On Wednesday, 20 September 2006 at 16:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On IRC: > # [Wed 01:36:09pm]<devurandom> Does that archive also offer a free > way to compile that code and play the videos? > # [Wed 01:36:56pm]<Troman> wz source?:P devurandom, one thing I > don't understand, why does everyone keep telling that wz can't > playback rpls? > # [Wed 01:37:13pm]<devurandom> Troman: Can it? > # [Wed 01:37:17pm]<devurandom> Troman: I don't know? > # [Wed 01:37:33pm]<Troman> but videos were always played with wz > # [Wed 01:37:46pm]<Troman> unless someone ripped the code > # [Wed 01:37:48pm]<devurandom> So our current game can play rpls? > # [Wed 01:38:04pm]<devurandom> Or at least the original one could? > > The original code in the original archive has everything you need > to play the rpl stuff. > The code that was converted stripped out all the rpl playback stuff.
Yes. Because that code was just an interface to dec130.dll that did the real work. I think one of the earlier versions implemented wrapper functions for the missing code (as all development was done on Linux, so the DLLs didn't work), the Berlios SVN can probably tell you more (by the way, someone disabled access to everything on Berlios including the SVN - could that be restored?). So the RPL stuff was stripped from the sources, since a) there was no free code available to play it (and still isn't) and b) the interesting RPL sequences are not freely available, thus any development in that direction would just benefit a few people and not the whole project (and, as we all are painfully aware, developers don't grow on trees). Sound output was another thing not supplied, so the source release didn't even work on Windows unless using the closed-source DLLs. > It uses DirectX code for the buffer/frames it seems, so that may be > why it was dropped/cut out. From what I can tell, all the code > does is pass parameters to the .dlls and those do the actual work > of decoding the rpl video files into the DirectX buffer. Looking > at it some more, since it also worked with 3dfx glide, we should be > able to use those routines with some modifications for the 16bit vs > 32 bit color display. Might even be possible to use PNG routines > to do the converting of the buffer to something that we can use. > How fast this is, is anyones guess. Blindingly fast. I guess you could even implement a virtual machine in which to run the DLL and it'll still be fast enough to play on any halfway decent hardware. (Now don't get any funny ideas, that wasn't a serious suggestion). > But like I said, this is in limbo until we can know if the rpls > that were released (BrfCom.rpl, BrfCom4s.rpl, end.rpl > ,IncomInt.rpl, IncomTns.rpl, nexend.rpl, npend.rpl, npstart.rpl, > player.rpl, Plyr4sec.rpl, PrjUpDat.rpl, res_com.rpl, res_droid.rpl, > res_pow.rpl, res_struttech.rpl, res_systech.rpl, res_weapons.rpl, > Victory.rpl) will be OK to distribute with the dll's needed to > decode them (included in the archive) and be OK with GPL rules. Distributing the videos won't be a problem, but using the DLL with the GPL Warzone will: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs For that, the released source would need a GPL exception to explicitely use the DLLs (needless to say, we are not likely to get that). > The question (I think) is can we use those libraries or not? Are > they "free" ? Yes, the decoders are free AFAIK. The encoders are > the ones you pay for to make a rpl. Then linux/mac people would > need those .dlls to be converted to be able to be seen. And how do you want to convert the DLL? > The other option is to have someone re-record those above listed > videos, and make it into divx/avi/mpg whatever format, then we can > all see them. I assume this will be OK with the GPL--if the data > is covered by the GPL that is. Yes. It still needs someone to implement video playback in Warzone, and someone to actually convert the videos. And I'd guess only for the free RPLs, it's not worth the effort. The only way I see for RPL playback to enter Warzone is if someone takes the description of the RPL video codec recently posted to this list and implements this, and then adds all code necessary to play the videos. Then those with the original CDs could copy their RPLs and the game would show them. The catch here is, of course, that "someone" hasn't appeared yet. > This will still leave allot of 'holes' by the videos that tell the > story for the SP mission though. I have read that some people want > to recreate them, but is that ok? The videos that were not > included still have a (c) to them. Can you retell the story > without getting into trouble? There should be enough of the story in the GPLed files for that not to be a problem. -- Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. -- Ambrose Bierce _______________________________________________ Warzone-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/warzone-dev
