Character exporter?

stranf · Post by **stranf** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:04 pm

So I have some people interested in my worldfile, the only problem is, is if they have PCs, when they install the shared files they will be wiped.

Is there anyway we could create a program to export PCs and then run it to "add" them back into the shard.

I assume we'd might lose some items and obviously the houses/etc. But if we could at least save the character builds it'd be nice.

If a program is impossible, maybe you could tell me a safe location that we would agree not to decorate, then dump all the pc's there, and do not copy over that specific .wsc file. That could work to.

Anyway, just a thought.

stranf · Post by **stranf** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:42 pm

six views.....no replies...that's not a good sign..

Maarc · Post by **Maarc** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:26 am

There isn't a character exporter, per se.

However, everything to do with a character is stored together in the world files. When a character is saved to the world file, immediately after that character entry is the entries for all their possessions. So by and large, it shouldn't be hard to lift out those entries.

Having said that, the biggest issue you'd have with copying that across to another world would be the fact the serials for those Characters or Items may be in use, and you'd need to ensure there are no conflicts. Easier said than done, and as you say, better to be done with a tool rather than by hand.

As for a safe location ... well, as far as I know, there's a lot of chunky free space in green acres. Have a look at the map with InsideUO, you should see it on the main map (big empty green nothing).

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:56 am

The best way to export characters would be if someone wrote a tool capable of doing so. This is partially for reasons Maarc mentioned (it could scan the new worldfile for possible conflicts and update itself appropriately), but also because characters don't mean much without at very least their equipment. If you just moved the character save entry you would find them without a pack, armor, or anything else.

Unfortunately, there exists no such tool, at the moment, but the main thing UOX3 relies on is a contributing community. Thus when someone comes along who sees that need and has the time & ability, it really wouldn't be too difficult of a program to create.

By-and-large one could borrow UOX3's own loading/saving code, modify it so it can save out individual characters along with their belongings, and then give it the ability to import new characters to a worldfile.

Maarc · Post by **Maarc** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:30 am

I'm happy enough to contribute some of the code I've got lying around that might help with this (at least, from a tool development perspective). As an upshot of my work on the PkgInstaller, I've updated the UOXData classes, so it would be (relatively speaking) possible to reuse that code to load/read/parse world files. Granted, C# only, but it wouldn't be too hard to backport this to C++.

I'll post my thoughts on this to another topic giwo, not clutter up this thread.

stranf · Post by **stranf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:19 pm

thanks guys!

As for me it's no big deal, on my shard we have at most 10 PCs. If I have to do a clean build, with the GMs adding stats and armor it dosen't take to long to get the PCs where they used to be.

I just have people interested in my worldfile, and I'd hate for them to be playing on a shard with 20-30+ PCs and have someone release a complete worldbuild, where they will have to sacrifice everything to try out the new worldfile.

maybe we should find out if it is that big of a deal first?

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:39 am

Just to let you know, stranf, I've undertaken my first attempt at C# programming and started building this utility.

After about a day of work, the current abilities of the Character Exporter are:

Full Worldfile loading Displaying Characters & Items they hold (on them and in pack).
Full Worldfile saving, as one large file which UOX3 will read and later spit out as the many files we use.
Character Exporting to a file based on characters name.
Character Importing from said file into loaded world, checking for valid serial numbers.

What is left to do:

Filtering the character list by NPC or Player (for those large worlds with lots of saved NPC's).
Ability to strip off items on exported characters.

stranf · Post by **stranf** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:03 am

Wow. Thanks Giwo, that would be awesome!

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:39 am

v0.1 of UOX3 Character Viewer (Exporter) Is now live!

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/open ... p?download

Initial Release

Current Features:

Load UOX3 Worldfiles, Displaying any Characters (and the items they contain).
Save UOX3 worldfiles as a single file, which UOX3 will load.
Export Selected character, with optional items, to an export file.
Import character files checking for valid Serial numbers to a loaded worldfile.

Currently the only "known" issue is that the save file Character Viewer creates, because it is a single worldsave file, will not DISPLAY properly when UOX3 loads it. The data itself, however, will be loaded with no problems. I am considering a way to fix this, be it with UOX3 or in the ToolAPI.

Much thanks goes out to Maarcs ToolAPI for the quick creation of this utility, It made my life much easier.

Maarc · Post by **Maarc** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:54 am

That's some good work giwo, very well done. If you can think of anything you need for the ToolAPI, throw us a message and I'll see if I can't integrate it.

In fact, I'll start a thread somewhere about this.

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:32 pm

Well I did some more work to smoothe out the rough edges of this tool, and thus have a new version already!

UOX3 Character Viewer v0.2 - Released 02/28/2006

Code: Select all

Added a progress bar for worldfile loading.
Modified the openFileDialog to default to the same directory as the openFolderDialog.
Cleared out all current world data before loading new world.
Added Caption text to message boxes.
Added description text to openFolderDialogs.
Minor updates/improvements.
Added UOX3 icon to the GUI Window.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=181384

Post by **Xuri** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:55 pm

Two suggestions:
1) Put version number in title bar
2) Allow exporting of multiple characters at the same time, as I would (potentially) be to lazy to export hundreds of characters one by one

If 2) already exist, please let me know how to do it hehe =)

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:54 pm

There is no way to do so currently, I'll have to think on a good way to do so...

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:11 pm

Your wish is my command!

Code: Select all

[color=yellow]03/01/2006 - giwo (v0.3)[/color]
	Locked the "Maximize" button.
	Set the "Maximum Size" property for resizing.
	Added the version number to the title bar.
	Added support for exporting multiple characters.
	Added support for importing multiple character files.
	Modified character exporting to include serial numbers in filenames thus reducing chances of duplication.
	Added error-checking when importing files to ensure they actually have valid data in them.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/open ... p?download

Post by **Xuri** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:15 pm

giwo wrote:Your wish is my command!

Well, since you put it that way - how about including support for importing goods and merchandise of various types toll-free to Norway in the next version?

Nice job, in any case

giwo · Post by **giwo** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:18 am

Code: Select all

[color=yellow]03/05/2006 - giwo (v0.4)[/color]
	Fixed an issue causing character serials to change even when they are not conflicting.
	Added some notifications to let the user know when a file has been loaded but no characters found.
	Made the form a non-resizable tool window.
	Fixed some spacing issues when using Windows XP Luna theme.
	Enabled horizontal scrolling on the listboxes.

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[IMPLEMENTED] Character exporter?

Character exporter?