Blog: ron script maker

I've done a couple new apps recently. They've both been in the new-to-me .NET environment. The first one I made just to do it. It searches for instances of fonts in HTML code (either HTML, CSS, or script) using regular expressions and reports the findings through three lists.

The second app was born from necessity. I was tired of games not locking the mouse cursor into the current monitor, so I made a program to watch the selected app for focus and lock the cursor accordingly. This is obviously for multiple-monitor setups. It took about a week to code altogether but functions perfectly. It even has hotkeys to get you out of sticky situations. UltraMon can lock the mouse cursor to a certain monitor on hotkey press, but I knew I could do it better. My app locks the mouse cursor to whatever monitor the selected app is on automatically. It also locks it more efficiently by using the ClipCursor API function and checking to see if the app has focus or not. You can download both of these apps from my Apps page.

Also of interest is a recent Email that I received from Joe Pishgar, PR guy at Big Huge Games. He said that "several of [our programming team] outright insisted I do my best to get you into the Rise of Legends beta!". Of course, it's not like I'd say no to beta testing the "sequel" to Rise of Nations. I'm not sure when to expect my beta copy, but I suppose it should be within the next month by the way they're hyping it now. Joe also mentioned that some of the programming team were quite impressed by my Script Maker for RoN.

-Snake

Tags: programming, Cursor Lock, Rise of Legends, Rise of Nations, RoN Script Maker

There's a few things that have gone on lately that I shall point out.

First, I released the next major version of my Rise of Nations Script Maker last week. It adds a lot of cool shit and fixes a few bugs like: scrippet options; maximizing/resizing the window; preresearching techs, units, and buildings; update checks; message log; max craft in object stats; and new scrippet editor. So, pick this shit up.
RoN Script Maker Full Version
RoN Script Maker Lite Version

I also recently uploaded my incomplete Uber Resources T&P v2 to RoNH. It adds the T&P campaign rares like gold, rum, and cattle. Snatch that here.

The next item has to do with the website. I recently asked my host about upgrading my site to a new package and here's the answer I got back:

I've upgraded your account to the GigaDeal X5 package and the monthly price is the same as your previous package. If you need further assistance, please let us know. Thank you.

Check this page to see what the package offers. You'll obviously notice that it upgrades my space from a measly 200MB to 5GB. Given the copious space, I've decided to upload a bunch of my music (original, unfinished, and remixes) and videos. You can get to it by clicking the Downloads button on the nav or here.

And boom. I guess that's it. I'll probably be playing Dungeon Siege all week, so yeh...won't be very productive.

-Snake

Tags: modding, website, Rise of Nations, RoN Script Maker

Said Column about networking and sharing on a laptop and desktop is nearly done. It's not so short, though. More like 3200 words. You can find it here.

I'm also working on the next (final?) version of the RoN Script Maker. I've got some small fixes and features added already, but have yet to code the primary feature: code parsing of scrippets.

-Snake

Tags: website, RoN Script Maker

There's right, after at least a year of no new demo reviews, I have finally added a review for Act of War. If you like commando games and C&C, you'll have to check this one out here. Also, anyone that's interested in demo reviewing can email me about it. It's a shame that my demoboard system doesn't see much use.

I released a minor bug-fix version of RoN Script Maker the other day. I fucked up royally with the Object Stats saving and loading

, but it's fixed here. I don't think I'll post on the RoN Heaven forum about RSM anymore, so I'll just stick the last changelog additions below. I'm already working on another minor release that will have a few fixes, hopefully (finally) resizing of the app, and add craft max to the Object Stats (for generals, scouts, etc).

Changed in 0.9.27:
-fixed a little annoyance when setting up the script list after a save causing the loaded script to be unselected
-fixed a bug where the object stats in the RSM save file were not cleared before saving again. this caused changes to be appended and unremovable.
-email links in the about tab now get my current email address from s--l.com. should still open your default email app (tested with outlook), but also leaves a blank browser window open (tested with ie).

In other RoN news, I'm working on a new area of mod development: Map Styles. As far as I know, nobody has really touched on this in the community. I've been getting tired of the old styles, so I plan on modifying all the originals and releasing a pack that will install and swap in and out the mod with the originals. There are 4 main drawbacks to developing map styles, though. One is they can't be loaded like a mod (they must be loaded on game opening, when it reads the internal_strings.xml file). Second is they can't be added to the list of styles (making the swapping necessary). Third is the lack of documentation on map styles (except for a few xml comments). Finally, the game retains some elements of map generation (mainly water placement), however trees, rivers, tileset, mountains, rocks, fish, ruins, and rares are all fully editable. It's a pain, but it'll be worth it

. As you can see from the following screenshot, I've already composed two new styles: Island of Eden and Wasteland.

