R.e.a.l. External Resource Extraction (ver 5.1b), IMO the best. Has loading bar. By kow. Options

[Potnop]

OK somehow the original R.E.A.L. topic has disapeared. So I made this and uploaded all the files. Just know I'm not the creator. kow is. He stopped working on this and went on to real programming or something... So I kinda took over and made a few modifications to suit my needs in my game.

I think this is pretty much the best external resource extraction system for GM. It has a progress bar to show how the resources are being extracted. Or you can have the game play itself be happening while loading resources. All other loading systems I've seen tend to freeze the game while they load the resources since you can't create multiple threads in GM. If you don't know what that means, never mind...

This extracts from 7zip files, so you can have password protection and keep your resources secure. To make your own archives you can just use the 7zip program.
www.7-zip.org

Here's kow's words from the manual. I think these were also his words from the original topic.

Gm currently has no way of Loading external files directly from inside an archive (like zip files or 7z). files must be extracted - then loaded - then deleted.
this system was designed to manage all that for you while keeping your resources safe! in fact it takes the whole loading concept to the next step by helping you create interactive loading screens like a pro console game, thus keeping your players glued to the screen while you manage your resources. it also includes a set of scripts to help you create archives in REALTIME on the fly without interrupting gameplay! so now you can save your games or highscores and not worry about anyone modifying them! works amazing for netplay too! imagine sharing multiplayer maps! just archive the resources and send away!

im sure many of you have played console games that have Loading screens when you go from one level to the next. Many times, these games will have neat animations or even interactions like super simple mini games. REAL allow you to create such interactive Loading rooms. It includes its own Loading bar (fully customizable and easy to replace with your own), support for tons of archive formats, is the most secure during its extraction and load, and best of all .. its REAL easy to use. =)

[ -Features- ]:

* allows you to import sprites/backgrounds/sounds and even use it as a regular file extractor.
* Support for loading SXMS audio. ( requires some uncommented lines in Load_Step script) supports SXMS 3 as well as 2
* Loading progress bar with 2 modes of messages. display file loading / display percent loaded. (easily replacable)
* can run from anywhere as well as extract TO anywhere or archive anything as long as DLL and EXE are together.
* secure archiving of files --uses top of the line file and password encryptions.
* supports the following formats:
o 7z
o ZIP
o GZIP
o TAR
o BZIP2
o RAR (only browsing and decompression)
o CAB (only browsing and decompression)
o ARJ (only browsing and decompression)
o Z (only browsing and decompression)
o CPIO (only browsing and decompression)
o RPM (only browsing and decompression)
o DEB (only browsing and decompression)
o LZH (only browsing and decompression)
o SPLIT (only browsing and decompression)
o CHM (only browsing and decompression)
* scripts return index values like the _add functions in the manual (note: for sound it can only obtain these AFTER the files are physicaly loaded.)
* Realtime, you can have animations, movies, simple gameplay happening while stuff loads!
* allows you to Store your external files into archives!
o supports
+ 7z
+ zip
+ gzip
+ bzip2
+ Z
+ tar
* Always welcoming suggestions for improvement.

He also said to give credit to these people if you use this in our games...

Credits
kow
porfirio
kickboxer89
battlegorge.

potnop(if you use my upgrade)

Trouble Shooting
Problem: This isn't working at all, I keep getting errors:
Solution You most likely downloaded my 5.1 update but didn't download version 4 as well. Download either Real Loading 4 Core or Real Loading 4. This includes all documentation and required files, while 5.1 is only the Game Maker file that contains internal code to use the system.

I might also upload my way of extracting with REAL, because I know this seems complicated and you guys want a good example. The one that comes with REAL Loading is also a bit complicated. My way of using REAL is more efficient I think and simpler to understand. I might upload that some time...

Real Loading 4 Core
Here's the original REAL loading core made by kow. It has all the required stuff like the dlls and executable files and a manual. You need this. If you want my little upgrade download the 5.1 file below also. This is a light download without the sample stuff included.



Mirror:
Real Loading Core 4


Real Loading 4
This also has all required files but it also includes a sample file and archive. If you never used REAL you might want this to have a better idea of how to work with REAL.


Real Loading 5.1b (Mostly a patch, you need the other files)
Here's the editable core file with scripts modified by me. It makes it so the engine only extracts needed files instead of the whole archive. Just use it as you normally would but replace all your REAL scripts with mine. I think you only need a couple but just to be safe replace em all since I'm not sure exactly each modified script. You need to download Real Loading 4 or Real Loading 4 Core for all the other required files including the manual. BTW, this is an upgrade over my original upgrade so if you had this before you need this one. It solves a pretty major problem with the old one. The old one didn't do what it said it would.

Also all the code that kow wrote, I reformatted so it's a lot more readable. For me it's so much better on the eyes because now I can understand what all the code does. I decided not to add all the semicolons where they need to be in case I mess something up. If there are problems someone tell me because I might have messed something up just by reformatting the code. I tested it in my game and it all still worked but you never know.

Also when creating archives with 7zip or any other program be sure the "create a solid archive" option is set to off if using 5.1b. Extracting a solid archive requires that the whole archive be extracted. I think it's fine if you have this option on for the original versions since those actually extract the whole archive.

