Tomb Raider 4 and 5 modding on Dreamcast

[Anthony817]

So I was looking at the list of Windows CE titles for the Dreamcast since they have a great track record for being super modable and file formats very close to the Windows PC versions of those games. It got me to wondering what exactly people have been able to do with the 2 PC versions of Tomb Raider games that we also have on the Dreamcast. They were obviously ported from those PC versions since Windows CE. I discovered quite a lot actually. Custom levels seem to be a huge thing in the Tomb Raider modding community. So I was wondering how far could we push that idea? If custom levels are possible, I am wondering if porting over the levels from Tomb Raider 1, 2 and 3 were possible? Maybe we can make those games playable in some form or another by modding the 2 that we got? Seems I just found one such project porting the levels from TR2 into 4!



We are already speculating in the Resident Evil 2 thread that recreating the first game in that port should be possible if we can figure out how to mod the backgrounds but the characters are already modable.

Here are just some of the cool things we may be able to do with Tomb Raider games on the Dreamcast.

https://youtu.be/lL2vRIP4mn0

I mean look at that, Jill Valentine character mod with zombies and the complete mansion recreated in 3D from the first Resident Evil game recreated in Tomb Raider 4 engine. It is pretty damn impressive.

Or look at this remake of Resident Evil 2. Looks like there may be all kinds of possibilities with turning this game into all new experiences and great total conversion fan games.



TR4 seems to be the most popular game for custom levels, as it is listed at almost 3000 custom levels uploaded on that site! Here is a link to the one in the video.

http://www.trle.net/sc/levelfeatures.php?lid=3201

Here is also a great thread with valuable information on how to get custom levels working I think. 2nd page has a guy who explained how to do it. Might need to be some hex editing done but not totally sure.

https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showth ... p?t=215029

I would look into this myself, but I am already knee deep into my 3rd year of recreating Battlefield 1942 in HD in the BF2 engine and can not afford to start up any other projects until my mod releases. I am trying to stay focused and finish it but total conversion historical mods on a modern combat game means we have to make every single item for the correct time period thus taking up precious time. The mod is the most epic development project I have worked on so it takes up so much of my free time. Shameless plug if anybody wants to see our latest trailer.

[Ian Micheal]

bump

[SMiTH]

bump

re-bumped.
i will bump ian's original bump post.
therefore bumping a bump.
this proves that all shall bump thee.
let the bump brigade commence.

[Anthony817]

Ok, so after doing more research, seems that there is actually a full 1:1 port of Tomb Raider 1 and 2 in the TR4 engine, and 3 is planned later. But the first 2 are complete and just released last month! The version of 2 above I thought was good, but incomplete and not a total 1:1 port more of a remake with changes.



The PC exclusive expansion pack Unfinished Business is included too!



Download: https://www.trsearch.org/item/4907



Download: https://www.trsearch.org/item/4908

The ports above all have a better detailed Laura model and it has the updated lighting and other graphical effects in part 4 as well as all the new moves she can do that the first games could not. It would be really amazing if somebody could look into this and see if this is possible. I think hex editing the level names into the game executable may be needed as well as the levels config file from what I read some people saying in the thread I linked in the first post on the 2nd page of that thread but not sure.

[SMiTH]

bump x2

[cloofoofoo]

So I was looking at the list of Windows CE titles for the Dreamcast since they have a great track record for being super modable and file formats very close to the Windows PC versions of those games. It got me to wondering what exactly people have been able to do with the 2 PC versions of Tomb Raider games that we also have on the Dreamcast. They were obviously ported from those PC versions since Windows CE. I discovered quite a lot actually. Custom levels seem to be a huge thing in the Tomb Raider modding community. So I was wondering how far could we push that idea? If custom levels are possible, I am wondering if porting over the levels from Tomb Raider 1, 2 and 3 were possible? Maybe we can make those games playable in some form or another by modding the 2 that we got? Seems I just found one such project porting the levels from TR2 into 4!



We are already speculating in the Resident Evil 2 thread that recreating the first game in that port should be possible if we can figure out how to mod the backgrounds but the characters are already modable.

