RCT Discussion / New LL Memory Editor/Trainer

fuck. that would have been really helpful for me like three weeks ago.

Wow this makes LL a whole lot easier.
Great stuff!

I've been able to pull out the basics of it but i really need to read deeper to fully grasp it

Edited by inVersed, 12 July 2006 - 12:36 PM.

UPDATE

Version 0.2 of the trainer is now available.
Installer | Updated codex.exe

New features are:
-You can shift and click a new square in the map overview to add it to the current selection (i.e. the square appears in the map control on the right in addition to your previous selection. Doesn’t work with the right clicking to show in hex editor option)
-You can right click on a land piece in the map control (either the construction monitoring or map overview one) and select hide from the popup menu to get rid of that square. (This is very useful when you are building and the control is full of squares you don’t need to edit. Using the ‘options’ menu at the top to refresh the control will make everything reappear)
-The map overview is generated much faster.
-You can zoom in (and out) of the overview and pan around. There is also a little thumbnail map that shows the all 128x128 squares and highlights the ones you are zoomed in on.
-You can type the height into the boxes for objects too, I thought that sounded like a good idea.
(I might allow you to do the same for land soon too)

This was in the last minor revision I released, but not mentioned:
-When selecting a large number of squares from the overview, you can carry on working with the ones that have been loaded in the map control whilst the others load. (Before the editor locked up until it was done)

I have removed the land height and map density without highlighting maps, as these were essentially obsolete. There is now also the option of having rides highlighted on the land surface one.
Gridlines also haven’t been added back for the new map overview, but hopefully will soon. To compensate I have added numbers by the thumbnail that tell you the coordinates of the square the mouse cursor is over on the map.

Most importantly, though, I made a new icon.

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This might need a few bug fixes like the first release, I found one this morning. So let me know if anything’s not working as it should.

df

Edited by darkfire, 13 July 2006 - 09:22 AM.

awesome.

what i just quickly noticed.
when you want to type in a number for a new height and say you accidentally clicked the wrong box, it won't allow you to deselect the "type in" mode by clicking in an empty area of the window. you can only get out by pressing enter.

the shift-click option to add squares is fantastic. but imagine you selected quite a few squares and got a huge list, it would be cool if you can deselect squares from that list, as well.
then, once a square is selected on the map, maybe make that red ring around it stick to it, so you can see on the map which squares are selected.
could selection also be done ingame? i mean not over the map control.

about the new hide square feature. i must be stupid but when i right-click a square in the map overview it brings up the hex editor and i don't see a "hide" button in there ? i probably misunderstood something.

please make number entering possible for land too. imagine you need a really high square. that's quite an amount of clicks


i had another idea about the map overview. when zoomed in, it's kinda hard to scroll because you have to use the two sidebars for that.
would it be possible to make it so that you can grab the map image and position it with mouse movement?

also, how about peep entry spots? they're not that easy to do at the moment and require 2 trainers.

anyway,
this trainer is easily the best the game has ever seen. the immense amount of control over your objects and land tiles strikes me everytime i use this.
you. are. hero !

ps. could you make this thing "ingame" somehow like dragons6?
pps. the main window still has "always on top" selected by default, doesn't it? also doesn't have the minimise button. maybe you could try fixing that

Finally my bug wasn't a bug, I just forgot to click to restore the construction mod... But I don't understand anything of the map, can you explain a little bit about it?

Another question, in the construction window, aside of "grass", there is writen "stack". What does it serve?

Finally my bug wasn't a bug, I just forgot to click to restore the construction mod... But I don't understand anything of the map, can you explain a little bit about it?

Another question, in the construction window, aside of "grass", there is writen "stack". What does it serve?

I'm glad to hear it wasn't a bug.

(I assume you mean the map overview rather than the map control)

An LL saved game is mostly made up of these sections:
-The game map
-Sprites (The moving objects; ride trains, people etc)
-Research, advertising, awards & financial Information
-The names of everything in your park (staff, rides, what banners say ...)
-Banners
-Rides

(There are lots of other little bits as well.)