ATTENTION!! This game maker file simply contains code that I modified. For the system to actually work you need to download either Real Loading 4 or Real Loading 4 Core and use the files that come with it. The needed files are "7za.exe" and "run.dll"


Oh and one more thing before you download this file, read the above attention statement if you haven't already!!!


Mirror:
Real Loading Core 5.1b -my little update

This post has been edited by Potnop: Jun 18 2008, 03:13 AM

[dender]

I'm glad you have taken time to upload your update. I'm gonna test it right away.

Right now I have a little error with "LevelLoader.extractList" in "REAL_step" 29-th line.
Unknown variable.

_________________________________________

Anyway if someone wants to put image instead of "healthbar" to add more professionality, delete "draw_healthbar()" from "REAL_draw()" script and replace it with:
-e.g:

draw_sprite_part(sprite,-1,0,0,sprite_width/100*loadbar,sprite_height,x,y)

So this works in horisontal way. And notice that, that loading bar is just as long as your image size.

This post has been edited by dender: Mar 20 2007, 12:16 PM

[Potnop]

Error in my thing? Damn, it worked on my comp. I only tested it in my game...

[dender]

When I removed "+string(LevelLoader.extractList)" in ret variable, then there were no problems. There is no such thing in original REAL core too. I don't know does it affects anything or not, but game still loads.

This post has been edited by dender: Mar 20 2007, 05:48 PM

[Potnop]

Wow, I don't know how that bit of code got back in there. THat was from 5.0 and I took it out in 5.1. Yea it works if you remove that because it shouldn't even be there in the first place.

I'm gonna upload a fix for future downloaders. It's now 5.1a due to the tiny fix.

This post has been edited by Potnop: Mar 20 2007, 10:42 PM

[Porfirio]

Wow, old REAL is still alive
It taked me and KOW alllllooootttt of time to figured it out
Unfortanly kow have desapeard
Our times are fully incompatible

Thank you for keeping this up

[Potnop]

Yea, I'm using this thing for my game, and I love the loading bars.

[gm man]

Thanks a lot for uploading this! I have spent the last few hours trying to find it...

[kickassgames]

Awesome i can't believe that the topic for this disappeared but you revived it so thankyou and works fine for me!

[dgm]

This looks very useful, but I can't find the license information for the 7za executable. I need to know if I can use this without being obligated to release my source code.

If not, I need another tool that doesn't have such restrictions.

[Potnop]

I think it's free... I never heard of being obligated to release source code or anything... I heard of paying a license fee or soemthing, but yeah...

Don't worry about it though. I'm sure if there were issues with it, Kow would've said so, or used a different tool to extract.

[dgm]

I can't get the Store_Directory script to work. Here's the line:

CODE

Store_Directory("dungeon4.7z", "E:\GM7.0\REAL\TheDungeon\Test\", "", 0);

When I try this I get an archive file, but it's apparently empty (it shows as being 0KB and yes, there are files in the Test folder). And no matter how long I let it sit it never seems to finish; after I stop the program I can't delete the .7z file because it's considered to be in use.

When I try to create any other kind of archive besides .7z I get nothing at all, not even an empty archive.

I'm using the 5.1a scripts and I haven't modified any of them.

This post has been edited by dgm: Apr 23 2007, 07:30 AM

[dgm]

I have to ammend what I said before. Store_Directory() will not only create .tar files, but it will create them properly. As in, the .tar file is the correct size and the contents can be extracted and used.

Everything else is still screwed up, though. .7z files are still created empty and nothing else gets created at all (I want to create .zip files).

[Potnop]

I never tried using those functions before. So you say it creates tar files correctly?

[dgm]

...And only .tar files. That's using Store_Directory(). I don't need the other two store functions, so I haven't tried them.

[Potnop]

Weird...

From the way you are writing the function call it looks like it should work fine according to the manual. I'll look into it more when I have time...

Weird though that it writes tar files successfully and not anything else. For leaving the password blank try not having the quotation marks at all. Just leave that argument totally blank. See if that works. In the REAL manual it says to just leave it blank if there's no password.

This post has been edited by Potnop: Apr 24 2007, 12:20 AM

[dgm]

For leaving the password blank try not having the quotation marks at all.  Just leave that argument totally blank.  See if that works.  In the REAL manual it says to just leave it blank if there's no password.

It made the .tar files just fine with empty quotes, and it still screwed up other formats even when I tried using a password. That can't be the problem.

EDIT: I should also mention that I'm using GM7.0, in case it matters.

This post has been edited by dgm: Apr 24 2007, 01:01 AM

[Potnop]

IDK if GM causes problems. GMphysics seems to have problems with GM 7 though. Well that's weird that it still had problems...

I beleive zip files can't be passworded though. So if you're trying to create zip files try leaving the field blank?

What do you need this for though?

[dgm]

What do you need this for though?

The one limitation GM has that I can't work around is the lack of multi-platform support. I intend to port my game later, and when I do I want to be able to use the same data files. I want to use the .zip format because it's the most common, which means it should be the easiest to find tools for working with in other game engines.

I can work with .tar for now, while I'm still coding. But I'll need to switch over to .zip before I publish.

EDIT: I just tested using a blank field for the password. As I expected, the program crashed. That's not the reason Store_Directory() isn't working.

This post has been edited by dgm: Apr 24 2007, 01:31 AM

[Potnop]

So instead, why don't you use winzip and zip up your games? Or are you making some kind of resource tool thing?