with vertex colouring.

I can open the Visual Editor, and fly around the level, but how do I highlight a section of the wall and use vertex colouring (I can't even find the word 'vertex')?

I mean, I can face a wall, press Q or Z to move closer to or away from the wall, but no matter how close I get to it, I don't see an option to vertex colour (or any way to select or colour) it.

[Trevor]

Ok, So make sure you are in Room Edit mode (Forgot this bit before)
Mode > Switch Mode To > Edit Room Positions

Then Right Click somewhere on screen and click Vertice Colouring


Then choose a colour and then click the vertex you want to shade.
You will notice that shared Verticies ALL take the colour.



Hope this helps

Trev
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[Kerr Avon]

Oh yeah! I've got it now. Thanks for the detailed explanation, I'll have to spend some time exploring it, but now I can change the wall colours. It really is impressive how much time and effort you, Wreck, Zoinkity, etc, have done to understand the inner workings of Perfect Dark and Goldeneye, and to make such a (brain bafflingly) detailed and capable editor.

And thanks for making it available for everyone, too.

[Trevor]

I should also add that if you want to 'Disconnect' a Tri so that only the 1
or 2 triangles have 1 solid colour (Like a shadow or something) then:

Right click the desired triangle (Ctrl+Click for multiple Tri's) > Triangle
Tools > Disconnect Tri

This will allow you to use the vertex colouring tool to colour a triangle
edge without it bleeding to other connected triangles (look at the shadow
cast by facility in runway in above screenshot)



====Extra Note (Ignore if confusing)===
There is another way to assign solid triangle colours by using PrimColor()
or EnvColor() Colour Combiner Registers but Ill leave that as its currently
not esilly done under normal editor.

Which to use depends on how many more GBI commands or Verticies are
required and which will provide the better performance.
i.e.
To Colour 1 Tri solid using verticies will require 3 extra Vtx
To Colour n Tri's solid using CCRegister will require 3 extra GBI
commands (1x CCReg Colour 2x Change CCMode)

Given Optimal Performaces of multiples of:
32 GBI Command
16 Vtx buffers
(eg, 32, 64, 96 are optimal. 33, 66, 97 are NOT Optimal)
then if by adding either you pushed a buffer into Un-Optimal state, use
the other method.


What would be nice for editor is a Quad(PD), Tri, Vtx, GBI(Total), GBI(-Tri
Data) counters in Advanced section.

Trev
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[Kerr Avon]

Trevor wrote:

I should also add that if you want to 'Disconnect' a Tri so that only the 1 or 2 triangles have 1 solid colour (Like a shadow or something) then: Right click the desired triangle (Ctrl+Click for multiple Tri's) > Triangle Tools > Disconnect Tri This will allow you to use the vertex colouring tool to colour a triangle edge without it bleeding to other connected triangles (look at the shadow cast by facility in runway in above screenshot)

OK, thanks. I've not tried anything more than the basic colouring, but I will do, and it's good to know that different sections don't have to depend on each other for a given colour, as happens in pallete based graphic image files. I hadn't even considered shadows, so thanks for pointing that out.

Quote:

====Extra Note (Ignore if confusing)=== There is another way to assign solid triangle colours by using PrimColor() or EnvColor() Colour Combiner Registers but Ill leave that as its currently not esilly done under normal editor. Which to use depends on how many more GBI commands or Verticies are required and which will provide the better performance. i.e. To Colour 1 Tri solid using verticies will require 3 extra Vtx To Colour n Tri's solid using CCRegister will require 3 extra GBI commands (1x CCReg Colour 2x Change CCMode) Given Optimal Performaces of multiples of: 32 GBI Command 16 Vtx buffers (eg, 32, 64, 96 are optimal. 33, 66, 97 are NOT Optimal) then if by adding either you pushed a buffer into Un-Optimal state, use the other method. What would be nice for editor is a Quad(PD), Tri, Vtx, GBI(Total), GBI(-Tri Data) counters in Advanced section. Trev

Thanks for the information, but as you say, it's rather too advanced for a complete beginner, even if the editor did natively support it.

OT, sort of, but I did post on Retro Gamer's* article-suggestion forum, suggesting that they do an article on the whole Goldeneye/Perfect Dark hacking scene, including the mods and game hacks, and the editor. They didn't even reply. Granted it's a very small scene, and they don't even cover much larger modding scenes, such as the Half-Life series, Unreal Tournament series, Doom series, Grand Theft Auto series, etc (though they should, game modding is an intregal part of PC gaming, even if it's much, much rarer on consoles), but I think it could have made a good article.











* A British commercial magazine dedicated to, er, retro gaming.

[bmw]

Quote:

Right click the desired triangle (Ctrl+Click for multiple Tri's) > Triangle Tools > Disconnect Tri This will allow you to use the vertex colouring tool to colour a triangle edge without it bleeding to other connected triangles (look at the shadow cast by facility in runway in above screenshot)

Heh, that would have saved me some headaches in some of my goldeneye level mods had I known you could do this. I knew you could do this to the clipping data but didn't know you could it to the bg data. Don't know how I missed this feature.