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Yarlen
Yarlen
Join Date 01/2005
+367 sdemployee

Forge Tools for Sins v1.05 Now Available

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May 21, 2008 2:03:06 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Greetings Modders,

Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to announce the release of the Forge Tools for Sins of a Solar Empire v1.05. To download the updated package, just head over to the Downloads section.

New for v1.05 is the release of the Particle Forge tool.  Ironclad used Particle Forge to create all of the various weapon fx and other shiny fx for the game.

Happy Modding!

modding
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Yarlen
psugar
Join Date 03/2007
+16
Reply #1 May 21, 2008 3:26:11 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Other key additions:

*) As requested, ConvertData has been modified to allow you to convert binary files back to text format as well. Usage is now

convertdata type infile outfile [format]

where format can be bin or txt. It defaults to bin if you don't include this param.

*) Also, this version includes the developer exe, which has some extremely powerful tools for testing. Some of the perks: automatic reloading of files when you change them, debug menu allows you to change almost anything about the game so you can test things faster. And there are tons of ways to get info on what's happening in the game. For example:

Ctrl+Shift+F6 toggles fog of war.
Ctrl+Shift+F7 disables player AI.
Ctrl+Shift+F10 displays info on the selected entity.


PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE DEVELOPER EXE


1. The developer exe has different settings than the normal exe, so whenever you switch between the two, all your user settings will be reset. Back up your user settings if you don't want to lose them.

2. The debug menu can be accessed by using Ctrl+Shift+Period. This is one of the most powerful features of the developer exe and will allow you to access lots of information about what is happening in front of you, spawn ships, etc. The debug menu is extremely powerful and for the purpose of testing will allow you to do many things which you can't do in the regular game. It is quite stable but MAY CAUSE CRASHES. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

3. One of the other most useful features of the developer exe is its ability to reload files on the fly - when you change a file the game had loaded, it will automatically refresh the information. If you have an error in the formatting (ie forget a section, space improperly, etc) it will crash when it reloads, just as it would on startup. This is a developer setting and can be turned on and off in the settings file if you find you are making too many mistakes in editing files.






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Yarlen
DANMAN3712
Join Date 02/2008
+101
Reply #2 May 21, 2008 3:32:44 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
OMG! YES! The particle editor is finally here! DEV. exe!
Finally, the program we have all hoped and prayed for (and pushed for) is here!!!!

Thank you very much Ironclad and Stardock. A special thank you to psugar for paying attention to us modders who have been screaming for these tools. This is a HUGE improvement from what we had, and will hopefully make our lives, as modders, all the better. I can't wait to tell my team! Spread the word my friends...
Thank you!!!!!


DANMAN
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Yarlen
CanadaMan777
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #3 May 21, 2008 5:28:13 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
thanks so much IC! I'm getting to work!
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Yarlen
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #4 May 21, 2008 5:37:26 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Good stuff!
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Yarlen
FourAcesII
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #5 May 21, 2008 5:50:36 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Thank you for everything, especially new version of convertdata!
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Yarlen
raffiy
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #6 May 21, 2008 6:01:42 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
how do you activate developer.exe, it gives me an error every time i click its icon in the modset (somthing along the lines of file fmod.dll not found)
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Yarlen
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #7 May 21, 2008 6:21:44 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
loads from the game dir, put it there first
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Yarlen
psugar
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #8 May 21, 2008 6:24:07 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Yep, you have to place the exe in the same directory as sins is installed in, wherever the "Sins of a Solar Empire.exe" is found.
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Yarlen
derbal213
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #9 May 21, 2008 8:19:36 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
AH! Yes! This is awesome! I've been waiting for this for a long time. Thanks so much!
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Yarlen
thelifealchemist18
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #10 May 21, 2008 9:03:48 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I can't get particle forge to work. Every time I try to start it, my computer says that it had an error. Can someone help me?
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Yarlen
bailknight
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #11 May 21, 2008 9:13:59 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
WOW   
Cool   
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Yarlen
psugar
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #12 May 21, 2008 9:18:59 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Argh.  Forum weirdness.
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Yarlen
psugar
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #13 May 21, 2008 9:24:39 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Life alchemist: do you have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed?  None of the forge tools will work without it.
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Yarlen
thelifealchemist18
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #14 May 21, 2008 9:26:55 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
yelp.
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thelifealchemist18
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Reply #15 May 21, 2008 9:39:18 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I can get galaxy forge to work, in fact, everything new works except for particle forge. I don't get it. I'm running on a Vista Home Premium 64-bit OS, 2.2 ghz quad core processor, 5 gigs of ram, nVidia 8400 card, and I have over 300 gigs of memory left. My computer is pretty high-end, but it won't run this program. VERY FRUSTRATING!
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DANMAN3712
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #16 May 21, 2008 11:54:18 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Stuff won't work for me either. I can get the Galaxy Forge to work, as always, but no particle editor or the DEV exe. I will try to upgrade the NET to see of that solves it.

