One file games
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/One file games
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| I downloaded a supposedly Blitz3D made game the other day, but it only had one file - the .exe! How is that possible? There were no hidden files, but plenty of meshes and textures in the game. Did they somehow put the media in the .exe? Can anyone do that? Why wouldn't that information be in the docs? Thanks! Hope someone can help :) |
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| It is possible....but that doenst really answer your problem. You can turn an image file into a data file and once compiled into an exe, the media (image) is within the code itself. The same would apply with any file type. So what was this supposed B3d file? PPL here might know. |
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| You can use molebox to do this as well, put the mesh within the .exe file |
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| What, would it all be on one line? .pngs and .xs are huge when you open then in notepad. You mean like that? What command would you put all that under? Okay, thanks for the responce. Glad to hear it can be done. |
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| Molebox? Great, I'll look that up now. Thanks. |
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| You can find some useful file packers in the toolbox section of this site, too. http://www.blitzbasic.com/toolbox/toolbox.php?cat=10 |
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| Okay, I'll look at that tonight. I tried the demo of Molebox. It works well, but are there any cheaper programs or shareware? I'm cool with paying 60 bucks for the Standard version, but I don't fully understand what I'd be missing not getting Pro, which is "$119/$499" Frontslash? Is that like hitpoints? If so, maybe I can pay $10 out of $60? To their credit though, I got my program to bundle into a single .exe, media and all, on the very first try without any trouble. But if anyone knows any drawbacks to using the Standard version for final Blitz3D games, please post them. Here's the version comparison, I couldn't really understand it:  |
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| I just see a giant black box? |
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| I use TeraBit's pakmaker. it's in the toolbox section. |
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| I use TeraBit's pakmaker. It uses temporary files, so completely pointless if you're looking to protect your media.Use Molebox. |
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| hmmm... I use blitz media linker it works well :) |
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| I use blitz media linker, too. It's free. |
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| I use Blitz Media Linker too. Free and it does what you want.. All in one file.. Don't buy another file packer.. |
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| http://home.arcor.de/al90/files/BlitzMediaLinker19.zip Thanks for that utilities link. I looked everything over last night and I like this one best, but that's just me. So it's called a linker? Now all I have to do is figure out why so many Blitz3D games don't use one, and always have a bunch of stray media files anyone could look at, alter, or steal. Steal seems like the worst possibility, but consider "look at" if you had a big 2.1D game with lots of surprizes in the levels as you progressed, people could see all that stuff ahead of time without even having to play the game! That was my motivation for looking into this anyway, and now I don't have to worry about it at all, so thank you very much for the help. I don't know what I'd do without this forum. |
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| I use blitz media linker, too. It's free. thoe dont know if vista likes it :) |
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| a big problem with BlitzMediaLinker is, you canīt include dllīs or a second/third... exe! otherwise it would be a nice tool ;) cheers, chi |
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| I haven't had a need for more than one exe, or any dlls. Why would I need them? Please explain, I'm pretty new to all this. |
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| itīs pretty uncommon to include a second exe... but sometimes you need to. dllīs are used to extend b3d (anisotropic filtering, physix, realtime shadow,...) but since you are new to all -> just forget it for now ;) |
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| I got curious about this: What if I use media linker to protect the media, but then i build a normal installer and deliver the DLLs as normal files in the installation folder. (i.e. if I don't feel no need to protect the DLLs but let them lie there in the same folder). Will this work with media linker? |
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| if you donīt want to strongly protect your dll this will work for sure... you can then also use 7zip to pack your bml-exe + dll to another exe. on execution all files are copied to the tempfolder and your selected program starts... but you will need to download the "extra" file from 7zip. |
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| dllīs are used to extend b3d (anisotropic filtering, physix, realtime shadow,...) but since you are new to all -> just forget it for now ;) Oh good, that's not me anyway! I think all a game really needs to look good is good art. Using some alpha meshes here and there for light or water is okay, but the rest is nothing. It's a level's design that matters, not whether or not it has realtime shadows. Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, and Silent Hill were all perfect games, but technically speaking, just pure Blitz3D could outdo them!  Here's a game that's - I think - 2.1D, meaning it's areas are basically just made up of a painting over a low resolution collision mesh, and the camera never moves. Anyway, I'm really glad you guys told me about Blitz Media Linker. For a while there I was under the impression that, because all the games I'd downloaded so far came with all the media exposed, mine would have to be that way too. So thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. |
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