I might be able to make new stalls

[jonwil]

I have a possible way to make new stalls for the game.
Basicly, what would happen is that some scenery maker would produce a 1 square size scenery object (e.g. a coke machine or whatever else is wanted/desired) as a seperate theme with just that one object (or more than one object if more than one new stall is being made) and get it to work in the game. Also, effect points will be added for the vendor and 4 "peep" positions.
The vendor effect point will be named vendor and the peep effect points named peep01,peep02,peep03,peep04.
Settings in the scenery dialog will be set to normal scenery settings however collision detection must be enabled.
Then, once its working in game as a scenery piece (with the correct collision detection, size and other settings), I will take the source files for the new stall(s) (the .ase file(s), texture(s), .scn file(s), icon texture(s) and .thm file(s)) and turn them into working stalls by copying the settings from an existing stall (which stall depends on which of the various formats for stall data I can get to work, the time I have available to spend on this plus what the stall looks like/is intended to be)

For example, if a coca-cola vending machine is created, its likely I would copy the settings from the drinks stand. And so on.
(obviously if the creator of the new stall model has a desire as to what it should copy from, I will do my best to make that happen :)

Note also that I will probobly not be copying from any stall that is only available in Soaked! or only available in Wild! (being that the result would then require the relavent expansion pack instead of working with any fully patched copy of RCT3)

Note that special attractions (i.e. ATM, first aid and toilets) and changing rooms use different data so I cant make those at this point.

Also, it may be possible (when making the stall) to change what items the stall sells with items from another stall (by copying the data for that item instead of the data for the items the stall normally sells)

Still no progress on animation yet though.

EDIT: Here is a list of some stalls that I thought of that might be usefull:
Mcdonalds/Hungry Jacks (australian name for burger king) counter. Would go inside large restraunts and sell hamburger, fries, soft drink and maybe one other thing.
Coca-Cola (or Pepsi, Dr Pepper, 7-Up, Sprite, Fanta, Lift, Sunkist etc) vending machine. Would sell the same things as the existing drinks stall.
KFC (or other chicken shop) counter. Would sell chicken, fries, soft drink and chicken nuggets.

Other suggestions appreciated.

Also, dont expect miracles, my time isnt exactly infinate and I dont even know if this will work or not :)

[WalkingSnake]

Would it be possibly to copy the custom stalls from Wild and the Soaked patch? That way we could choose what it sells in-game? I'd personally like a bigger variety of generic stalls.

[NeoPuma]

Would they have to be like 1 square big? Could they be like 5 squares with several vendors? It would handy for things like resteraunts because they never just have one counter serving one thing. Great news any way jonwil!

[jonwil]

For the restraunt idea, build something with several shops next to each other and use scenery to make the rest of the restraunt (someone posted a large mcdonalds recently for example)

[LightWarriorK]

Most of what you said might have been in another language for all I know (especially that first paragraph) :haha:

So I wish you and the other scenery gurus the best of luck!:cool::up::up:

[Phil]

Sounds interesting. It will be nice to know how this turns out.

[DarkRidePerson]

can you explain how to use the effect attachment points? I mean, what to put in the 16 boxes.

[buyinflatables]

Jonwil, Awesome!!!!

Hopefully the designers of the coke machines... espcially Marnetmar!! Then maybe we can get some designers who can create the push cart type of vendors we all see at parks that sell all sorts of food merchandise . I guess these would have to be stalls with 4 path entries like a rest room... dont know if that is possible. But if it is.. that would be great to have a balloon stall in the cetnter of a 3 tile wide path etc.


NeoPuma... I posted the McDonalds Structure here:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=507662

Inside my sample one... I placed 3 generic stalls next to each other... one for hambergers, Drinks and Ice Cream. When placing next to each other they connect at the ends and looks like one long counter.

Let me know if you need the building customized... and I will try to assist you.

Tim

[WalkingSnake]

Hmm... there might be a problem with the Soda Machine idea. Doesn't there need to be a vendor at the stall to hand the item to the person?

[marnetmar]

If you want Jonwil, I can rework the Coke machine I made in the Leftoverz theme & send you all the files to see if you can get this to work as a stall prop.

[jonwil]

Yeah, that sounds like a good place to start.
Assuming you put the various effect points in the right place, things should work.

[sebar]

Hey Marn....don't forget the other softdrink types as well. Some people like Pepsi, 7-UP, A&W etc....

Maybe a sodamachine expansion pack with reskinned machines would be better...

Just an idea.

[live_the_thrill]

Maybe a chocolate vending machine. The store type could be the Hershey candy option.

Hope it works, that would be uber awesome.

[osudenny]

Question???

Might you be able to get a stall from another game like Zoo Tycoon 2 and Import it to RCT 3 like a vendor?? Just a question I know in RCt 2 we could do that.

Denny

[Guybrush_47]

I was thinking perhaps creating a restaurant style counter/bar.

There would be a vender working behind the bar, creating drinks from pumps.

You could then have a kitchen hatch, where food is passed through the hatch on trays. The peeps line up next to the hatch and collect the food. These would all be flush for walls, making it easy to create interriors.

