New level archive

[cloudrac3r]

Update: The archive is now complete! See Midnight Synergy's post: https://pcpuzzle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=27706

Old post content remains below.

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This is an archive of every RTW level ever posted in these forums along with all the custom models/textures/etc needed to play them.

The archive is 368 MB packed and 1.1 GB unpacked, meaning you'll need at minimum 1.5 GB free disk space to download, unpack and use it.
If you want a smaller version with unnecessary information removed, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
7z archives can be unpacked with the free software tool at https://www.7-zip.org/. I know many of you use WinRAR, and although WinRAR is supposed to support 7z archives, it runs into many errors while unpacking this particular archive. Use 7-Zip to extract, please.
After unpacking, you'll see the 5 CustomXyzzy folders. Move or copy them to your RTW installation folder, overwriting or merging with the folders that are already there.
You might want to make a copy of your current collection of levels before copying the new levels over them, just in case you want to revert later.

Features of the archive:
- Every single level that has ever been posted in the Puzzle/Action levels and Kids Levels forums.
- Levels are organised by creator's first initial, then creator's full name. (CustomLevels/C/Chip/LEVEL001.LV6)
- Every single texture, background, house and model that has ever been posted in the Puzzle/Action Levels, Kids Levels and Custom Content forums.
- All content from mette's old archives have been merged into this archive.
- Textures, backgrounds, houses and models are already unpacked and in the correct place, so all you have to do is load a level.
- All attachments in all pages of topics are downloaded, rather than just the first attachment in the topic as with the previous archive.
- Info from forum topics, for example a link to the topic that the level was retrieved from, or images posted in that forum topic, are available in each person's "Info" folder.
- ZIP files containing levels are unpacked for you.
- Textures/models/houses/backgrounds are resized to avoid crashing the game on certain systems. Thanks for the help, Aryan!

Thanks to Sammy_P for providing advice and stuff. Thanks to Aryan for explaining the power-of-two texture bug. Thanks to Midnight Synergy for not stopping my from abusing his server. Thanks to Chip for providing me with two levels that seem to have vanished from existence some time around 2015. And of course, thank you to YOU, the people who have actually been making these levels in the first place!!

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Stay tuned for another upcoming RTW project. Here's a preview image. No more will be discussed about it for now. https://cadence.gq/api/images/3ed748

[Lazy Loof]

<Post Removed as final version already has resized textures>

[Amnon]

Well done!!!

[Midnight Synergy]

Downloading as we speak - I will check this out soon. Very exciting!

[Midnight Synergy]

Had a quick look - very impressive so far. Yikes, that's a lot of levels!!!

I picked out a couple to play. My first time playing RTW in god knows how long!

You mentioned merging with Mette's archive - yes, it would be great to have a single archive for the levels up to current date. But don't the levels in your archive already include those from mette's previous archive? (I may be confused here)

I think keeping them alphabetically and by users works great. The one thing - but that is separate - would be to have a "suggested levels" topic, so that a newcomer can try out a few suggested levels, rather than starting at a mountain of thousands of levels. I'm thinking even a thread on the forum might do the job, where everyone can post with 5-10 of their favourite levels (not including their own work).

I'll have to figure out a way to reward all of you who contribute to this archive and hence the CD... I'm sure I'll think of something!

[Midnight Synergy]

Oh, and merging Aryan's power-of-2 textures with this forum would be great!

[cloudrac3r]

After downloading the archive, I see that there are lots of useless files. Hope you will remove them soon.

The original plan was to have each forum topic (and therefore each level file) in its own folder. That way I could store other topic-relevant data, such as inline images and links, in this folder for easy access. However it was quickly apparent that there was a major problem with this organisation method: https://cadence.gq/api/images/fc2f6e (Bearers Of The Onion Rings <number>, it's supposed to be, but is cut off.)

This wouldn't do. But rather than scan the entire forum again, I just wrote a script to move the level files (and all the other files) out of their individual folders and into the author's folder.

I plan to solve this in future by dumping all the level files only in the author's folder, then making a new folder called "Info" to put topic folders in. Does this sound like a good idea?

Code: Select all

CustomLevels/
    C/
        Chip/
            CHIP0001.LV6
            CHIP0002.LV6
            Info/
                Bearers of the Onion Rings 1/
                    info.txt
                    links.txt
                    solution.jpg
                Bearers of the Onion Rings 2/
                    info.txt
                    links.txt

Oh, and merging Aryan's power-of-2 textures with this forum would be great!

I plan to use those in the archive, yes. Unfortunately the power-of-2 bug does not occur on my computer, so I'll need to confirm that this fixes the problem on someone else's. Sammy_P's, probably.
Once that's confirmed, I'll use imagemagick to convert all the images. So no need for your program, Aryan, but thanks anyway!

[Lazy Loof]

After downloading the archive, I see that there are lots of useless files. Hope you will remove them soon.

