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Thanks Drill Master! One of the things I've been working on recently is the concept of an RRU community project. I figure it would be a good way for the game designers to get some practice working in teams, and for us to just make something really cool and meaningful. I've really wanted to work alongside quite a few of you for a long while, so this would be a great chance to do something we might have some fun with. So, let's make this a proposal topic. Before we can even make a project, we need to get a few things clear: The Concept RRU is (sort of) famous for its modding of classic games. Most of us have at least some experience in programming, design, graphics, audio etc. Therefore, modding seems to be the most desirable kind of project we can work on. We need to decide on a few things, however: What game do we mod? RRU has tools and knowledge to do a pretty complete overhaul of at least 2 games (Rock Raiders and Racers). We need to figure out what interests the community most, and also what more of us have. We can absolutely get around members not having a certain game, but it'll help if most of us have a copy. What theme do we go for? Candy Raiders was not successful for several reasons, but mostly due to disinterest. One personal reason I had for not being involved was that I didn't like the theme. I figure that we, as a community, need to find a theme we all can enjoy. I personally think we should maybe do RRU as a whole, making members into characters, but you guys can discuss. How do we make the mod better than the original game? We want this mod to be a bit like Baz's Mod. It needs to be incredible enough to be memorable. Let's not just make some bland levels with a few new colours. Can we warp gameplay enough to be different? Can we balance the games in a way that's interesting? Can we make our knowledge of exploits and bugs turn these things into gameplay features? I think the bulk of this topic will be used to discuss these points. Organisation & Motivation Another reason Candy Raiders probably failed was due to a lack of organisation. Nobody felt motivated to do anything as time went on, deadlines (if they even existed) started to slip and eventually the project was left to rot. We need to treat this as something professional. Not because we want to make money or make us hate it, but to try and keep us from burning out. Let's get people motivated and push them to actually produce some sweet content for this project. What we'll need: Project Lead: We need somebody clearly in charge, specifically to manage the community, enforce deadlines, receive all the content and work on blending it together (a "master copy" if you will), do QA on the project and blah blah blah. I propose we find somebody with plenty of time on their hand and is motivated. They don't need to be in charge of the designs or concepts or content. They just need to make sure the project is taking shape. Creative Director: Design-by-Committee almost always ends horribly. It's important to make sure everybody's ideas are considered, but if there isn't some form of unified vision, the end product will appear inconsistent. We need somebody to have a clear idea of what they want and what's in the best interest of the community, and to strive to achieve that. They will work with the Project Lead and all of the community, taking their ideas and ultimately choosing what makes it and what doesn't. I propose we get an Admin or Moderator for this position, since they are really good at consistency, listening to multiple parties and management. A clear hierarchy: Management is great, but the canon fodder will also need to have some dedicated positions. While it's good to have people doing a little bit of everything, for consistency sake, we should have people who focus on specific things, such as level designs, artists, musicians, audio engineers etc. It's alright if people want to pick up multiple positions, just so long as we distribute the roles carefully. A clear Design Document WITH timeline: We need a powerful, specific design document that clearly outlines what we want to achieve, how we want to achieve it, and the specific deadlines we want to achieve these things by. This document should be the product of this topic. It will need to be managed by the Project Lead and Creative Director. I have multiple layouts and templates we can use once we've got some good ideas to go off. I've got more to say, but I'll save it until I know you guys are ready and interested in working as a team. Skype and RRU will be helpful for communication, and Dropbox will be great for file sharing, and I'm sure there's many other services we can use. So, what do you think? Is RRU ready to undertake a serious project? I think we are. LEEEEEEEEEEEET'S MAKE!

I'm not quite sure what has happened with the status of the video: when they first had Emmet and Wyldstyle in it, it was taken down by Warner Bros. for using a trademarked minifigure... or something. It was interesting to read the comments. a) There were hordes of them, and probably when I'd finished a page another would pop up. b) About 1% of the comments were "yes i must stop supporting lego they are ruining the arctic pls help," about 60% were 'This is absolute rubbish' (and about one quarter of that 60% made a long rant about how it was rubbish, and half of that quarter said 'Lego comes from petroleum. Imagine how much petroleum from the Arctic you'd need to make that video... hypocrites' ), 15% said 'You're right, Shell shouldn't be drilling in the Arctic, but why take it out on a toy company?' and the remaining 14% I have failed to allocate accurately. What even is Lego doing with Shell anyway? Last time I checked it was just a bunch of Ferrari sets - oh yes, that's what that 14% was - saying 'Lego isn't partnering with Shell - it's partnering with Ferrari. I recall having a long talk with Ayliffe and Ayliffe Arthuriel about this; I think Ayliffe completely smashed their argument on their blog or somewhere and I can bet you he'll find the link.