The editor's map control (the white box that lists land tiles and objects) is used to edit the game map section.
There are (currently) two different ways to select an area of the game map to be shown in the map control:

Squares you have just built upon appear in the smaller map control window that you open by clicking the crane button.
(i.e. If you start construction monitoring, open that window, then build something. It will appear in the control)

Stuff that was there when you loaded the park can be selected by using the map overview generated when you click the blue button.
(i.e. If you open that window, and click a square on the map overview, it will appear in the control. Note that what you have built since loading a game does not appear on the map overview; what you have built and what was loaded are in different parts of LL's memory)

The stack buttons move everything on a square up or down. This is demonstrated in the first how-to .

------------------------------------------

when you want to type in a number for a new height and say you accidentally clicked the wrong box, it won't allow you to deselect the "type in" mode by clicking in an empty area of the window. you can only get out by pressing enter.

The text box that has the keyboard focus is highlighted orange. Because there are no other controls that have keyboard events it will always be one of the boxes that has the focus. It isn't in any kind of 'mode', just showing you where the keyboard cursor is

the shift-click option to add squares is fantastic. but imagine you selected quite a few squares and got a huge list, it would be cool if you can deselect squares from that list, as well.
then, once a square is selected on the map, maybe make that red ring around it stick to it, so you can see on the map which squares are selected.
could selection also be done ingame? i mean not over the map control.

As had said on msn, but for the benefit of others, the right click > hide square is for the map control not the overview

please make number entering possible for land too. imagine you need a really high square. that's quite an amount of clicks

You can hold down the arrows. I think Ed might have missed this too when he suggested the typing-in. (Still a good idea though)

i had another idea about the map overview. when zoomed in, it's kinda hard to scroll because you have to use the two sidebars for that.
would it be possible to make it so that you can grab the map image and position it with mouse movement?

I've changed it so you can use the arrow keys (when the big map has keyboard focus) and drag the box in the thumbnail map.
This will be in the next release.

also, how about peep entry spots? they're not that easy to do at the moment and require 2 trainers.

I'll need to finish more of the properties windows for various objects before I work on this. For example you'll need to be able to change the land ownership.
Also, can't the SGM do it with no other trainers involved?

ps. could you make this thing "ingame" somehow like dragons6?
pps. the main window still has "always on top" selected by default, doesn't it? also doesn't have the minimise button. maybe you could try fixing that

To have ingame menus you inject your code into an unused section of game's memory then modify the game loop so it jumps to your code at the appropriate time. My editor's probably too complex to do this due to using too much memory, and the need to request bigger memory allocations (when you select a large area to view in the map control). I don't know though, I have never done any of this code injection stuff. I'd also have to change some of the fundamental ways the trainer works as they would then be the same process. Not to mention most of the interface.
Basically no. But maybe some in game menus in the future.
I'll add an option to turn off always on top. But you can't have minimise buttons in toolboxes. That's microsoft's fault not mine . Just right click on codex in the taskbar and select minimise.

df

Edited by darkfire, 15 July 2006 - 05:26 AM.

Thanks for help! But I got an error when I want to zoom the map... Does the map only show the objects that were built after changing the traffic button to on?

The map only shows what has been saved, not what you have just built.

So if you want to get what you have just built to appear on the map then you have to save your game.

df

Very user-friendly trainer with lots of nice options... and finally a way for lazy foreigners to build invisible stuff without having to install the US version : )

Awesome work, darkfire!

Edited by Corkscrew, 16 July 2006 - 10:20 AM.

DF first of all thank you!

i'm quite new in the RCT:LL park building. (did alot in rct2).
Yesterday i played with this tool. and i must say you did a great job. i'm exploring the tool on my own way (Result: lot's of error's but i don't mind).