The original plan was to have each forum topic (and therefore each level file) in its own folder. That way I could store other topic-relevant data, such as inline images and links, in this folder for easy access. However it was quickly apparent that there was a major problem with this organisation method: https://cadence.gq/api/images/fc2f6e (Bearers Of The Onion Rings <number>, it's supposed to be, but is cut off.)

This wouldn't do. But rather than scan the entire forum again, I just wrote a script to move the level files (and all the other files) out of their individual folders and into the author's folder.

I plan to solve this in future by dumping all the level files only in the author's folder, then making a new folder called "Info" to put topic folders in. Does this sound like a good idea?

Code: Select all

CustomLevels/
    C/
        Chip/
            CHIP0001.LV6
            CHIP0002.LV6
            Info/
                Bearers of the Onion Rings 1/
                    info.txt
                    links.txt
                    solution.jpg
                Bearers of the Onion Rings 2/
                    info.txt
                    links.txt

Nice idea. But when you will release it, make sure to clear those folders, as they are not needed for the players.

Had a quick look - very impressive so far. Yikes, that's a lot of levels!!!

I picked out a couple to play. My first time playing RTW in god knows how long!

You mentioned merging with Mette's archive - yes, it would be great to have a single archive for the levels up to current date. But don't the levels in your archive already include those from mette's previous archive? (I may be confused here)

I think keeping them alphabetically and by users works great. The one thing - but that is separate - would be to have a "suggested levels" topic, so that a newcomer can try out a few suggested levels, rather than starting at a mountain of thousands of levels. I'm thinking even a thread on the forum might do the job, where everyone can post with 5-10 of their favourite levels (not including their own work).

I'll have to figure out a way to reward all of you who contribute to this archive and hence the CD... I'm sure I'll think of something!

Nice idea. You should also put some highlights of those levels (and of WA Editor Adventures/Hubs) in Midnight Post 27. (whenever it will be out )

Oh, and merging Aryan's power-of-2 textures with this forum would be great!

I plan to use those in the archive, yes. Unfortunately the power-of-2 bug does not occur on my computer, so I'll need to confirm that this fixes the problem on someone else's. Sammy_P's, probably.
Once that's confirmed, I'll use imagemagick to convert all the images. So no need for your program, Aryan, but thanks anyway!

When I first had that issue, I googled it and found imagemagick, but it was not for me so I simply created a program that can resize those textures without losing the quality of the images.
I had the issue and so have resized the textures with the program, and the levels WORKED. (and they were pretty "cool" )

Here are they:
(EDIT: Link removed as the final version already includes resized textures.)

[cloudrac3r]

Nice idea. But when you will release it, make sure to clear those folders, as they are not needed for the players.

Actually, the whole idea was to include them in for the players.
Say you're stuck on a level and want to see a video solution. Open the level folder and open links.txt. You now have a list of every link in the topic, and if a video solution is available, it'll be in there.
If there's no video solution available, you can check info.txt, which includes a link to the forum topic so that you can read the replies and find text-based hints in there.
And finally, nothing on the internet lasts forever. As Midnight Synergy said, the forums should stay online for many more years, but it really cannot last forever. Offline archives from CDs will though. And it would be convenient if important data from the topic was available in the archive for quick reference, or if the online copy no longer exists.

If you wish, I can make an alternate version of the archive with these folders taken out, but I'll still be uploading the version with all the images unless you have a really good reason for me to not to.

[Lazy Loof]

Nice idea. But when you will release it, make sure to clear those folders, as they are not needed for the players.

Actually, the whole idea was to include them in for the players.
Say you're stuck on a level and want to see a video solution. Open the level folder and open links.txt. You now have a list of every link in the topic, and if a video solution is available, it'll be in there.
If there's no video solution available, you can check info.txt, which includes a link to the forum topic so that you can read the replies and find text-based hints in there.
And finally, nothing on the internet lasts forever. As Midnight Synergy said, the forums should stay online for many more years, but it really cannot last forever. Offline archives from CDs will though. And it would be convenient if important data from the topic was available in the archive for quick reference, or if the online copy no longer exists.

If you wish, I can make an alternate version of the archive with these folders taken out, but I'll still be uploading the version with all the images unless you have a really good reason for me to not to.

Okay.

[cloudrac3r]

Update!

http://cadence.gq:8082/levels.7z

Here's what has been changed:
- Topic data is organised into the "Info" folder.
- Levels are under their poster's folder rather than the topic author's folder.

The download link is the same, but the file has been updated to include these changes. Delete your existing CustomModels/Textures/Levels/etc folders, then download levels.7z and extract as before.

[Lazy Loof]

Nice, good job!

[cloudrac3r]

Yep, and I'll be doing that next. Got a system planned with GraphicsMagick and Sharp, just have to put it into practice.