Greets all, So it's been a while since my initial research on the "mysterious bitmaps" from LEGO LOCO, and after a small splurge of research and coding I finally figured out this mysterious format. First and foremost, the format used by the bitmaps is not bitmap specific at all, it's a compression format used by any and all files which appear to be 'unreadable'. The loading order of the game appears to be as such to detect the difference between the two types of files, compressed and uncompressed: Find requested file If it doesn't exist, return 0 If it does exist, request a file handle and copy it to RAM Check the value at 0x5. If it's 0x1, it's compressed. Otherwise, return RAM offset of already copied file Load 32 bit word at offset 0x0, malloc that amount of space Pass compressed file and malloc location to decompression function Now for the good stuff: The compression format and the entire file format demystified. The file is stored with an 8 byte large header and as large of an actual file space as allowed (limited to highest 32 bit value in this case). While the file is being decompressed, the file is considered to actually start at byte 0x8. The file is divided into two parts: The table and the data. The table is technically only 0x400 bytes large starting at offset 0x400 (0x408 with the initial header), but it can extend larger if needed. The data goes as large as needed. The data and table itself use a Huffman compression method, with the table being the Huffman tree and the data being the binary array. The word value at 0x4 in the header determines the seed position in the huffman tree. The seed position is multiplied by 4 to get the actual offset of the seed. This offset does not include the header. Once the seed is loaded, each 32 bit word is loaded from the data and is divided by 2. If the far-most right bit was a 1 before division by 2, the next tree offset is shifted by 0x2. The next offset is determined as such: (((seed * 2) + flag) * 2). A 16 bit value is then loaded from that offset and used as the next seed. If this seed value is less than 0x100, it is interpreted as a byte and the byte is written and the seed reset to the bottom of the tree. This processes is done continually until all bytes have been written. If that was a bit difficult to grasp, you might be able to tell it a little better by viewing the source code of the decompression tool. With that said and done, the compression tool. It's written in Java and is executed from the command line using java -jar locodecomp.jar <infile> <outfile>. You can download the precompiled version here or view the source code on my GitHub here. The source code is fairly straightforward so if anyone wants to port it to any other languages feel free to do so. As a note, I included a small bitmap fixer which can patch in a header for certain bitmaps. How it works is it takes a blank bitmap header and stitches certain pieces of the raw bitmap together to form a readable bitmap. Since the bitmaps are a bit inconsistent in terms of defining width and height in the raw file, it calculates it using the .dat file associated with it. The width and height can be adjusted in a hex editor. Since it uses .dat files to get width and height, it usually only works with buildings due to the buildings being the only bitmaps that define it's size inside the .dat file. For sounds I'm not sure what header information is missing, but I do know that most of the sounds can be played in Audacity by importing it as a raw file and changing the format to use unsigned 8bit PCM and a frequency of 22050. Questions, comments, concerns? Feel free to let me know. I'm pretty excited for this myself since if we can convert all the bitmaps to a normal format we could potentially open up more expansive modding between the bitmaps and the .dat files.

