HOMM2 project on Sourceforge you might want to check out :)

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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Super Goober
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HOMM2 project on Sourceforge you might want to check out :)

Unread postby Super Goober » 30 Nov 2010, 16:27

It's called fHeroes2 and it's basically a reimplementation of the Heroes 2 engine. It's like the VCMI project for Heroes 3. The project is active (2 releases in the last 2 days) and is going strong. You need to have the original data files from the CD in order to play it.

Here are some of the things I've noticed about the game:

1: There is a new good luck sprite. It looks and sounds like the Bless spell. Apparently, they were having trouble with the Rainbow effect.

2: Players have the option of enabling +2 defense when skipping turns in combat (much like HOMM3).

3: Noobs like me actually have a chance against the AI on easy (I seem to be getting better though).

4: There is a more precise animation speed setting (human, rabbit, cheetah). It allows you to adjust it on a scale of 1-10.

5: Morale and Luck have been tweaked according to how much you have. +3 morale was enough for me to get 5 straight extra turns with 5 stacks.

Also I found a way to get into Heroes2.AGG, where all the files are.

I used a program called Game Archive UnPacker 0.3.6.0 Beta. You can find it on Softpedia.

So if any of you HOMM2 fans would like to contribute, you can help out with this wonderful project at Sourceforge.

It's known as free Heroes2 engine.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fheroes2/

Also, here's the link to GAUP 0.3.6.0 beta.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/File-manag ... cker.shtml

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Unread postby Darmani » 01 Dec 2010, 04:16

I had wondered a few days ago whether it would be a good idea to cease work on reverse-engineering HoMM II and let all major mods be made off fheroes2. I'll refrain from bashing on someone else's work (especially since our efforts in the stickied thread are just getting off the ground), but there are a lot of reasons to stick with working off the original game. Super Goober has already mentioned two.

By the way, it looks like they've cracked most of the data file formats in H2. If anyone is willing to read the source code of the converters in the tools directory of fheroes2 and try to figure out the formats, and then publicly post a description, we'd all be very happy.

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Unread postby Super Goober » 02 Dec 2010, 14:00

Here's what I can gather and guess about the file formats in HOMM2:

.AGG: The archive that's used to store all the HOMM2 files.

.82M: This is used for the game's sounds. You can open them in Audacity if you click "Import Raw." In the dialogue box, change the Hz from whatever it is now to whatever it is in the sound file. If you don't, you might end up with a lich that sounds like it came from Alvin and the Chipmunks (true story).

FNT: These are the files that determine how the letters and numbers look in HOMM2 (my guess from looking at MM6's FNT files).

XMI: This I believe has something to do with the game's MIDI music, judging from the filenames (e.g. MIDI0002.XMI). It could determine how the music is played but that's my guess.

PAL: No idea. You'll have to find that out yourself. There's only one of these in the archive.

TIL: I saw a couple filenames that sound like Stone and Mirror Image. My guess is that these change the way monster sprites look.

BMP: Bitmap Image. This one's a no-brainer.

ICN: It could stand for Icon. These files are like the .def files from HOMM3. I haven't been able to study them in detail, but I saw Terry Butler half-successfully open the ICN files with his program. They are most certainly image files and there's a very good chance they contain the animations for anything from spell graphics, to creature animations, to who knows what.

I could be wrong with my descriptions, so if there's something wrong, please let me know.

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Unread postby Darmani » 02 Dec 2010, 18:02

You might want to take another look at BMPs -- they aren't in the normal format.

Thanks for the hint on opening 82m, and for the guess on TIL. I already knew most of the rest though. The most important part to a modder, though, is exactly how the files are laid out (so that we can make new files of the same type). A lot of that information can be found by looking at, say, icn2img.cpp in the trunk/fheroes2/src/tools/ directory. A public description of the exact format would be quite beneficial to the community.

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Unread postby solitaire345 » 04 Dec 2010, 18:33

PAL: No idea. You'll have to find that out yourself. There's only one of these in the archive.
judging from extension it seems that this is pallete file (there was a bunch of those in MM games and few in HoMM III)

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Unread postby Darmani » 05 Dec 2010, 07:25

I can confirm these are palettes. The code to load them originally lay in a palette.cpp. (A lot of information leaks out in debugging tests, teehee.)

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Unread postby cuc » 19 Mar 2011, 12:37

The XMI format is "extended MIDI" developed by RAD Game Tools. It supports several functions needed by games such as looping and more importantly, custom instruments. Some old versions of Winamp can play it, but cannot support its additional functions.
.82M: This is used for the game's sounds. You can open them in Audacity if you click "Import Raw."
Thank you for pointing this out! I should have realized these are PCM raw data.

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Unread postby dudejo » 19 Mar 2011, 13:19

i've heard of it.

at first, i was interested because of the possibility of changing the stats for the units. then i discovered the modding topic on this forum. so i haven't touched it since.

although i might check it out again once the engine really takes off.

