What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

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filbo
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by filbo »

In the process of attempting to restore, have you modified the trashed disk? Reformatted or remade filesystems?

If not, there's a decent chance the files are still recoverable, and it sounds like Holger has some expertise in it (not to actually volunteer him, but ...)

Basically you should take a whole-disk image backup of the trashed thing, save it onto a big USB stick or whatever, and see if someone can mine it for you.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Holger »

In the process of attempting to restore, have you modified the trashed disk? Reformatted or remade filesystems?

If not, there's a decent chance the files are still recoverable [...]
Yes, that's right.

And that's a very important point in data recovery: As soon as you notice problems or failures with devices with important files you don't have a backup for, immediately stop any write access to that device! That's especially important if that device contains your operating system, as today's operating systems are writing a continuous stream of log files and other stuff to your system partition, which may make things worse (because the drive failure may already have damaged the file system in a way that causes data writes to the wrong areas of the drive, overwriting more data etc.).

So, immediately shut down your system and reboot from a "known good" system (like a Linux live system from CD-ROM or USB stick). Do not mount the defective disk, and limit access to the absolutely necessary. Then, use "ddrescue" to transfer as much data blocks from the defective drive to a known good drive with the same or higher capacity.
Basically you should take a whole-disk image backup of the trashed thing, save it onto a big USB stick or whatever, and see if someone can mine it for you.
Correct. The main problem here is that the naive approach of cloning the defective drive will fail in most cases with the image cloning software failing on data blocks it cannot read anymore, retrying and retrying again to read it, so it may not only take ages to clone that drive (or fail after too many unsuccessful read attempts), but may even damage the drive even more.

That's where "ddrescue" gets into the game: It has a clever "binary search" approach to rescue as much data as possible, in the shortest possible time, by stopping as soon as a data block is not immediately readable, continuing at a different block of the drive (by dividing the remaining parts of the drive not yet read). That way, you have about 99% of your data rescued after very short time (if the drive has only a few unreadable blocks), then you can wait as long as you like to let the program try to rescure as much of the remaining data as possible. When stopped (like, after an hour or even one or two days), make a copy of the unmodified, rescued data, mount it and try to repair the file system with your system's file system utilities.

This does not work if the whole drive is broken, of course (for example, in case of a broken disk controller). In such cases, you can try to let a professional data recovery company rescue your files. At least here in Germany, there are companies that offer automated data recovery plans for failed hard disks that start about 100 €, so this is much more affordable than in the past, where you could say good bye to at least a few thousand dollars for that.

I hope that not everything is lost, and that there is a chance to recover at least some of your lost data! Good luck!
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Nah...

Post by Eizzoux »

Welp, I tried... pretty much all of the ways you suggested, and... nope... In my situation, data is 100% gone and can't be restored. All of the ways only gave rather nothing or the same result as the one I tried to restore before, which is most of the files, but completely mixed up into some kind of corrupted mess which can't be recognized by anything except by the recycle bin.

And I think, I've already accepted that, I'm thinking of maybe restoring these manually some time later, but in a little bit more... fresh state, since by the time I kinda learned to animate and just kind of draw in general a bit more, perhaps I can redo these, but better(?)

Not for now, anyways. For now I'll be mostly busy, and even during free time doing something... different, since R'n'D is not the only game I did some interesting content, Holger knows, I'd shown him before, like, years ago.
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Reflektor is partly restored

Post by Eizzoux »

So, for over last few days, I was in progress of recreating most of the graphics and first 10th levels of the project. Even though I wasn't exactly going for 100% replica, but it came out close enough. I was trying more to recreate it but in better way. I at least like the colors and the cracks on fragile walls and cells more, since I was actually doing them with a bit more experienced eye than before. I'm pretty sad we still can't really do custom explosions, but, hopefully,,,
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Reflektor change log report Jan 5 2023

Post by Eizzoux »

In progress of making a unique screen for the Reflektor. Here's a start of the process, very raw, as you can see. You can also see here how different is the color scheme comparing to the original graphics (well, I hope you can see)
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Holger »

Looks cool, well done! :-)
I'm pretty sad we still can't really do custom explosions, but, hopefully,,,
I will check if I can easily (more or less) extend the MM graphics engine (which is old and outdated and far away from the flexibility of the R'n'D custom graphics engine) to be able to really use different explosion animations for different game elements.

