Ok, I know, It’s been a very long time since I posted anything here.  I have been pretty busy lately, though, so I haven’t had much of a chance to post anything here.  However, progress *has* been, er, progressing on the libPlasma and PlasmaShop fronts over the past few months.  I even have proof this time!  I’ve been pretty busy with exporting libPlasma stuff to the Python interface, which may eventually be used as a back-end for PyPRP 2.0, so a large portion of libPlasma’s functionality can now be directly accessed from Python.  Also, I’ve started really working on PlasmaShop 3.0 again, specifically the new tool to replace PRPTool — PrpShop.  It’s a bit more like PrpExplorer, in that it has rendered previews and can actually SAVE CHANGES (:D), but the design is a bit different from both PrpTool and PrpExplorer, in that it’s more focused on the end result than the internal engine hierarchy.  There will still be a lot of engine stuff you’ll have to deal with, but that’s pretty much unavoidable with an engine the size of Plasma.  I’m hoping it will end up being pretty user-friendly and useful, but I guess we’ll see what happens.  Also, Lontahv has been working on another project in parallel that I feel deserves mention here — he’s been creating a program to view and explore the ages, rendered in real-time by a mini-engine that uses libPlasma as its backend!  It’s pretty cool from what I’ve seen so far, but you’ll probably have to ask him for details since it’s his project, not mine.

So, without further ado, I offer the downloads for the latest PlasmaShop alpha releases (I told you I had proof of my progress ).  You’ll see it’s still very far from being complete, but I think it’s fun to play with anyway.

[PlasmaShop 3.0 alpha]

The other stuff can still be found on Subversion like before, but I’ve also started making Win32 releases by popular request, which can be downloaded from:

[Latest libPlasma build]

~Z

Due to some of the very common confusion about PlasmaShop’s support for decompyling python files, I’ve decided to release an update that should make things both easier and a bit clearer. Now, extracting a PAK file gives you the option to immediately decompyle the extracted files, and also automatically refreshes the file display when it’s done.

The update, now version 2.2.4, also includes a couple of other fixes, including the one I mentioned in my previous post here, and can be downloaded from here: [PlasmaShop 2.2.4].

Enjoy

Ok, I know it’s been a LONG time since I’ve posted anything here, but I figured I should give a little background as to the current status of PlasmaShop, libPlasma, and all those other related things

Due to several issues, including lack of real cross-platform-ness and some limitations and annoyances with Delphi, I’ve now started re-writing PlasmaShop in its entirety in C++ using the wxWidgets toolkit, for a 3.0 release. This will allow it to run natively on Windows, Linux and even OSX (assuming I can find a Mac to compile it on…). Also, it should take care of several of the UI issues people have mentioned to me in the past, including the many features that are more hidden than I realized, causing people to either not know they exist, or have trouble figuring out how to use them. Who knows, I might even get crazy enough to write real documentation this time ;). Included with the suite will be at least all the functionality of PlasmaShop, including a graphical PRP editor to replace (or at least complement ) the old (and horrendously outdated) PRPTool and PRPExplorer tools.

Even more of interest to some, though, will be that the PlasmaShop 3.0 suite, including libPlasma, will be completely open source under the GPL, so others can actually make use of the work, or provide their own updates. I haven’t decided between the old GPL v2 that libPlasma has been (technically) under since I started the project, and the more-recently-released GPL v3, but it will be one of those two, most likely. If someone is an expert on licensing or knows the GPL really well and has a suggestion, I’m definitely open to hearing it

As of right now, libPlasma supports an insanely large amount of Plasma’s formats (almost all of the PRP classes, all the encryption formats, and a few other things), but PlasmaShop is still relatively early in its development. Therefore, I can’t predict any sort of time frame for its release, or even when it’ll be ready for beta testing. However, once I get the licensing stuff more final, I’ll be releasing the SVN repository details on here for those interested parties to peruse.