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Unread postby cuc » 19 Mar 2011, 13:29

fheroes2 already has quite a few new features. This is a list I saw on the Stardock forum:

* Much higher resolution. I think the resolution defaults to the best fit to the screen you have, at least it does on my computer. You can see much more of the map at once, and it is kind of neat to have the town screen/battle screen fit "inside" the fantasy map/world.

* Total customization of keys and stats. With HOMM 2 Mod balance tweaks and other tweaks allowed by fheroes2, almost all creatures, castle buildings, spells and skills are useful for their cost and characteristics. Global characteristics such as number of turns players can live without a town, and maximum number of heroes per player are also customizable too.

* Wait function in battles. It's amazing what this simple change does to the flow of battle. No longer do fast units have to charge in at the start of battle and be made into mincemeat. Fast units can have the last turn in a round then the first turn in the next round. The AI doesn't use wait yet, and some rules are not quite like H3 (such as favouring slot closest to 1 in the wait part of the round, and swapping sides if the attacker makes the last action in the round and the defender has an equal fastest speed unit) but the core rules are there. Phoenix and Champions are much more useful when wait is on.

* All sorts of interface improvements. No longer do you need to worry about writing down Traveller's Tent codes - once you've visited it, all Barriers of that type will open automatically when you attempt to open the Barrier. Well screen, where you can buy all the troops you want, and you also a "max" button where you can buy all the troops you can afford from highest level downwards, info about whether you've visited each Windmill/Watermill in the current week, info about what Shrines and Witch Huts teach after you've visited them (like in H3 and later) and how many troops are left in map dwellings and remember last focus (last town or hero selected) instead of always defaulting to the first hero.

* Many features from later HOMM games, such as wait and defend (skip adds +2 defense) functions in battle, garrison and visiting heroes in the one settlement, space bar revisit, placing a guardian stack for mines, remembering movement points after rehiring a hero, not rehiring with full basic creatures, no intrinsic skill/resource/defeat creature/s requirements for picking up artifacts on the map (no more not being able to pick up quest artifacts because you need leadership and you only have necromancers), buying from the Well (like buying from the Castle in H3), abandoned mine random resource, scholar ability (with H2 Eagle Eye skill) and flash building outline when clicking on buildings in settlements.

* New features and options: Remember last focus, buy a spellbook from shrines, extended content info from scouting skill, Visions and Identify Hero spell from Crystal Ball, recalculate movement point after creatures movement (basically, scouts can move a fast creature into their army and slow creatures out, and when transferring creatures that are slower or have already moved somewhat during the turn the receiving hero has movement reduced), recruit cost to be dependent on hero level, surrendering gives experience for killed creatures, after battle move to target cell if free, all sorts of alliance options - view maps, share troops, castle and mage guild visiting, high objects in battle act as obstacles to archers, archmagi have magic resistance, and unicorns and other "spell casting after attack" troops have limited spell immunity.

* Miscellaneous improvements: like in the original text of Dimension Door, you can only teleport to explored territory. If you come out of a lith, or teleport next to a monster stack, they attack immediately. That allows the benefit of being able to space bar visit a lith system, but there it is no longer no risk for great reward if monsters are next to any liths. Monsters won't just play dumb just because you came out of a lith or teleport next to them rather than move next to them. Every artifact now only counts once. You can't have three flails of dominion any more and get benefits for each one - like with leadership and luck artifacts, each artifact of one type always give just the one bonus.

* New Battle Only mode, where the first player can set up a battle with creatures, base Attack/Defense/Knowledge/Spell Power, spells and artifacts, and two players can duke it out via local AI or human, or network or internet connection. Regular games don't have non-local MP support, but that will come.

* Upcoming features: moddable AI, much bigger maps (bigger than H3 max size two level map), possibly with multiple levels and diplomacy, in-built and custom campaign support and possible support for multiplayer campaigns. Lots of stuff to look forward to!

* Well now we're up to 10 points. Hope you've got a good idea of the kind of things fheroes2 has, and will have as time goes on. (There could potentially be a quite neat Battle Only competition where you use experience to buy various characteristics, and you could lose artifacts if you lose a battle outright. But that's only an idea at the moment. ) Because the H2 foundation was extremely solid, adding some later features, interface improvements, balancing existing elements better, and adding other new features, makes for a very fun game, much better than the original. And you are very welcome to take part on the forums and report bugs, suggest improvements etc.

When the fheroes2 editor is ready to go, there will be all sorts of map-making, campaign-making and AI customizing opportunities.

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Unread postby Kristo » 19 Mar 2011, 20:00

The last time I played this was probably a year and a half ago. I remember the hero movement being choppy, battles not quite working right, and the AI not really doing anything. Has anyone played a newer build recently? I'm impressed that this project is still active.
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