A TFOL's Response to Greenpeace's LEGO Petition By Brigs Generally, I don’t waste my valuable time on petitions senseless as this one. Nevertheless, this fallacious pile of KRE-O has gained considerable circulation in the LEGO Community, and thus merits a well-articulated response. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbliUq0_r4 http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/ Let’s break this down piece by piece, starting with the video itself. When the video begins, you will notice the title and background music references the LEGO Movie and its incessant song, “Everything is Awesome.” This is an ironic choice for Greenpeace’s assertions, since the benevolent Octan Corporation, LEGO Town’s fictitious “Big Oil” company is portrayed in an antagonistic light in the film, and has certainly received more publicity than any Shell promotional polybag. As the video proceeds, you see the inviting Arctic animals, a fisherman, hockey players, and… Halo’s Master Chief. Following a panoramic view of the new wave of LEGO City Arctic sets, the video changes tone as the viewer first notices a Shell chemist, tanker, and finally, a menacing oil platform, recycled from a Cars 2 set, which notably had a rather preachy message about “Big Oil.” But the most infuriating and stereotypical elements of the film are yet to come. The “executive” Minifigure can be seen smoking a cigar (with a “no smoking” sticker visible behind him, no less.) At the bottom of the oil rig oozes a depressing black liquid. This “oil spill” slowly consumes the LEGO world and its inhabitants, including the distinguished Emmett and Wyldstyle, until only the Shell flag unscathed. Any objective AFOL will notice Greenpeace’s clear appeals to emotion, specifically fear for the vibrant LEGO world and anger directed at Shell and the LEGO Group’s “association.” We’re just getting started. The description contends to surpass the ludicrosity of the video itself. “We love LEGO. You love LEGO. Everyone loves LEGO. But when LEGO's halo effect is being used to sell propaganda to children, especially by an unethical corporation who are busy destroying the natural world our children will inherit, we have to do something.” Greenpeace apparently needs to check their definitions. Of course colorful plastic bricks and smiling Minifigures have a welcoming aesthetic. But these allegations of the LEGO Group propagandizing on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell plc are not only extreme, but absurd. Children playing with an oil tanker or gas station are not being brainwashed that “Big Oil” or environmental pollution is good. They are merely delivering the LEGO citizens with gas to power their trucks, spaceships, and racecars. These loaded accusations of propaganda are so laughably ironic one could easily mistake this as a work of satire; especially for a claim that can easily be thrust upon Greenpeace itself. “Children's imaginations are an unspoilt wilderness. Help us stop Shell polluting them by telling LEGO to stop selling Shell-branded bricks and kits today.” So what is the objective here? By the LEGO Group from discontinuing Shell gas stations and race cars, converting LEGO City into eco-utopia, will the Minifigures suddenly become enlightened and band together against a tyrannical CEO plotting to destroy their way of life? To quote Lord Business, “that’s just a bunch of hippy dippy baloney.” I am not here blatantly supporting Shell, or “Big Oil.” There are risks involved in any drilling operation, which can potentially be catastrophic on the ecosystem. LEGO Bricks themselves, composed of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, are partially derived from oil. The LEGO Group is renowned for its environmental awareness and responsibility, and by next decade will be completely sustained by renewable energy. The issue is not the LEGO Group, nor necessarily Shell, but Greenpeace’s exploitation of a responsible corporation and its politicization of a legitimate concern. Humans must be thoughtful stewards of the world, and potential threats to the environment merit the discussion. Of course businesses will try to make money, and in doing so may jeopardize the environment. Royal Dutch Shell has been endeavoring to create a drilling operation off of Alaska for a few years now, but has postponed until the safety of the operation is elucidated. This issue of drilling in the Arctic should be resolved between Shell and those concerned about environmental safety, but they should leave the LEGO Group out of this. If Greenpeace wants to preserve the “unspoilt” imaginations of children and leave a positive impact on our world, it can start by repudiating this political gobbledygook and withdrawing this petition on the front page of the Greenpeace website.

After some crashes and errors I managed to create this: This overwrites eskimo helmet, eskimo girl(?), arctic torso and blue legs. BLUEST HEAD_HOLE.MIP goes to: game data/common/textures. PLAYER EIGHT FACEs goes to: game data/characters/heads/textures. PLAYER EIGHT TORSO.MIP AND PLAYER EIGHT LEGS.MIP goes to: game data/characters/bodies/textures. PLAYER8.MD2 goes to: game data/characters/heads/models. Remember to backup your files! Download LR1 Version Download LR2 version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzKvwYt3Zyg Like this?

My newest MOC: Fulmine MOCpages: http://tinyurl.com/FulmineMOCpages Flickr: http://tinyurl.com/FulmineFlickr YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/FulmineYouTube

I'd vote racers, but I don't think we can do enough yet, and not efficienly either. We can't make custom tracks and models, and changing checkpoint and AI routes and such are too much of a pain in the butt to even change right now (I can modify this and more more easily on LR2. So, unfortunately I will not be voting LR for these reasons. RR isn't my game of choice, but it is by far the most modable game we have. As for making a topic on what we can and can't do in LR, I can probably do one in a few days when I'm back home. I love how McJobless mentions a RRU theme for RR in the OP, and that I what everyone is discussing with no secondary suggestions. And McJ, I just thought I'd point out you said "I thing" instead of "I think" in section 2 under The Concept section in the OP. ;)

To help speed up voting, here's a poster promoting this project.