DANMAN
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Yarlen
Xefus
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #17 May 22, 2008 12:49:33 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Strange... the particle forge works fine for me. not that i have a clue of what to do, i just play with the colored lines. I want to make a flaming soccerball projectile but i dont know how to ( can anybody help me?
oh yeah i downloaded the stand-alone version, maybe that fixes it
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Yarlen
DANMAN3712
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #18 May 22, 2008 1:08:34 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Ok, I downloaded the most up to date .NET, and also the most current Windows updates and service packs (took over a have half hour with a FIBER OPTIC connection).

Still, No DEV exe or particle forge. This is really frustrating. To finally get the tools we need and not be able to use them. Any help would be great!

I get this error when trying to load the DEV .exe:

"This application has failed to start because d3dx9_32.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

On the particle file, it just comes up with the standard Microsoft error saying that it has to close, which displays as soon as I click on the particle forge exe.

PLEASE HELP!

DANMAN
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Yarlen
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #19 May 22, 2008 1:12:14 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
If you are lost, open the particles from the game to see how they did it, its a bit confusing at first but its not that complex.

The Ironclad particles refrence textures in C:\gs\blah blah which obivously won't work for default. You can copy all the textures there if you want to see them a lot.
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Yarlen
DANMAN3712
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #20 May 22, 2008 1:43:56 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Aractain:
Thank you for the help, but i have been modding the old fashioned way since the beginning. I am just frustrated that the tools that I have waited for months now will not work, no matter how hard I try or what I do.
Hopefully, Psugar, or one of the other DEVS are listening.

DANMAN
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Yarlen
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #21 May 22, 2008 2:09:43 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
If you are lost, open the particles from the game to see how they did it, its a bit confusing at first but its not that complex.The Ironclad particles refrence textures in C:\gs\blah blah which obivously won't work for default. You can copy all the textures there if you want to see them a lot.


I was talking to Xefus, Im just lazy and didn't press quote.

Do you actualy have D3dx9_32.dll? My DirectX is up at d3dx9_36.dll.

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Yarlen
hydrocarbn
Join Date 09/2007
+45
Reply #22 May 22, 2008 2:11:55 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Man, the silly separate-windowing stuff has gone nuts in ParticleForge..wished the windows were fixed, this is kind of like GIMP all over again.
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Yarlen
ToJKa
Join Date 02/2008
+9
Reply #23 May 22, 2008 2:12:54 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
"This application has failed to start because d3dx9_32.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."


You can find a site with google where you can download this. Just unzip it to \windows\system32\ directory, or to the directory where the .exe is located. This should fix the problem. (Or replace it with another)
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Yarlen
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #24 May 22, 2008 3:37:53 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
If you are lost, open the particles from the game to see how they did it, its a bit confusing at first but its not that complex.The Ironclad particles refrence textures in C:\gs\blah blah which obivously won't work for default. You can copy all the textures there if you want to see them a lot.I was talking to Xefus, Im just lazy and didn't press quote. Do you actualy have D3dx9_32.dll? My DirectX is up at d3dx9_36.dll.


The window positions saving on program close (and then restoring) would be highly appreciated indeed. Im talking about Galaxy Forge mostly.
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Yarlen
DANMAN3712
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #25 May 22, 2008 8:00:47 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
If you are lost, open the particles from the game to see how they did it, its a bit confusing at first but its not that complex.The Ironclad particles refrence textures in C:\gs\blah blah which obivously won't work for default. You can copy all the textures there if you want to see them a lot.I was talking to Xefus, Im just lazy and didn't press quote. Do you actualy have D3dx9_32.dll? My DirectX is up at d3dx9_36.dll.


Yes, I have d3dx9_36.dll too. But for some reason the DEV exe is looking for the D3dx_32.dll, which I think is a lower version.

Also, particle forge works for some, but not for me. Galaxy Forge works fine, as it always had.

I am running XP, service pack 3 (upgraded from 2 trying to get this to work),
2.4GHZ Dual Core, 4 GIG RAM, Dual Video 8700GT video cards, and .NET 3.5

I should be able to run this, but I can't! VERY frustrated....

Thanks for trying Aractain. I appreciate it.

DANMAN
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