System Shock 1 with Mac assets?

[6740927d1fff3Al_B]

Good stuff.  I incorporated the image decoding into the MacConvert utility and made the preview quite a bit friendlier.  It's not perfect but it's useful for browsing the various images and extracting the ones you want.  Images are saved in transparent PNG - the BMP files lost that and it'll be needed if the original resources can be replaced.

The decompression is slightly different to your original code - I used the reference from this project which I hadn't heard of before but it seems to have useful info.

I've attached binary and source (VS2013 c#) to this post in case anyone wants to have a play.

[6740927d201d0Hogdalen]

Good stuff indeed! I was hoping I could inspire someone to do it properly. No we can really start exploring this stuff.

[6740927d20319Al_B]

The source you posted was a big help with the processing so it's a joint effort.  I did an update to allow original .res files to be opened as well as the .r files and noticed a mistake with the image decompression in my code so I've updated the attachments in my last post.

[6740927d2048aHogdalen]

I suppose the next step would be to make a tool that writes LG resource files that the original DOS System Shock can read -- unless one exists already?

Something that takes a list of Mac image resources, like the .bin files that MacConvert produces, and simply flips the big-endian bytes and writes them all into a single .res file with a proper header and a master directory first. Then we will see how the game handles higher-resolution images.

[6740927d205cbAl_B]

Well, it makes things interesting - not sure it's exactly what's desired, however...

Edit: Updated binary and source attachments in above post with version that can save .res files - unlikely to work for any files other than image resources at the moment.

[6740927d206ffWhyNott]

Is there anything that could possibly be done about it?

[6740927d20826Al_B]

May be possible to change the UI scaling factors in the same way that higher resolutions were patched in but I've never looked into that personally.

[6740927d209ffZylonBane]

Huh... Is it taking exactly as many pixels from the center of each bitmap as were in the original bitmaps?

[6740927d20b5eAl_B]

Not quite - I think it's scaling the image with the same scaling factor and clipping it to the left MFD panel.  The displayed image is actually a bit bigger than the original.  It's clearer if viewed with the lowest game resolution as attached.

(Ignore the black box around the pipe - I've been playing with the higher resolution weapon graphics as well)

[6740927d20c92Hogdalen]

What effect do the WidthFactor and HeightFactor fields in the bitmap header have? Any at all?

[6740927d20db1ZylonBane]

I'll just say this-- if this can be made to work, high-res Rebecca needs some retouching to move her eyes farther apart.

[6740927d211f3Al_B]

She may also need to consider the amount of lipstick she's applying.

What effect do the WidthFactor and HeightFactor fields in the bitmap header have? Any at all?

I haven't tried those particular fields as my interpretation is that they are used for allocating memory when decoding the images and don't affect scaling.  There's likely to be a global (fixed or floating point) scaling factor for the UI elements.  It's doing a pretty good job as it is of accepting the higher resolution images so I'm still hopeful.

[6740927d21542Kolya]

I'll just say this-- if this can be made to work, high-res Rebecca needs some retouching to move her eyes farther apart.

[6740927d2171bvoodoo47]

she definitely is better off without the manjaw.

[6740927d2187fHikari]

Nicely re-touched Koyla. Thank you.

[6740927d21a41Kolya]

That was only a throw-away test in which I munged a few pixels just to see where they could go. Of course I agree that she looks sexier without the huge jaw. But now that I see it again I'm beginning to think that her chin makes her a recognisable and more of a normal person than your typical NPC messenger type. Which I kinda like.
But what I like even more is the low-res version in which seems to have her mouth slightly opened - like she was speaking - and the worried look of her raised eyebrows.
Which is weird because it probably was simply scaled down from the hi-res image. But the low-res image looks the most interesting. Low-res magic.

[6740927d21baeAl_B]

Yup - I suspect a lot of it is just the mind filling in the blanks.  They appear to have squashed the picture when they originally down-sized it - if you resize the Mac version to the same size as the PC version the two images overlap pretty much precisely which I didn't expect as the aspect ratio is different for both images.  They've done some touching up of the images but it's clear they came from the same source material.

[6740927d21cfbKolya]

This is bit closer to how I perceive the PC original. I'd still like to see what Zylon Shtupping Bane comes up with. 

[6740927d21e39ZylonBane]

Probably nothing that good. I can't draw at all.

[6740927d22331RocketMan]

I'll just say this-- if this can be made to work, high-res Rebecca needs some retouching to move her eyes farther apart.

She needs a lot more work than that lol.

..but seriously, if we change her too much, she's not Rebecca.


...and for the first time ever, I realized that a key NPC from SS1 has the same name as a key NPC from SS2. 

[6740927d22618Olfred]

In my opinion the only thing which needs to be edited is the overly use of lipstick.
Maybe not for all pictures, but for the ones where it makes sense to closer resemble the DOS version.

[6740927d2294cSynaesthesia]

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8054.0;attach=11119;image

So I can finally see what's going on here. The Hacker is being confronted by a Cyborg Warrior. Is that a brain on a body behind him or is it a blue virus mutant?

[6740927d22a4eWhyNott]

So I guess that changing the portrait's resolution was something thats juts couldn't be done after all

[6740927d22dfdZylonBane]

So I guess that changing the portrait's resolution was something thats juts couldn't be done after all

You're the guy on the right. Everyone who knows how to do this stuff but only has so much free time is the guy on the left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lefP0_ZM-Lw