1. Why you bring Halo into this Greenpeace? 2. Since when has TLG been making Shell sets? Octan isn't Shell. 3. Oh boy. Another ad that exploits my emotions. I totally haven't seen 4,000 of these.

So I see now that there is much going on with regards to a potential RR sequel. Despite that, I have my own project I started a few weeks ago that I'd like to show off. It looks terrible for now, but a lot of the foundation is there. First get the Visual Studio 2012 Redist (x86) then you can try it yourself. I wrote it from scrach in C++ using SDL2 and OpenGL 2.1, so while this build is only for Windows, it could easily be ported to other systems in the future. I plan to go into game programming and I learn best by diving in the deep end, so I started this project to learn C++ and have something to show potential employers. QWERTASDFG control the camera, Z and X will destroy two hardcoded walls (to show real-time collapsing and exploration), CVB will spawn objects under the cursor. Everything can be selected, raiders can be ordered to move to a location with a right click. I'm not insterested in hearing the many ways you can crash the program, but if any of the above features don't work for you, let me know. As for the map file, it's an ugly but effective text based format. Designed so I could make maps by hand and expand features without breaking old maps. The parser is extremely stingy and will complain about anything, but it should all be in the console. Use Notepad++ and watch your end of lines if you want to mess around. I'm going to need some help with the non-programming stuff later. I hope to be able to import the original RR resources (if you own the game) at some point, and could use input on other features as I add them. Right now though, if anyone does want to make a simple map editor/creator, I would appreciate it.

I thought I would share some good news on the remake of Lego Rock Raiders, we were going to call it Block Raiders (due to Lego trademark on the RR name, however the good news is that the trademark has expired and also the extra time they have to renew it, and we have just registered the 'Rock Raiders' trademark ourselves. The name will live on.

Noo... I've tried this and it hasn't worked. I'm going for Rock Raiders as we can mod it better - Something I want to add to that - it's far easier to make a difficulty curve on RR and indeed it's far easier to make it harder. Greenpeace? The INFODERPIAC's GREENREDBRICKS could have been misplaced or something... I think that we should try to tie it into LI. I'm guessing Cyrem will be Chief that pops up?

Haha... haha... the sister of McJobless is... haha... McEmployed ? HA HA HA HA no. But welcome to the forums and don't expect for non-random randomness.

Vehicles require crystals to be built, no ore. As for a script which checks how much X you've got, it only works (IIRC) for crystals stored, ore stored, minifigures on level, minifigures on a specific tile and objects on a specific tile. I figured that one of the reactors that Cap't Rex put in underneath Cyrem's level went KA-BLEWY! and so now the other ones are all unstable and the building is falling apart. Maybe part of exploring can be to find clues about what did damage to the building in the first place?

Dang, that's bad. Someone has to find an exploit to that right away. Anyway; if we used different vehicles, we could make that the raw ore is a normal refined Energy Crystal, if we suppose that the vehicle used is able to refine crystals right away, and the refined one is the purple one, or whatever color you want. Also, this different tier of crystals has to be obtained differently than just refining, obviously. Is that possible, though? Argh, we need that exploit badly! Can't we program something to fix that? Or is it related to the unstable engine on which LRR runs, so we can't touch it? EDIT: Oh, it's the Twix banner, clever!

1. I didn't. Somebody must have decided to sneak their custom Halo 'fig onto the display, and I thought it was unusual enough to mention. 2. To elaborate on McJobless' response, the LEGO Group hasn't been making many Shell sets lately 3. Save the whales! I don't mind at all; go right ahead! @Aidenpons The Youtube comments section is the last place you should have a debate, and almost certain to escalate into a flame war. Despite some commentators reflecting reasonable objections to this video, its likes outnumber the dislikes at an approximate four-to-one ratio, and the Greenpeace petition has allocated nearly half a million signers. I'd hate to see the LEGO Group cave to political pressure, especially in such an irrational manifestation. Even if TLG lets their contract with Shell/Ferrari quietly expire, the environmentalist loons will celebrate it as a victory.

Added to the OP. Hopefully in a few hours as people start to get online, we'll see more activity and votes flow.