Especially I have noticed that the explosion of the "kettle" element (which should better be named "cauldron" btw) is put together from two different animations (exploding kettle plus remainig generic explosion), which makes it very hard to customize the kettle explosion. As there are virtually no custom graphics for MM style levels, I think I could change this without collateral damage. This should make it easier to really support customizable MM element explosions.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Eizzoux »

Well, speaking of animations... perhaps, hopefully, there might be a possibility to add animations when the element is hit by the beam? Also I don't really know if crumbled is supported, probably no, right? Just curiosity.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Holger »

I'm pretty sad we still can't really do custom explosions, but, hopefully,,,
Support for custom explosions just added for all MM style elements (that can explode in the MM engine, that is).

Will be available in the next release version. Let me know if you want to have a test version. :-)
Well, speaking of animations... perhaps, hopefully, there might be a possibility to add animations when the element is hit by the beam?
It already (partially) exists (which you might know already), by using "twinkle_white" that is drawn on top of all elements that are just reflecting the beam. But there is no support for individual, element specific animations, though (which could be problematic for all those different mirror positions, for example).
Also I don't really know if crumbled is supported, probably no, right? Just curiosity.
Sorry, no, crumbled graphics are not supported by the MM graphics engine.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Eizzoux »

Holger wrote: Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:01 am It already (partially) exists (which you might know already), by using "twinkle_white" that is drawn on top of all elements that are just reflecting the beam. But there is no support for individual, element specific animations, though (which could be problematic for all those different mirror positions, for example).
Well, I mean, other than MM mirrors and MM prism, there's nothing really. Also, what I meant is, for example, the unused two frames of the mine, remember? I just feel like that these frames are the hitting animation, which, first makes sense, since there's nothing really else you can do with them, and second, the flashing may also be useful to visually signify, that it does something bad to your charge.
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Reflektor change log report Jan 6 2023

Post by Eizzoux »

Made something more competent out of the panel. Not sure if I finalized it yet.
Started changing editor. Even though it's barely noticeable, but the zooming buttons are now hanging on the bottom of playfield border, palette is really cut a lot, level number is even located outside of the door 1.
Oh, and tiny font, I guess.
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Reflektor change log report Jan 6 2023 (2)

Post by Eizzoux »

Editor is more or less done, aside from text spacing and overall properties and configuration stuff. Simple, especially considering most of tools are hidden, but that's partly intentional, since the window is quite small (not a complaint, obviously). Main menu is also somewhat close to being done. Request, at it was first planned to be a part of door, later became a window. Not much done about tape window and door graphics, which I'm planning to get on to later.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Holger »

Well, I mean, other than MM mirrors and MM prism, there's nothing really.
Yes, that's right, unfortunately.
Also, what I meant is, for example, the unused two frames of the mine, remember?
Sorry, no -- could you please point me to the corresponding forum post (if any) or quickly describe what you mean?
I just feel like that these frames are the hitting animation, which, first makes sense, since there's nothing really else you can do with them, and second, the flashing may also be useful to visually signify, that it does something bad to your charge.
Do you mean that hitting the mine should have a similar animation than what is drawn when hitting a mirror? Yes, that could make sense indeed...
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About mine

Post by Eizzoux »

Holger wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:51 pm Sorry, no -- could you please point me to the corresponding forum post (if any) or quickly describe what you mean?
RocksDF.png has three frames of DF mine in total, making only one of them used in the game.
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Holger wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:51 pm Do you mean that hitting the mine should have a similar animation than what is drawn when hitting a mirror? Yes, that could make sense indeed...
Well, pretty much, except it should be the animation of mine itself while the laser is pointing at it, not the twinkle over it as it's hit. I remember years ago I asked you in PMs about the possible usage of these unused mine frames I've shown above. My assumption was that the two unused frames of the mine had been used at some point as the animation of mine activating once you point the beam at it, which is logically very fitting as it sorta charges once it's hit. Here's how it would possibly look like.
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So my idea is just that you could add an animation for mine that makes it flash while you're pointing the beam at it. And if it's possible, then, maybe, also add such attribute for some other elements like... the MM bomb? That could be very useful to make animations that signify you hit a thing that may cause a potential danger for your progression, so it starts flashing to catch your attention.
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Re: What if Deflektor had some elements from Mindbender

Post by Holger »

So my idea is just that you could add an animation for mine that makes it flash while you're pointing the beam at it. And if it's possible, then, maybe, also add such attribute for some other elements like... the MM bomb?
Very good idea! I have now implemented it just as you described it, as "df_mine.active" and "mm_bomb.active", with proper default "flashing" animations, and the possibility to re-define those animations to your liking.
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Reflektor change log report Jan 12 2023

Post by Eizzoux »

Not that many changes yet, but while changing menu, I was always thinking of making special small simplified sprites for level preview so they would not look blurry on it.
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