I'd love to make a realistic looking bathroom. You could do it in two ways, either having a male/female door, and just having the peeps walking through the doors. Or you could actually create the bathroom and have proper toilets in cubicles.

The first option being very easy to do, the second being alot harder.

[osudenny]

Those Ideas would be great Guybrush47. The thought behind vendors was the food carts in the Tycoon Zoo 2 games. Not a booth per say but a vendor and his mobil food cart. Love to see that in the games.

[Phil]

osudenny, if someone can get the mesh files and texture files out of the zoo tycoon game, it would be very easy to then import it into rct3.

[Guybrush_47]

To be honest, zoo tycoon should be left well alone. I'm not normally one for telling people to be honest and not rip models out of other games, however, there are plenty of good modellers in the community who are filling in the gaps. Patience, and we will have far better quality and quantity coming out soon.

[osudenny]

I agree Guybrush_47 we do have better quality coming from a well respected group of modellers here working hard for us. But the vendors with the mobil carts from Tycoon Zoo 2 is the only examples that came to mind for me. I mean the drink cart, hot dog cart and cotton candy cart would be a great addition to the parks and really be great if we can make money off them.

[Vodhin]

Hey, Marnetmar- why not donate the RCT3 Player's Hot Dog Cart for this experiment? It would be very neat to make it a working stall before we release it to the community! :D

[marnetmar]

Hey, Marnetmar- why not donate the RCT3 Player's Hot Dog Cart for this experiment? It would be very neat to make it a working stall before we release it to the community! :D

Sounds like a Great idea Vodhin, I'll have to rework it & see if we can get this working properly.

[Phil]

I would glady model a simple stall jsut for testing. I have experience in modelling but no experience in importing though, but I am sure jonwil would have to do it all first anyway.

[Eagle001]

Personally, I would like someone to come up with an easier way to download what we already have. My problem isn't downloading persay, it is that some of the scenery items are built in such a fashion that when I go to add them to the game they do not add! I recently tried loading Caffinated's Letters again, and for some reason they don't show up in the scenery section. Now I have Wild installed, but according to Jonwil, this was one of the things he upgraded. My question is this. Are there magic words that you have to say or do you have to pray over these packs to get them to work:bulb:

Also. How do you turn off this damn Edit?

[vampiro_rct]

how's the process going aout the costum shops? :)

[jonwil]

no progress as yet, my time has been almost non-existant lately.

[sebar]

Wow the possibilities are endless....like they could serve a smorgasboard and have someone at a saladbar plus all the different soda, hot chocolate machine would simply be awesome. It seems the possibilities are endless.

[wabigbear]

I think this idea has a lot better chance of becoming a reality. I remember back in September reading something in some rumorland that supposedly a sit-down restaurant was coming in an expansion pack...I remember it being called something about "thats your "eat-in" zinger for the weekend". You know how those rumors get spread! Nice to see something a little more grounded in fact on the drawing board!

[MaxximvS]

oh, oh, oh I can see a MIDWAY stall coming up! Take the generic Foam Hand / Hammer Settings - A simple 4 striped sided stall with a striped top - maybe a small sign (like Gopher Hit or Ring Toss or Spin the Wheel) then stick mr / ms stall inside and BAM! One MIDWAY stall! :up: ;) :up:

I was going to do this with some of shyguys scenery and custom stall counters - but hey! if we can try this.... :D

[jonwil]

Just remember also that peeps wont buy more than one item from a stall so having a stall with fries and soda wont work.

[vampiro_rct]

Just remember also that peeps wont buy more than one item from a stall so having a stall with fries and soda wont work.

Ah thats okay, even if they will buy only 1 thing the possibilities are endless. Will it also be possible to have new toilets then?

I would like to say thanks for everything you did for this community, the game has become a lot more interesting since your scenery importer. I'm always holding my breath when opening your topic's... good luck with your projects and im waiting in full exitement :up:

[iceatcs]

midway will be great but if we can able to make the animation it will be even better.
peeps won't able to play the game, cos i think it will be too much thing to convert such as new AI script for playing the game. Animation will be good cover for dummy game to make look like they are playing the game. (it will looks like every peeps will win everytime lol)
Looking forward if able to make own, then I can start make some custom stalls for LOTR.

[MaxximvS]

no, and for the first test I'd just expect a simple stall just to 'look' like a midway stall - but really just be a postcard stand or hammer stand where peeps just buy

phase 2 could be about the animation of sorts - cause I agree again that you'll never get the peeps to actually 'play' the games - and we'll have to 'fake' it out with some movement.

phase 3 could be about the 'joining' of stalls - not in the sense of combining lists - I mean having a 2 or 4 square stalls (though if the list could combine - way cool - but like jon said in his last post - this isn't to happen anytime soon :) )

[Zen Coaster]

Bumping. Any progress?

[jonwil]

I havent had the chance to do any RCT3 work lately, having a full time job can do that to you :)

[Zen Coaster]

Heh. Know the feeling, mate.

[2005]

Even if they only buy one thing at a time it means placing less stalls. Just a few giant stalls is better than many little stalls. I never like the min stalls idea anyway, it's unrealistic. Most shops/stalls are in large buildings with just a bit of theming on the outside.

