Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

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Paladinlover
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Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#1 Post by Paladinlover » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:23 am

Hey everyone.

Several years ago (around 2003 to be precise), someone on the forum introduced me to SCI studio, a program that could open, and superficially modify the game, usually the views, the backgrounds and the text. It could only open SCI0 games but Brian, the guy who made the thing, later gave me a special version that could open some later games as a way of saying thanks, since I donated quite a bit of cash to him. That version could open QFG 2 and look (but not modify) the contents. I later gave this version to the AGDs and it helped in making QFG 2 VGA by enabling them to see that stuff and make sure they didn't miss anything. Erpy said it took a year off production time, which made me smile.

But at any rate, Brian ceased work on SCI studio ages ago, and someone got a better version called SCI companion up. Like SCI studio, it could open all the stuff and even disassemble the logic, but I don't think they could be modified like that. WinAGI was able to completely reverse engineer the games and modify the aspect of any AGI, including the logic I believe.

That being said, thus far I only know of programs that can view the SCI1 games and above, they can export some stuff, but they cannot modify them in any shape or form. Does anyone know of any program that can enable me to modify them? Even though it has been years since I've been interested in this, for some reason I've had a minorly rekindled interest in this, shown by the fact that I've been working modifying the texts in QFG 1 EGA to be more wacked out. I won't be releasing the 'Paladinlover edition' of that game any time soon, but it could be good for a laugh. I actually tried to do this for Conquest of Camelot, but I gave up since I didn't think it was worth it (it took me several hours to change the text in the castle sequence alone), now I think it is more than worth it to try it out, even if it takes days of work. ;)

So I ask once again, anyone know of a program that can do it? I'd be very grateful for any info.

Till next time stay cool 8))

MusicallyInspired
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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#2 Post by MusicallyInspired » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:43 am

The unfinished SCI Studio VGA release can open and edit SCI1.0 resources. There's also SCI Graphic Studio which can also do this. I don't know how readily available they are since Brian's site went AWOL, though.

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#3 Post by Paladinlover » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:07 am

I had Brian's latest release at one point, but it didn't seem to work. At any rate, thanks for the help, I'll look for that other program. :)

Edit: I managed to get SCI graphics studio, and I'm sad to say, but I never quite got it to work. I've never been able to open any of the games with it.

Oh well, my quest continues.

Till next time stay cool 8))

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#4 Post by Alliance » Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:42 am

Never fear! I did an article with a link to the source code for SCI Studio VGA!

http://www.linux.com/community/blogs/ne ... oject.html

Or, if you want to skip the write-up, and go directly for source (you might need to know how to compile it): http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/creiche ... scistudio/

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#5 Post by Angelus3K » Sun Sep 13, 2009 2:09 pm

I'm just hoping the ScummVM team integrate SCI into their interpreter!!

EDIT: Sweet, looks like they're working on it!! http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/SCI

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#6 Post by MusicallyInspired » Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:15 am

Yeah that was announced ages ago, man :). Someone managed to merge the FreeSCI interpreter into ScummVM. It's still not perfect and I believe the SCI engine is now disabled by default in all the builds now, but if you build it yourself from the source you can enable it. It's getting better. I've played King's Quest 5 all the way up until the Mordack labyrinth where the game broke.

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#7 Post by Angelus3K » Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:06 am

Thats pretty cool!! Might have to compile a Wii version of the SCI build and try KQ5 lol!

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#8 Post by Paladinlover » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:48 pm

It's been quite some time, but I finally got back to looking at this thread, and I gotta admit, I'm still interesting in modding SCI01 and SCI1 games. Anyways, I do have some questions.
Never fear! I did an article with a link to the source code for SCI Studio VGA!

http://www.linux.com/community/blogs/ne ... oject.html

Or, if you want to skip the write-up, and go directly for source (you might need to know how to compile it): http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/creiche ... scistudio/
Well I actually had SCI studio VGA at one point (but I did not download the source code), and it couldn't do anything. I tried to open up QFG 2 and modify it, but it gave me a massive error screen and eventually shut down. How would you get it to work, exactly?
I'm just hoping the ScummVM team integrate SCI into their interpreter!!

EDIT: Sweet, looks like they're working on it!! http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/SCI
Can ScummVM or FreeSCI modify the games? Or just run them? If it can change them, tell me how. I tried to download FreeSCI, but I don't know if it'll work for windows. If I need to compile it or something, can anyone give me some pointers? I really have no idea where to start with this one.

Till next time stay cool 8))

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#9 Post by Angelus3K » Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:33 pm

I'm pretty sure ScummVM would only run them.

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#10 Post by MusicallyInspired » Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:51 am

ScummVM is a game engine interpreter, not a game resource viewer/editor. In other words, it just plays games on new systems.

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#11 Post by Paladinlover » Sun Aug 26, 2012 4:14 am

The unfinished SCI Studio VGA release can open and edit SCI1.0 resources. There's also SCI Graphic Studio which can also do this. I don't know how readily available they are since Brian's site went AWOL, though.

OK, I just decided to bump this thread up with an update. After all these years of basically wondering whether or not it was possible to edit SCI VGA games, I finally figured out the exact process on how to do it. I've only done it with QFG 2 EGA, but if it worked there it should work with other SCI VGA games.

I'm doing this primarily because I've been wanting the ability to edit these games for many years, at least on a superficial level, and I've waited for Brian to make his release, and sadly it didn't happen. I've been wanting some closure to this issue for years, and at least I got some consolation... one day after I've gained some proficiency in c++ I might even see what went into the source code of SCI studio VGA and complete it, even if AGS has a lot more to offer.

Here's the steps that I took to do it. First, get SCI Decoder. It's an ancient program (I'm talking 1993 here) that you can use to extract files, be they view, text or pic (I only used view thus far though), you can get it here. http://erolfi.wordpress.com/category/sci/

After extracting it with that, use SCI graphics studio to open up the extract file and you should be good to go. This is probably the reason why I didn't get this earlier since I accidentally used Brian's view editor separate from SCI graphics studio, which for some reason just doesn't work. I do not know where you can SCI graphics studio online, but I have it on my PC and I will send it to anyone who asks (just PM me your email).

There, now I can smile as I make some minor edits and see my stuff appear on screen. Next stop! Full length games.

Till next time stay cool 8))

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#12 Post by Collector » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:22 am

Far easier to just use the Sierra Resource Viewer. http://sciwiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php ... rce_Viewer

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#13 Post by troflip » Sun Feb 07, 2016 8:53 pm

Reviving this old topic, because

SCI Companion v3 has been released!

A full editor for VGA SCI games!

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#14 Post by navynuke04 » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:13 pm

That's actually really cool! It makes me happy to see work still being done on things like this.

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Re: Any program to edit VGA SCI games with?

#15 Post by goatmeal » Sun Feb 14, 2016 5:50 pm

Wonderful news! Thanks so much for sharing.

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