atdstrings - ATD strings converter

[JrMasterModelBuilder]

atdstrings - ATD strings converter

 

Converts the binary strings files found in LEGO Racers 2 and LEGO Drome Racers to and from their binary formats.
 
Downloads

• Windows
• Mac
• GitHub Repo

 

Usage

 

On Windows, you can simple drag-and-drop the file you want to convert onto the "atdstrings.exe" file. On other platforms run "/path/to/atdstrings FILE_PATH" by the command line. Note, if the file you are trying to convert to already exists, it will not overwrite it. You wil need to move/delete the file out of the way manually before converting (when run by drag-and-drop, you won't see any notification of this).

 

Notes

 

The best encoding to open the text files using seems to be either "Western (Windows Latin 1)" or "Western (ISO Latin 1)". If some of the non-English characters look funny, this is the encoding your text editor should use. The ATD strings format allows for single-byte characters and two-byte characters. Two-byte characters are represented in hex in the text format, escaped with the pipe symbol ("|") on either side. For example, the multi-byte character "0xABCD" would appear as "|ABCD|" in the text file. Now you might be thinking, "How can I enter the pipe character?". Oh ye of little faith. Although the game does not use the pipe symbol anywhere (though it appears to be is in the LDR font), you can escape the "|" with another "|". So a single "|" in the binary format would be "||" in the text format. I'm not sure anymore what the multi-byte characters in LR2 and LDR are, but the Swedish LR2 and French LDR strings files have them.

 

P.S. I haven't actually tried MOD-ing in-game text, but it does convert the game's binary files to text and back to binary perfectly, with the files being 100% identical. Let me know if you have any trouble.

P.P.S Sorry this took me so long, but this was a low-priority project for me and the encoding issue was tougher that I originally thought.

[Fluffy Cupcake]

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!
Great job JrMasterModelBuilder! This will be quite handy.

Also, I just tested it in game, made the MPH text longer than it was before, it works like a charm. The only problem I really have is that if another file exists in the folder already, it won't save over it.
Now I can get finished on my next part in my LR2 tutorial series.

Edit: For anyone wondering about changing the default "1UP" text. You can go ONE character over the limit of what you can usually enter before the game will crash.

 

Edit 2: Weee, random text editing:

[JrMasterModelBuilder]

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!

Great job JrMasterModelBuilder! This will be quite handy.

Also, I just tested it in game, made the MPH text longer than it was before, it works like a charm. The only problem I really have is that if another file exists in the folder already, it won't save over it.

Now I can get finished on my next part in my LR2 tutorial series.

Edit: For anyone wondering about changing the default "1UP" text. You can go ONE character over the limit of what you can usually enter before the game will crash.

 

Edit 2: Weee, random text editing:

 

Nice! Glad it works and that changing the string lengths works for the most part!

 

The non-overwritting a file is a feature to prevent people from accidentally overwritting their files. You could script is fairly easily with a batch file like this.

@ECHO OFF
del "BINARY_FILE"
atdstrings "TEXT_FILE"

[Fush]

Weee, random text editing:

-snip-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8u7px_GzWQ

I had to

[Shadowblaze]

-snip-

 

All hail the mighty Bison!

 

This thing is awesome. It allows us to make a whole new plot, new scriptstuff, and a lot of other interesting things. By the way, the SPARKY_HELP line can't be modified without breaking the scripting in exploration mode. I shortened both script and text for the foyer help, and in exploration I couldn't pause the game or talk to people. Pretty weird.

[Jimbob]

 

Ooooh boy, looks like it's time to make a Pirate Racers.

[Sunchipp]

so I convert the file back to what it's supposed to be after I'm done editing (I assume that's what to do there's no tutorial for this) and before the game can even start it just crashes...what am I doing wrong?