Perfect replay editor

[CTG]

Once I asked Zak about the possibilty of a program counting the best available replay. He said no - but what if we have the source code? Is there a program being able to produce the perfect replay? Just think it over:

Average length: 80 seconds (1600 units)
3 different buttons can be used in the same time unit (42 combinations)
Possible keyboard combinations in one unit with real meaning: about 20

The program must count 20^1600 possibilities... Okay it is a weak theory with weak maths but I would like to show that it's impossible. Too many possible ways although most of them are nonsense (crashing, driving on the grass, twisting on the road, etc.). Of course we can add some facts to decrease this horrible number (for example rules of useing the transmission, pressing accelerator as long as it's useful, following the road...) but the method seems to me quite impossible.

Do you have any idea? Some of you are really good in maths, programming and informatics - do you think the program can be written and used in reality?

[DieselJoe]

Maths? Computer Science? Nothing to do with this! :mrgreen:










:roll:

[zaqrack]

since when you are watching a replay, Stunts regenerates the whole physic happenings, collisions, acceleration, jumps, etc, everything, it's impossible to do a separate RPL viewer/editor without the sources of the original stunts physic engine.

if we'd have the sources it'd be not that hard to code an optimized replay searcher/writer, so let's celebrate we dont have the sources.

[HappyWorm]

since when you are watching a replay, Stunts regenerates the whole physic happenings, collisions, acceleration, jumps, etc, everything, it's impossible to do a separate RPL viewer/editor without the sources of the original stunts physic engine.

if we'd have the sources it'd be not that hard to code an optimized replay searcher/writer, so let's celebrate we dont have the sources.

well you have at least the possibility to write a wrapper that hooks into the replay-engine  when stunts is loaded to memory and directly passes commands at the engine and fetches the result. of course this would be not very nice but I think it'll work.
second thing would be to reverse-engineer the whole program, first use a decompiler (if I remember correctly stunts was written in Microsoft C 5) and then translate the remaining asm-code per hand - time-consuming but a chance to get the code

[CTG]

I'll buy it!

[al il professore]

i dont know about you happy worm, who are you? i tried to decompile the sources until it gave asm. its not going anywhere because its compressed. I think you have a lot of good ideas but no pragmatism, like CTG and his stupid replay coding program idea.  :twisted:

[HappyWorm]

i dont know about you happy worm, who are you?

joined ZakStunts-Competition a few days ago and startet digging through old threads here to get a picture of the community here...

i tried to decompile the sources until it gave asm.

in my terms "decompile" means that you reverse the binary back into the plain source-code it was written in - MS-C in this case. Just make asm of it i used to call "disassemble"

its not going anywhere because its compressed.

I've just sent any game-executeable through a disasm and it worked without warnings. iirc - it used to complain if code was packed. So either it just missed something or the files are not packed. Could you name the file(s) from which you assume it is packed?

CTG and his stupid replay coding program idea.  

what is stupid about that? I would have used an other approach where I don't need the sources but I think in general it should be possible

[al il professore]

read the code, code yourself, you can create new car shapes modifying any of the .p3s or .pvs files and you can add your own gif animation in any of the opp1 2 3 4 5 6 win lose and pre files. you can also modify the games musics in the .kms files...

but if you can do that you are the stunts messiah.

i think someone with the knowledge could really make useful tools for stunts drivers, but only one with such talent entered the community yet. mark nailwood with trackblaster and carblaster.

then okay, there was alanrotoi with the melange. but the geniuses and even new drivers are so rare those times.

[HappyWorm]

I dont't see where talent is needed for to do those things you've described above. The fileformats are all well documented and if they weren't it would just take some hacking to explore them. Afaik in stuntsfiles is nothing encrypted or encoded to complicate reverse-engineering like it was done in Master of Orion 2 for example - I needed nearly a week to completely crack their graphic-libs.

The bot that drives stunts instead of a human being would be surely an interesting project but I'm very short on time these days - so I think I'll have to wait til summer-vacation with that...

[Mingva]

I just can say "WOW!"  

[Overdrijf]

Replay editing... Sounds like it's not going to be the best driver winning...

[Chulk]

Replay editing... Sounds like it's not going to be the best driver winning...

I guess you're right. Welcome to the community Overdrijf!

[CTG]

And welcome back Chulk! Where were you?

[Krys TOFF]

And welcome back Chulk! Where were you?

He was preparing secretly his asskicking replays for ISM competition and he will send them only the last day of race.

[Overdrijf]

Welcome to the community Overdrijf!

Thanks for the welcome.