I like. Since we can do any number of custom raiders, having raiders that look just like Fush's drawings isn't out of the question. I know quite a few of us have Lightwave kicking around, and I'm slowly getting better at modeling, so we can certainly making new things appear. What would the biome look like? I imagine we need to think about what the inside of RRU tower would be and then make it dirty and destroyed. Maybe we could replace the three current biomes with a "good", "average" and "wrecked" interiors, so as the players make their way to the top, the levels start to look a little cleaner since there was less damage? Or vice-versa? And that way, the tutorial levels could all be clean, as if the player was being trained for the first time before RRU Tower collapses. I personally voted for LegoRR since I think there's a lot more variation on gameplay we can do. We have access to the scripting system and a lot of gameplay elements and glitches that we can exploit.

Yes. Do the edits whenever you feel like it. Also, by "plastic" I meant the pieces, I didn't use it as an adjective. Still me being unable to explain stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkz8BLBJ9_I I'd like to do the music as well, as it's what I do best. I don't have a copy of LR however. I can only do RR, and preferably, I'd like modding RR better (not much of a racing game fan). I have nothing but time, so I can get tracks done in a timely fashion. I have an idea that I wanted to try with my music anyway, and this seems like the perfect place to do so.

There's some fences (like you can see on the main menu and in the PS1 version, except not flat) and "ferry.msh", two flat planes that I guess sorta resemble a cutout of a ferry. They're also far away from the origin, as if they're meant to be seen from a distance. Also, in the GBA version, you take a ferry to Adventurer's Island... Probably more, I haven't gone through everything. Edit: There's also OASI_OasisDoor.msh, for the main desert area, which looks like a cube-ish placeholder.

"Rock Raiders United!" --> (becomes) "Pirate Unit PCs" --> "Copyright infringment" --> "Damage" --> "There is nothing wrong with that" --> "Something is going on here" --> "What the hell is going on here" (I don't mean to swear here but that's what it said )* --> "...This is the underworld" --> "...It's the Metro" --> "Underground railroad" --> "In March, the public transport system." --> "In March, Traffic and Trust." --> "3 month traffic jam and credibility." --> "3 months of light and faith." --> "3 months later, depending on the hop." --> "When planning for three months." RRU: 3 months of light and faith. oh no I just gave Cyrem another April Fools idea, didn't I... I can assure you that Haitian Creole was certainly involved here. *Ok, who borked up the smilies. is the one I want, but it would appear that takes precedence. Gah.

A few days ago, I get an idea for the Rock Raiders game. Maybe a new miner can join the Rock Raiders team Profile of the new miner: Chuckles by LegoMathijs, on Flickr Chuckles by LegoMathijs, on Flickr Chuckles by LegoMathijs, on Flickr It's not an very big idea, but maybe it's nice to have some new miners in the game

Original text: "what happen if i put not grammarly corrected text inside of this white box?" ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "The situation may change as the text for the purpose of Yahoo Messenger." Well that actually made kinda sense except for the last part obviously. ____________________________________ Original text: "Not bad, this site can translate phrases in an astonishing way!" ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "... If you are not sure whether the code has been tampered with? You can throw from abroad." ____________________________________ Original text: "BE SHORT BE SHORT BE SHORT BE SHORT" ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "Help, Help" lol I laughed so hard at this one

What's this? Somebody is starting a LEGO fan game by actually working on the backbone of the game for once, instead of making a wikia site and concept models in LDD cruddy drawings and textures in MS Paint? Yay! (Not that all projects are like that, but man, there sure are a lot of cruddy LEGO Universe fan games out there at the least...)

Alcom Isst: #1 builder in LU!" ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "The first week is always 1." and My Weekly: # 1 in the body of the Earth! and The first week, always. # 1 and The first week is always 1. That last is so much truth. EDIT: "Of all of us, Jamie would be freaking out the most if Blacktron was included." ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "The Dark Lord, Jamie" and "Contains most of the Jamie for all of us if it is Blacktron." and We all turned Jamie most if Blacktron was included."

Original text: "The Brickster rules!" ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "Systems of Brickster"

Original text: "I hate this translator like lettuce on a pizza" ...18 translations later, Bing gives us: "... Hate salad pizza compiler" --------------- Original text: "Did you ever stop to wonder why?" ...27 translations later, Bing gives us: Numbers, frequently asked questions, why? and "Strange, isn't it?" I also had a result about someone getting arrested and about wondering why, but lost that.

"And the little pig ran all the way home." ...56 translations later we get: "Wild boar on the road." "face punch" ...56 translations later we get: "Dale preventyon." I tried Face Book... but 56 translations later it was still Face Book ( Something fishy is going on ) "Something fishy is going on" ...56 translations later we get: "Therefore,"