[Belgabor]

I don't want to hurry you, just another bump to hear if you still work on this or gave up for some reason.

[StayingDead]

Well he has got a full time job. But if he does get this to work it will be great.

[Belgabor]

As I said, I don't want to hurry him :)
A short comment like "Hadn't the time to look into it", or "I've tried everything I could think of and it just wouldn't work" would satisfy my curiosity (and determine if it's worthwile for me to try to hack the dumper/importer myself).

[jonwil]

I havent been doing any RCT3 work lately.
If someone else wants to continue looking at this, great.

[The_Cook]

If someone else wants to continue looking at this, great.

There are one or two of us with coding experience that could continue the great work that you've done. It would be very useful if you could note down what you know about how the structures of the ovl files are put together so that we don't have to relearn from scratch what you've already spent months learning. Obviously such technical information isn't going to be much use to either the gamers, nor probably the custom scenery creators, but for the one or two of us that do understand, it would be most useful.

[Belgabor]

Indeed that would be very useful and appreciated. I get dizzy fast when looking at complicated c sources :)

[rctmaniac]

I couldnt help with that, I would love to be able to. Does anyone have a great online tutorial or something to get me started? Good luck to those who try this.

[Stroh]

I havent been doing any RCT3 work lately.
If someone else wants to continue looking at this, great.
well, I can try and take a stab at it... I am also still working on a new ride, but who says I can't do two at once?

[Belgabor]

Take a look at the dumper and importer source. If you can find out how to write a correct sta entry (Stall data structure), that would be really great =)

[Vodhin]

I don't know if anyone else has seen this or maybe can confirm, but I think the cash register on all stalls is called from another OVL file and somehow merged with the the stall model in game time. It might be this call for that register that is the secret to make the stalls work, as if the register connects the user interface menus to the scenery item. Just a thought and I might be completely off base with this one...

[jonwil]

Basicly, all stalls have a "stall" data item.
The dumper contains all knowledge I have of this data item.

[CoasterSim.Fan]

Stroh think you can give us some in site in to what you have been working on. I am kind of curious.

[devory]

Sounds like a great idea. Maybe a stall selling seafood (i.e. fish sandwich). I think I remember one in RCT2. Also, maybe a custom stall that we can write in what to sell instead of using the drop down menu.

[Belgabor]

Sounds like a great idea. Maybe a stall selling seafood (i.e. fish sandwich). I think I remember one in RCT2. Also, maybe a custom stall that we can write in what to sell instead of using the drop down menu.

I don't know if it will ever be possible to sell new items, I believe these might be hardcoded. You would need to sell something already present and rename it to seafood. I believe General Stalls or stalls that sell items aleady in the game with a different model will become possible.

[tedwardxp]

It sounds like it would be just too complex to completely create a fully functional stall. It doesn't seem to necessary though. With the tools at hand we can already create a custom stall and dress it up with all the Custom Scenery available. The names of the items can be changes to reflect what the stall is selling. The only thing that can't be changed right now is what the peeps actually hold in there hands and ware on there heads. If we could change the 3D model of a bag of fries into a bag of pop corn or a large lolly-pop, that might be kewl

[Stroh]

Stroh think you can give us some in site in to what you have been working on. I am kind of curious.

Let me explain what I am gonna try and do...

I am gonna take a custom stall OVL common and unique and open them up with an editing program... scan the files trying to find some info on textures... I'm gonna change the file extensions in the OVLs to another folder, and throw textures in that folder, and then use those textures for the stall. Will it work? We can all wait and see.

[The_Cook]

Let me explain what I am gonna try and do...

I am gonna take a custom stall OVL common and unique and open them up with an editing program... scan the files trying to find some info on textures... I'm gonna change the file extensions in the OVLs to another folder, and throw textures in that folder, and then use those textures for the stall. Will it work? We can all wait and see.

This probably won't work.

The .ovl files are contain raw memory objects that are streamed onto the disk as an ovl file. Internally they contain pointers (as in C-Style pointers to those have coding experience) to other data within that file, these pointers are then fixed up (known as relocation) when the file is loaded back into memory.

If you change the length of any of the text strings by adding or removing characters to the file then all of the pointers will pointing to the wrong place and it'll go badly wrong.

As a final point, the texture itself might be encoded with the .ovl file rather than being a referenced texture. There is also the possibility that the reference texture isn't referred to by it's file-path, but by names contained within the .ovl files.

[Stroh]

This probably won't work.

The .ovl files are contain raw memory objects that are streamed onto the disk as an ovl file. Internally they contain pointers (as in C-Style pointers to those have coding experience) to other data within that file, these pointers are then fixed up (known as relocation) when the file is loaded back into memory.

If you change the length of any of the text strings by adding or removing characters to the file then all of the pointers will pointing to the wrong place and it'll go badly wrong.

As a final point, the texture itself might be encoded with the .ovl file rather than being a referenced texture. There is also the possibility that the reference texture isn't referred to by it's file-path, but by names contained within the .ovl files.

Well, I'm gonna toy around with existing files and such and try some goofy experiments...