Finally, regarding MOUL support: PlasmaShop 2.x and PRPTool 0.2 have, for quite some time, supported MOUL files, although only in a private build. I did this because I wasn’t sure about the necessary legal stuff regarding it, but it seems that anymore it doesn’t matter anyway (especially with Dustin’s nifty “Drizzle” project out there now), so I’m now merging the two versions into the public release, which you can download from here: [PlasmaShop 2.2.3] ♦ [PRPTool 0.2]. With that in mind, libPlasma also supports MOUL, as well as the other Plasma 2.x and 3.x engines, and therefore PlasmaShop 3.0 will follow suit.

Peace
~Z

EDIT: Robert found a bug that appeared in 2.2.3 that caused some incorrect data to be written to PAK files, which caused both PlasmaShop and Uru to fail on attempting to read them; This bug has been fixed now, and the updated version is at the same download location above.  Also, the links actually point to the right files now :).  Thanks Robert!

Ok, so the Hex Isle support isn’t really “complete”, in that the syntax highlighting support isn’t really done, but nonetheless, it does support it now. So go ahead and give it a whirl if you’ve got Hex Isle, and lemme know what you think. Of course, even if you don’t have Hex Isle, there are a couple of other fixes I found and fixed while updating it. Anywho, enjoy

http://uru.zrax.net/PlasmaShop/PlasmaShop-2.2.zip

Current Version: 2.2.2 (January 4, 2008)

So, apparently there was a bug in PlasmaShop 2.2.0 with the creation of new .PAK files (and possibly even with adding files to existing .PAK files) that would corrupt your .PAK and give you an error message. Robert pointed this out to me today, and it should now be fixed. Enjoy

http://uru.zrax.net/PlasmaShop/PlasmaShop-2.2.zip

Current Version: 2.2.1 (October 29, 2007)

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here…  I’m really not much of a talker — much more of a listener usually.  In any case, there’s a rather nice update in the world of Plasma today:  As some people out there know, I’ve been working for some time now on a Plasma library (libPlasma) for Uru and Myst 5 related code.  Along with this, I’ve also been providing documentation of sorts to others working on Plasma-related projects so they too can get more work done in the field of Uru content creation tools.  Most notably is probably Paradox’s work on HuruStudio, and the works of who knows how many other developers that use one or both of these projects as a resource for knowledge and further development.

Well, now you’re wondering what the great news is, aren’t you?  Today, I finished up some time-consuming work on a set of classes known as the plControllers, which store key frames and animation details for most of the animation-related data structures in Plasma.  This means now that LayerAnimations, Particle Engines, special cameras, and various other types of complex data can now be supported by programs like PyPRP, HuruStudio, and AgeMaker.  In fact, libPlasma has now successfully parsed and re-written plLineFollowMods, plRailCameraMods, plLayerAnimations (and derived classes) from several test PRPs, both from PotS and from Myst 5.  So hopefully, we’ll all see some nice animated stuff comig up soon :).

Now, I’m thinking I might actually start some rendering and editing code for AgeMaker, so the thing can actually be somewhat useful.  It’s actually getting close to the point where I can use it to do real work.  Well, supposedly it is — since I haven’t written this stuff yet, I still don’t know what other bugs or misunderstandings are still hiding in there ;).  In any case, it should be interesting.

Yep, just because I got bored and felt like it, I just wrote a graphical Jalak Editor, using wxWidgets and OpenGL. Nothing really fancy, but it’s cool anyway

Screenshot: http://uru.zrax.net/JalakEdit.png
Download: http://uru.zrax.net/JalakEdit.zip
Source (C++): http://uru.zrax.net/JalakEdit_Src.zip

After over a year since the last major release, I have enough new stuff in PlasmaShop to dictate another major release version. New are version 2.2 is the following:

• User interface updates, including a new “Plasma API browser” window for Python and Console commands
• Minor decompyle fixes for both Uru and Myst 5
• Support for Crowthistle
• The UI now adjusts itself on non-standard font resolutions, so it should look and work correctly for users with 120dpi (or other resolution) fonts (thanks to Zardoz for pointing this bug out to me!)
• ELF files are automatically copied when opening them, allowing you to view logs while the game is still running. (Again, thanks to Zardoz for suggesting this!)

Enjoy!

http://uru.zrax.net/PlasmaShop/PlasmaShop-2.2.zip
Current Version: 2.2 (August 7, 2007)