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TSOrd aka 
Charles K. Hughes
ICQ: 43403297
AIM: TheRealTSOrd

Old News 2000
(old news 1999)

12/15/2000

• I'm on vacation from 12/18/2000 through 1/7/2001.  I've be visiting Florida with my new digital camcorder.  If I'm allowed to record the Jurassic Park stuff at Universal, you can expect a short movie to appear on this site when I get back. :)
• Added Will Simpson's new trespasser website http://burroughs-city.freeservers.com to links page.
• Added Isle Sorna source file.
• Nothing new on reverse-engineering Trespasser, sorry.

• Long time between updates here.  I've been busy with RL so I haven't done any RE work.  However, Zandor has been hard at work creating the newest version of the Isle Sorna/Trespasser map.  I've kept the old one up as well, but true die-hards will want to get the newest version.

• An example of Proof-of-Concept #6 - Recreating the GRF is now available.

• At 6:25pm EST, the first successful recreation of a GRF took place. I'd like to kill the guy who created the GRF format myself.  It's been fun, but now is the time for serious work - cracking the SCN file.  I'm not posting a downloadable proof of concept because the file size is just too big even for the testscene. And, I don't have any pictures, because I haven't figured out how to show what I've done.

• Ah, looking for news are you...well, just so happens that I got some. I've managed to recreate the Assembly table and it looks correct though it probably has a few bugs in it.  Anyway, tomorrow (it's 11:48pm right now :) I'll be working on recreating the GRF.  I don't think I'll have any problems with doing that, and it should be considerably easier than recreating the Assembly table.  So, look for the GRF Proof-of-concept to be posted tomorrow night.  Right now though, I need some sleep.

• Weekends come and go way too fast.  I got to act this past weekend as an expert witness at a mock trial.  Then I goofed off and fragged all day on Sunday in Unreal Tournament.  Monday I worked a bit on Trespasser and I'm working on right now.  Only taking time out to update Bill Browns's music link and post this little note.  I don't foresee anything preventing me from posting the newest proof this coming weekend, maybe even earlier.

• Well, doesn't look like I'll get proof up this weekend.  Between helping my brother build his house, driving the kids to soccer, theatre & church, and working on my computer and my son's computer I haven't had much time.  Anyway, I'll be working on it tomorrow and the proof should be available by next weekend.
• A couple of new previews/postmortem items on the Links page.

• I've upgraded my computer: 800mhz AMD Athlon Thunderbird, ABIT KT7-Raid Motherboard, 256mb PC133 ram, 45gb 75GXP IBM Deskstar HD, SBLive Platinum, GEForce2 (Creative Annihilator), and a Chrome Orb to cool the CPU.  Bitching fast...53fps in Trespasser.
• Been working on the upgrading so the RE stuff has been delayed.  However, I've gotten a nice breakdown of the object Attributes, and I'm working on the object Mapping and Material portions now.  Work is coming along nicely with no problems so expect a proof-of-concept next weekend.

• Updated the Reverse-Engineering section with the latest news.
• Added new utility (by Andres) to extract screen shot from saved games
• mini screen shots added to all save game downloads
• 8 new saved games added - All the new saved games are at the end of the level just beyond the point where the game normally sends you to the next level.  Be aware that on some levels there are multiple points that will send you to the next level, this is especially true with Level 1: The Beach.
• Fixed various broken links

• Voice-over page added

• Links page updated

• Trespasser Level Audio editor v1.0.2 released.  Intro fixed (hit escape to skip it), minor fixes, smaller size.  If you've tried TLAe before and had a problem, please try it again and let me know if the problem remains.

• Updated the Forums listing and the Links page to remove dead forums & broken links and to add previews and reviews.
• Updated Reverse-Engineering page with a quick note on what's going on.
• Updated Easter eggs page with new additions.
• Updated Bugs & Cheat pages to include a note about Shock Absorbers.
• Updated the Toxin rifle cheat.
• Added "Useless Bugs" to the Bugs page.
• Added a Humor page.
• Added a link to Bill Brown's music - he's the composer of the Trespasser music.
• Added Zandor's work on changing terrain files for each level to My Patches page.
• TLAe should get an update this month.

• TLAe version 1.0.1 released.  The original had a few bugs, including one that prevented sound files from being created.  This update also allows the user to skip the intro by hitting the ESCAPE key.  To use the new version you must download the original and install it first.

• Trespasser Level Audio editor  -  version 1.0, courtesy of the Trespasser Reverse Engineering Society.
  Now everyone gets to play with the audio in Trespasser.  If it doesn't work for you, let me know what happens so I can fix it.  Suggestions for making it better are always welcomed.

• Updated our public utilities and our formats document
• Andres provided another Proof of Concept example

• Added a link to the 3d Exploration utility which allows viewing 3ds models

• I keep telling Andres that he's embarrassing me with these constant updates... [image removed, click here to view]

• The new toxin rifle cheat is flawed - it doesn't work on some levels.
• Andres has released a new version of GeomExt.  An actual screen shot from 3ds Max of a raptor extracted from Trespasser is below. [Image removed, click here to view]

• Thanks go out to Wei Ho for his artistic talents and the sharing of same.  Put another way, he provided me with several original models and textures for Trespasser.  These will be put to good use in my continuing efforts to reverse engineer Trespasser.
• Site updated - section "Whats Inside" renamed to "Reverse Engineering", links updated, JPnet link added
• Andres James, Ken Taylor (PenguiN42 of the original THS), and myself have been working on reverse engineering Trespasser. All of our current notes and public utilities are available on my Reverse Engineering pages. 
• I discovered a new cheat

• Andres has successfully created GeomExt v0.1.  It's a program to extract models from Trespasser into the 3d Studio Max .3ds format.  Though it doesn't handle textures yet, it is nevertheless a huge leap forward in the quest to reverse-engineer the Trespasser level format. (Sorry, the program isn't available yet, and isn't much use either unless you happen to have 3d Studio Max.)
• Ken successfully replaced a couple of textures in the testscene. A few screen shots are available.  While this is not a quantum leap forward in decoding the Trespasser level formats, it is a very important proof-of-concept.

• New Cheat note, and directions for playing the demo level in the retail version and vice versa.

• Three old demo level saved games added.
• What's happening?  I've been busy, plus the holidays, plus a few new games have kept me away from continuing my story or working on Trespasser hacking.  With the great help of a new Trespasser fanatic (hiya Andres), and an old one (hiya Ken) we've gotten a lot farther in understanding the Trespasser file formats.  Andres has been able to pull some modelling and texturing information from the game files to create a few images.  My own Trespasser decoding program is capable of pulling audio & texture files out now.  I hope to be able to pull out complete 3ds Max models before the end of the month.

Old News 1999

Last updated Thursday, July 26, 2001 12:20 PM