[Lazy Loof]

Yep, and I'll be doing that next. Got a system planned with GraphicsMagick and Sharp, just have to put it into practice.

Good luck on that!

I hope the archive will turn out well and good.

[Midnight Synergy]

Had a few days away from the forum, now back. Just downloading the latest version.

You said

- Need to merge my archive with Mette's old archive.

What do you mean by that, exactly. Would the new archive not just simply replace the old one... does it not include all of the levels from Mette's archive?

[cloudrac3r]

Apparently Mette's archive has some levels that I don't in mine. I don't know if these have been deleted or what, and I don't know if there is even anything missing, but I figure the best option is to merge them anyway just in case I missed anything.

I'll put down some code for this once I'm done with the resizing. Shouldn't be too hard.

[cloudrac3r]

Update!

http://cadence.gq:8082/levels.7z

Here's what has been changed:
- Images are resized to avoid loading errors
- ~xpr'd~'s name doesn't MAV the game any more??? for some reason??????? sure, I'll take that

The download link is the same, but the file has been updated to include these changes. Delete your existing CustomModels/Textures/Levels/etc folders, then download levels.7z and extract as before.

If you have anything else to request, now would be the time to do it!! I'd prefer not to have to rescan three entire forums yet again just because somebody wants something sorted into a different place.

[Lazy Loof]

Thanks for the help, Aryan!

Welcome.

Also, it would be great if Patrick would make this topic as well as my WA archive topic sticky, so members will not have to search down for the archive.

[cloudrac3r]

Alright, so more info about Mette's archive merge.

Check my archive: CustomLevels/2/2yu556. You'll see 14 level files and if you look in the Info folder you'll see 5 topic folders, meaning only 5 topics from 2yu556 were found.
Check mette's archive: CustomLevels/0-9/2YU556 and you'll see 170 level files. So why didn't my archive pick up all those?

Well, in this case, it's because all those level files were from the Kids Levels forum. I do intend to scan that forum as well, so no harm done, but in the case that somebody deleted their level I wouldn't have it but mette might. Makes sense to merge them, and the code wasn't that difficult to put together.

Let's perform a search for topics from 2yu556 in the Puzzle/Action levels forum. Looks like there's just 5 topics, which are the same five topics that my archive picked up. Looks like it works properly.
Now perform a search for posts from 2yu556 in the Kids Levels forum, and you'll see that there's many more topics which I don't yet have in my archive.

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And with that, my merging code would appear to be complete.
All that's left to do is to download from all three RTW content forums, then I'll combine those, then I'll merge with mette, than I'll resize all the textures, and finally I'll pack all that into what is most likely the final revision of the archive. Hurrah!

With this final revision I will also probably be changing the download link to something from the same server but with HTTPS, so you can be confident that there's no hackers messing with your levels in transit and editing them to be impossible to complete.

[Midnight Synergy]

Fantastic work, cloudracer!

When the final revision (I guess there's one more with the merge) is done, I will host it on this server and also modify the wonderland archive page for a link to it: http://www.midnightsynergy.com/nutters/

If it's ok with you,
1) credit (username) will be listed for your work on this creation with mention of aryan's help
2) I will prepare a version of RTW that has the archive already built in, for the new collection CD

[Midnight Synergy]

(oh, and when the CD comes out, I will send you a complimentary copy as a little token of thanks for your work!)

[cloudrac3r]

If it's ok with you,

It'd be an honour.

(oh, and when the CD comes out, I will send you a complimentary copy as a little token of thanks for your work!)

[Lazy Loof]

<Post Removed>

[cloudrac3r]

Final update!

The archive is now complete unless anybody else has any suggestions.

The archive has moved to a new web address which you can find in the first post in this topic. The file at the previous link has been removed.
(This is why the link wasn't working, Aryan. You caught me at a bad time )

Here's what has been changed:
- All RTW-related forums have been scanned for content.
- Mette's archives have been merged into mine.
- "~xpr'd~" has been renamed to "xprd" and sorted into the X folder to avoid a potential MAV.
- The unpacked files are now over 1 GB (!) in size. I can prepare a smaller version with mostly useless information removed if anybody wants it.

When the final revision (I guess there's one more with the merge) is done, I will host it on this server and also modify the wonderland archive page for a link to it: http://www.midnightsynergy.com/nutters/

Well, here you go! All done. Feel free to clone and rehost this (make sure to check the checksums!!). You have HTTPS on your site, right?

[Lazy Loof]

Yay!
(I've edited my previous posts because according to me, all the known problems are solved.)

[yuenlungwong]

Thank you for your hard work!!

[doodlebug]

Is this ready to download now. If so how do you open the files once downloaded. Thanks

Annie

[cloudrac3r]

Yes, it is ready to download now.

You can read the first post in this topic for all the details about how to play the levels.

[doodlebug]

Thanks for all your hard work. I have them all downloaded. Annie