The only question i have is: The start up ask for the version of RCT [UK, USA, Other], I have the dutch version (bought it in the netlands where i live) in the english langues. i typed at the start up Other, after that it wanted to install something. I interruped the install. at the next startup i choose UK as version. the trainer worked fine for me, beside some error's... is it a big disaster...... with other words: Does this infect the save game or the game???

yeah, when i start the trainer, it wants to install microsoft publisher, or something.
it's not a huge problem, it's just kind of annoying.

same here: First the MAX 3d shit than other programms

Hi, this sounds really bizarre. I’ve tested the trainer on other computers and not had any problems.

Does this happen instead of the editor starting RCT? Because that would make this a lot more logical.
If not I’d really appreciate it if you could give me more info as to what exactly happens and when exactly (like before it asks you to start RCT, when RCT’s starting, randomly, etc) so I could track down the cause. Thanks.

Also, are these programs you have and they want to be reinstalled, or completely random ones you don’t have?

In answer to your question PBJ: This shouldn’t cause any damage/problems with saved games. Though it may cause the editor and LL crash, and some functions of the editor may not work properly.
Does the map overview look OK? If there don’t appear to be any square missing or blank squares at the start (which is the bottom left) then it’s working fine. (There should be a row of empty squares all the way around the edge of the map though. This is normal)
If not I would recommend uninstalling, reinstalling, and using the wizard for another version if you can.

Oh and thanks for the comments PBJ and Corkscrew.

------------------------------

P.S. Another favour: could people using a version other than the UK or US version (who have successfully used the wizard to set up the editor, and now have it working properly) please tell me what the value of the registry value added by the editor is.

Select: Start Menu > Run
And enter “regedit”

Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Codex using the box on the left.

Under data there should be one hexadecimal number starting with “0x”.

Could you tell me what that is, thanks,

(It’s the memory address of the saved game in RCT’s memory for your version, if you’re wondering. With this I can add another option for you version of RCT to the setup like the UK and US version. Thanks!)

df

Edit: there are a few problems with (this,) the latest build, so you should probably wait for the next one. Thanks, df.

-links removed-

Partly because I’ve been working full time the past couple of weeks, nothing major has been added in terms of the work required by me. But there are a few things now possible that were only previously possible by hex editing, so I guess some of the changes could be called major in that sense.

Because it’s been a couple of weeks since the last release, I’m not too sure what’s new (hehe). So here are a few things that are probably new features:

i had another idea about the map overview. when zoomed in, it's kinda hard to scroll because you have to use the two sidebars for that.
would it be possible to make it so that you can grab the map image and position it with mouse movement?

I've changed it so you can use the arrow keys (when the big map has keyboard focus) and drag the box in the thumbnail map.
This will be in the next release.

And indeed, you can do both these things now.

Now when you start the trainer and ll isn’t running you’ll get the open file dialog to open a park, instead of the editor just starting the game. (posix’s idea)

I’ve added some more things to the ‘properties’ window for objects in the map control. You open this whenever you click the plus-sign button next to an object in the map control.

For banners, you can rotate them. This is useful if your using the cloning hack to have more than 100 banners, and you want to rotate the cloned banners.

The one for ride pieces is almost finished; you can change what ride the track piece belongs to, what element it is (as in 25 degrees up/flat/station etc. But changing the track to something that type of ride can’t normally have will generally cause an error trapper. E.g. vertical track on a twister), what colour it is (so you can change the track colour scheme on a square by square basis, not just elements. e.g. you can colour part of a loop main, the rest alternative 1) and whether the track is chain lift or not (so you can have vertical lifts etc).

The limit of the number of objects (you can scroll down too) in the map control is now 20 times bigger too, so around 2000 ish. This isn’t too much of an issue now there are the shift+click and hide square options, as there is no real need to select large areas.

So not much has changed, but it’s pretty stable at the moment and there aren’t any buttons that don’t do anything. So it seems like a good time to issue a release and I can get back to breaking things.

edit: I added a couple of extra how-to's yesterday. They're pretty half-arsed though as I haven't proof-read them or tidied them up yet. I just put them in there as I was going through them in ll to check everything was correct.
I know what your thinking, it would be really easy to sort them out. Well I’m that lazy.

df

Edited by darkfire, 01 August 2006 - 04:49 PM.