-Snake

Tags: demo reviews, modding, Rise of Nations, RoN Script Maker

I haven't had as much time to work on the site and apps and such as I'd planned because I was given Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 for Christmas. The former I just finished yesterday after an unexpected and rather uninspired ending. I have much criticism of HL2 and it just doesn't deserve the 98% from PCG and unpresidented 11/10 from MaxPC. First off, my biggest gripe is Steam. It works on the assumption that you will only be playing games from Valve and have a broadband connection. It's also a huge annoyance for its new piracy measures. Not only did I have to copy everything from 5 discs, but I then had to sign up for Steam, decrypt the entire 4GB of data, download critical parts of the engine, and then download the latest update. Five hours later, I actually got to load HL2. It takes a while to load, and I'm afflicted with some kind of bug that causes the game to hang while loading after roughly 15 to 20 loads (quickloads and new area loads). It also wasn't that fun of a game. After the first few hours of "woah, check out this engine!", the gameplay gets rather unexciting. There's nothing you haven't seen before. It only looks better. Then there's only half the number of weapons that HL had, a weak plot, and unclear mission objectives. I had the feeling a number of times that I was just wandering through the linear maze of a level and shooting things without a purpose. However, there are a few isolated cool scenes in the game. One being the Tremors/Starship Troopers "Ant Lions" chapter. Some of the squad stuff was also fun. While HL2 may look absolutely stunning, it plays rather lame.

I just installed Doom 3 today. I was initially put off by the fact that Doom 3 doesn't like to run when Daemon is installed. I immediately went for a NoCD that fixed it right up. These game developers and publishers are going too far with the piracy protection. It's almost a pain to be legit these days. That aside, Doom 3 is quite impressive. It sure did scare the shit out of me when the accident happened and the guy right next to me became a zombie. However technologically advanced, it still feels reminiscent of Doom.

And because you never have too many screenshots:

Now for the real news. LOL.

I fixed the email script and there's a new major beta release of the RoN Script Maker. It now comes in two flavors: Full Version and Lite Version. The difference being that Full has an installer/uninstaller, makes start menu shortcuts, and installs necessary redistributables (hard ass word to spell and type).

So that's the news.

-Snake

Tags: gaming, Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Ron Script Maker

Except the mail script I mentioned a few posts ago...I broke that unfortunately. I was trying to add multiple mailto addresses and, like a ret, overwrote the working script testing the new one. I'll fix it one of these days.

Newegg and Fedex are just amazing. In just two days, I received my new stick of RAM--during the holiday season no less. It installed perfectly

. I'm doing Dual-Channel now with an obvious speed boost

. Rise of Nations is down from a couple minutes to unload to like 15 seconds

. That's mostly to do with the fact that I doubled my RAM amount to 512. The system feels so smooth now...so relieved. It's like taking one of those huge shits that just plops right out

. Screenage:

The RoN Script Maker is coming along nicely. Actually, I only just started back working on it today. I completed one of the more daunting tasks, though, and with relative ease. I programmed RSM to read the unitrules.xml file for all the default unit settings so I'll have some default values to work with in the unit stat script functions. I was actually surprised at how well Microsoft implements and supports XML. It also seems rather proliferated--should be good for older OSes. Tomorrow, I suspect I'll write an editor for the unit stats and then saving and compiling routines. Here's an alpha build screenshot:

-Snake

Tags: programming, hardware, RAM, Rise of Nations, RoN Script Maker

I should be working on school shit, but I feel it's time for an update to the site status: Everything is groovy, bitches.

Some time ago I started work on a Column to showcase all the VB apps I've made. It's not nearly done, yet, and I'll probably have to finish it during Christmas break, but you can still see it here. By the way, it uses my new background effect, grid transparency: You make a 2x2pix image and make the opposite corner pixels either a solid color or transparent (as in the GIF spec), and this creates an opacity effect of 50%. Very neat, albeit it doesn't work in some browsers and is CPU intensive. Oh well.