Here are just some of the cool things we may be able to do with Tomb Raider games on the Dreamcast.

https://youtu.be/lL2vRIP4mn0

I mean look at that, Jill Valentine character mod with zombies and the complete mansion recreated in 3D from the first Resident Evil game recreated in Tomb Raider 4 engine. It is pretty damn impressive.

Or look at this remake of Resident Evil 2. Looks like there may be all kinds of possibilities with turning this game into all new experiences and great total conversion fan games.



TR4 seems to be the most popular game for custom levels, as it is listed at almost 3000 custom levels uploaded on that site! Here is a link to the one in the video.

http://www.trle.net/sc/levelfeatures.php?lid=3201

Here is also a great thread with valuable information on how to get custom levels working I think. 2nd page has a guy who explained how to do it. Might need to be some hex editing done but not totally sure.

https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showth ... p?t=215029

I would look into this myself, but I am already knee deep into my 3rd year of recreating Battlefield 1942 in HD in the BF2 engine and can not afford to start up any other projects until my mod releases. I am trying to stay focused and finish it but total conversion historical mods on a modern combat game means we have to make every single item for the correct time period thus taking up precious time. The mod is the most epic development project I have worked on so it takes up so much of my free time. Shameless plug if anybody wants to see our latest trailer.

Like 2 years ago I tried using the PC mods on the Dreamcast version and found that while extremely similar there might exist difference how things are stored/packed on the dc version as well as the game scripts being different. I remember I tried to use the mod with high poly Lara Croft it it was a no go and would automatically crash when it came time to display her always. The title screen level in Revelation actually loaded but the texture was garbled, the dreamcast version seems to always expect bump map textures by the looks of it.( Texture was behaving weird besides being garbled). Since I don't care much for the game I only tried to swap her with a different but lower Croft model mod still crashed.

Maybe someone who cares and is skilled could look into it.

[Anthony817]

Ah that is interesting to hear. From what I recall seeing people mention about getting higher poly models of Laura working at least on the PC .exe of the game was it needed to be hex edited to go past 255 triangle limit or something? I need to look back through the thread and find the post.

https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showpo ... stcount=36

Oh no I see it was about 255 vertical limit.

Well Ian just posted in the site chat that he got levels working but music format was different.

I did a fast test on tr4 and mods it seems we need to find the music format but the levels work so i find it very cool about the future of tr4

Maybe ADX format or something? If anything I was worried about textures needing to all be converted to .PVR format but like Half-Life mods it isn't needed only helps with optimization as the PC textures will still work.

Hopefully his further testing will be successful. If the FMV's and music can be converted we may be able to have a decent port of those games levels into this. Fingers crossed.

[cloofoofoo]

Ah that is interesting to hear. From what I recall seeing people mention about getting higher poly models of Laura working at least on the PC .exe of the game was it needed to be hex edited to go past 255 triangle limit or something? I need to look back through the thread and find the post.

https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showpo ... stcount=36

Oh no I see it was about 255 vertical limit.

Well Ian just posted in the site chat that he got levels working but music format was different.

I did a fast test on tr4 and mods it seems we need to find the music format but the levels work so i find it very cool about the future of tr4

Maybe ADX format or something? If anything I was worried about textures needing to all be converted to .PVR format but like Half-Life mods it isn't needed only helps with optimization as the PC textures will still work.

Hopefully his further testing will be successful. If the FMV's and music can be converted we may be able to have a decent port of those games levels into this. Fingers crossed.

Not surprised he got levels working, they do load but for me when would use garbled textures as bump maps for the level surface with interesting result( not sure if that was because mods lacked bump maps altogether and the expected it). Glad he got past that because that might be a DC specific feature. Character mods wouldnt work for me no matter for me.

[ShadowGeist]

TRLE levels on the Dreamcast - a partial success https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showth ... p?t=219752

[Ian Micheal]

There is a host of tools to use very big learning curve

but this program opens all the dc textures

seems to me all level names are in script.dat so i dont think you have to mod the main engine

I think we will run into lack of ram is the main problem title.tr4 for example i have not got anything over 2.8mb to load so to me looks like you have to create your own levels for it with the limits of the dc engine in mind..