You're amazing man. I've been using this a lot in the past week and it's pretty flawless. The stacking works beautifully. I don't see any reason to ever use the Beast again for that. Your new merging trick sounds easier. I'll give that a try. I haven't had a use for the invisible track hack yet though I probably will eventually. I also haven't been using the map feature yet.

Some annoyances I've noticed (note - I haven't been using the latest version yet, though I just downloaded it):

1- Sometimes objects appear in the map control and then disappear before I can edit them. This could be solved pretty easily I guess by just using the map to select tiles, which I haven't done yet. They tend to disappear when I close the construction tool I used to make it (like if I'm building coaster track or sometimes even just placing scenery).

2- I've been using the land editing options a lot but sometimes I'll place an object and it lists all the objects on that tile but the land itself is missing. It happens something like 15% of the time, which is enough to be annoying. Maybe this doesn't happen if you use the map tool to select squares though.

3- On the version I'm using the zero clearances feature seems to be buggy. It works fine most of the time, but after awhile it stops zeroing clearances on things that were built before. Almost like it has a limit to how much information it can hold in memory. The Beast still works to zero clearances even after your trainer stops doing it, but it is kindof annoying if I can't use that feature anymore after something has been built for awhile. I'm not sure what's causing it.

4- Related to the zero clearances feature sometimes not working, is that the trainer itself sometimes doesn't respond. Nothing will show up in the map control no matter how much I build. This is easily fixed by closing and restarting the trainer, but it was a bug that I came across several times so I thought you might want to know.

I'll use the latest version from now on and let you know if I still have these same problems. Other than that I just wanted to thank you again for creating such a useful tool. And even more so for continuing to work on it and update it and add new features. This thing is awesome.

Vertical chain lifts? Does this mean x coasters are now pretty much possible?

K im having a problem. I try to load the trainer and i get this error message:

'Failed to load control 'common dialog' from COMDLG32.OCX. Your version of COMDLG32.OCX may be outdated. Make sure you are using the version of the control that was provided with your application.'

Any idea whats caused this?

Edited by Loopy, 01 August 2006 - 11:47 AM.

Ah, that file is the control for open file dialog. I thought it would be a standard control that comes with Windows (as a lot of apps need to open files), but obviously not. I've just added it to the installer. So if you reinstall from that it should work again.

Coincidently; whenever I upload the latest codex.exe, I always rename the older one to codex_old.exe. So if the new version doesn’t work, you can (re)download the old one whilst waiting for me to fix it.

------------------------

In reply to Ed:

Thanks, eventually getting to see whatever your building with this (h2h park I presume) is all the reward I need.


1 – I should have probably added this to the known issues bit; there are a few issues causing certain things to not be displayed in the map control or displayed incorrectly. One example is if the last item build was then deleted, the editor often still says it is there.

Also in RCT, when you’re building a ride, the flashing track effect (showing you where the next piece of track is going to be, not the flashing white thing) is achieved by the game constantly building and deleting that track element. So sometimes, the editor will briefly show a track element (which could be a lot of squares for big ones) in the map control (this isn’t anything you have actually built, just that flashing track thing.

I had a play around earlier after reading your post (I had to go to work so didn’t have time to reply) and fixed several of these issues.

For now, in the menu at the top there is an option to (totally) refresh the control. This will mean you’ll lose the current selection of objects (if there are some selected) but everything should be now be shown correctly.

2- Again, this is another known problem to do with the last built having been deleted. I don’t think it’s worth me explaining the technical reason behind this; the point is that rct doesn’t quite work the way I thought it did when I wrote the update procedure, hence the procedure doesn’t work 100% correctly.
I think I’ve just had a moment of inspiration and should be able to fix this too.