Also, I updated the Flash nav to the left finally. I changed the Columns around, cut a staff listing, and changed the link for Downloads. And, if I hadn't mentioned it before, I changed the site background--simple effect, reminds me of a cross between the Halo 17 album art and Matrix cover art, yet shrouded in blue. It's actually an amalgamation of a picture of Beckie and one of Rachael.

I had a vision a few days ago of a mail redirection script, so I made that today. Obviously, there are bots that scan web pages in search of E-mail addresses (the @ and .com, .net, etc. are dead give-aways), so this script makes it impossible to phish any of the email addresses here. That is, once I've implimented it throughout the site. Most of the links to mail me are done, already, though. The greatest part about this script is its simplicity and mobility. There are only about 15 lines of code involved and if you change email addresses, you only need to change the script and you will still get email from whatever pages you listed the email on. It's also easy to impliment the script. Just point to the script URL and add ?u=Username&s=Subject. This script is so awesome, I should submit it somewhere like The CGI Resource Index.

I've also been working on VB apps, of course. You can follow the story behind my Rise of Nations Script Maker at RoN Heaven. Then, I've made major improvements to the MX510 application-specific buttons tool since the last post about it. It now uses two apps, one to monitor the foreground window in order to notify the Logitech software and another to work with schemes for different apps. Development of this app is slowed because it has problems with starting communications with EM_EXEC.EXE and crashing in new builds. Last night, I spent hours decompiling and trying to reverse engineer EVENTEX.DLL--must have crashed WDSM and VB6 like 20 fucking times. Thought I found the weak spot and changed some assembly code at about hmm...Offset 100206BD (see, it's burned into my memory, now). Alas, I only succeeded in making the mother fucker delete my Current User registery HKey

. Luckily, I installed DX9.01c the other day and that made a System Restore Point. Microsoft saved my ass that time. Really, though...they should make it impossible to delete an entire registry root key. Anyways, my program is perfectly safe and available at www.snakebytestudios.com/download.php?id=7.

I also fixed the MBM Interval Log upload. Didn't know the host IP changed.

Later, dudes.

P.S. I'm single. Date me, womens!

-Snake

Tags: website, programming, mice, RoN Script Maker

I'm back at VB and currently working on three programs; one of them being my old ShellMPX frontend for SCMPX. I never tire of its simplicity and exceptional audio quality, but over the course of using my shell, I have come up with a few improvements. But then of course, nobody uses SCMPX. I bet even S. Chiba, the author of SCMPX, uses Winamp or some mainstream crap. Anyways, the second app I have put a lot of time into programming. It's a utility for creating game scripts for use in Rise of Nations. It's nearing final release status, but it's been getting slow. More info can be found in my thread over at RON Heaven.

My latest project is even more practical than the last. After purchasing a Logitech MX510 mouse to replace my first replacement (an MS Intellimouse Explorer 4.0) for my much-loved MS Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, I found it to be superior in many aspects. The only thing that is lacking in the MX510 is the Logitech software to support it. Unlike the MS mouse software, Logitech doesn't include application specific button settings. This creates a great conflict when switching between playing games and doing work in Windows. There was a fix mentioned around the web to make two registry files for the two differing tasks so that you can run them and then open the mouse control panel briefly for the settings to take affect. I found this to be a clumsy and annoying workaround, especially since being pampered by Microsoft's application specific settings for a year. I examined the way the Logitech software made use of the registry, and without a second thought, begin writing a program that will appropriately load button settings according to what application has focus. After around 16 hours of programming on two occasions, I have come up with a program that will load button settings from a configuration file in the aforementioned way. I had even tested it in Thief3 and concluded it to work well already. In the game, I bound the keystrokes that were assigned to the cruise buttons to zoom in and out. Immediately after quiting to desktop, I then used the cruise buttons in their normal manner. The only thing left now is to make a pretty GUI, include the rest of the button functions supported by Logitech's software, and hunt for bugs. For the savvy users that googled their way to this page, you can download this highly alpha version now at http://www.snakebytestudios.com/download.php?id=7. You have to edit the butsets.ini (hehe...that sounds like butt sex

) file and the only functions available are the ones already listed. Keystrokes settings function and appear exactly the same as in the Logitech software. The [Default] profile is what the program loads when there is no specific profile for an application. App-specific profiles are listed exactly as they do in the GUI, thus [iexplore.exe] would be the heading for Internet Explore settings. Hopefully, I will get some time soon to finish all these programs.

-Snake

Tags: programming, mice, RoN Script Maker, ShellMPX

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