3 – This isn’t any known problem and I’ll look into this. But I think it’s worth pointing out that my ‘lower clearances’ is different (and inferior) to the beast’s ‘zero clearances’.

I don’t know how the Beast can restore the clearances from zero to their correct values, my guess would be it either has a look-up table of all the correct clearances of every possible object or that it just restores them to some sensible value (i.e. not necessarily the same as rct set when the object was built).

In laymen’s terms, what my trainer does when ‘lowering clearance’ is turn the clearances upside down. So instead of the clearance height of an object being x above the base height, it’s x below. Then ‘Raise clearances’ sets all negative clearances back to the correct positive value.
This is inferior, as you still can’t (always) build through the base of certain objects whereas you can with the Beast.

The point I’m trying to make is that ‘Lower clearances’ doesn’t let you build trough everything, but the Beast’s ‘Zero clearances’ does.

4- Are you restarting construction monitoring after saving or loading another saved game?

Thanks,
df

Edited by darkfire, 01 August 2006 - 01:17 PM.

Regarding the first two, I think I've got a better handle on what makes objects appear or not appear in the map control window now. I had quite a time last night screwing up but then eventually fixing a ride station (which I'd tell you about specifically, but I'm sworn to secrecy for now ) and through much trial and error, I'm able to make objects appear when I need them to now. Most of the time. Coaster track seems to work the best. It always selects the objects on a tile if you build a piece of coaster track. Bushes sometimes don't work and quite often I'll have to build more than one before it'll come up in the map control. Interestingly, bushes work a lot better when there's already other scenery on that square. But when I just place a bush, it won't pop up until I place more of them or sometimes not even then.

I also got an error message which is probably something you can't fix (the error came up in the trainer window not the RCT window, but it would have been an error trapper in the game if I'd clicked on the ride there instead). Actually, the details of that are probably better related in a PM.

I didn't realize that your lower clearances feature was different. That does explain it. And I wouldn't call it a bug in that case, just a different feature. What's interesting to me though is that 'lower clearances' would work fine, but then later I would try to build over the same piece of coaster track and it would keep saying 'rollercoaster 1 is in the way' no matter how many times I hit 'lower clearances'. So I would delete that section of coaster track, rebuild it, and then 'lower clearances' would work on it again. Any idea on what might be causing that? Is it other objects on that square interfering with the values? Because there are times when I would be working on something for awhile and all of a sudden I can't build through it anymore and the game won't let me build through it at all unless I delete all the coaster track in the way or just use the Beast. I should have been more specific about that before. It's only been coaster tracks that have been reverting back to their native clearances and not responding to the trainer. And I think (not sure, but think) it might be related to how many times I've saved the game or exited and restarted.

And in reply to your last question, yeah when it stops responding I do try ending and restarting construction monitoring and it still doesn't work. Like I said before though, closing the trainer and reopening it always gets it working again so it might not be worth trying to fix that. It's a small annoyance, but easy enough to work around. And that might also be related to saving the game. Which I do a lot, obviously. And having saves to go back to did save me last night.

I'm wondering if RCT changes the code in some small way when you save the game and that's causing these problems.

Still cant get the new one to work yet but the old ones still working fine

Hi, I’ve not been ignoring you . I found a bug in the latest version so you probably didn’t want to use it anyway. I’ve tweaked the installer so that it will overwrite COMDLG32.OCX if it is newer than the version currently on the system.
(As it sounds like that’s the problem, my editor uses a newer version than the one that comes with windows)

Hopefully this should work now. (But if not, could you tell me if you have the file COMDLG32.OCX somewhere. On xp it’s in windows/system32, but you can of course just use search. Thanks)

Also, thanks for that post ed as it seems that there is some correlation between the problems. They both seem to be related to the address of the last thing built (as calculated by codex) being erroneously low. Hence the trainer ignores some of the last things built. What’s odd though, is that restarting the trainer fixes this hmmmm.

P.S. It’s after midnight and I’ve been at work for 8 hours, so I might not be making much sense.
(I mean, less than usual.)

df