Invader

[Kavawuvi 7133]

Invader's received more updates and bugfixes! It now has all of the original HEK limits in place, and we're going to be providing some extended limits for things the base game is OK with but the stock tools are not.

 

I'm also working on a Rust rewrite, and it's about 5x faster at loading tags than the current C++ implementation.

 

Here is how long it takes to load d40b.scenario_structure_bsp, one of the largest tags in the entirety of Halo. Top is current invader-edit.exe. Bottom is the Rust rewrite compiled for Windows. The new parser is about 5.1x faster than the older one.

 

 

On the same system, this tag takes over two seconds to load on Guerilla.exe. If we want to compare it to Guerilla, we could say it is 423.4x faster than Guerilla, but this would be misleading as it doesn't include the time it takes to load widgets. The actual metric is more like only 5.9x faster, where the current parser is only 5.6x faster than Guerilla.

Invader also now supports the August 2022 update. For more information on what this entails, check out the MCC post here:

 

[Kavawuvi 7133]

I'm going to start releasing builds of the rewritten parts of Invader as those become more feature complete.

 

For example, the new bitmap command is not only faster than old Invader but extremely accurate to tool.exe where it matters and straight-up better in all other cases, featuring higher quality DXT compression, highly accurate sprite sheet and bunpmap generation, highly accurate sharpening, and a superior blurring filter that is gamma-corrected.

 

While an already superior tool in its own right compared to any other released bitmap tool, it also features more powerful data recovery, tag conversion, and script compilation, making it the best tool for all of these features.

 

Being written in Rust, it is also inherently less prone to stability issues, being that nearly all code is "safe" Rust.

[Kavawuvi 7133]

The Rust rewrite of Invader has been going fairly smoothly, as you can now extract bitmaps and sound data from extracted tags. I've also been working on improving performance among other things.

 

In other news, Discord announced that they were going to add support for subscriptions so you can support your favorite content creators in exchange for perks such as bonus content and cosmetic perks.

 

So, to help with the development of Invader, I've decided to roll out Invader's new subscription plan which I like to call Invader++, replacing the old model entirely. With Invader++, you will get priority access to new builds, new features, and other services, all for a very low price!

 

Here's the pricing for each tier:

 

I imagine most people will probably get Invader++ Ultra.

 

I will also be awarding one year of free Invader++ Ultra to the first person to the winner of this month's screenshot of the month. That's right, no pizza pics are needed today, just good old fashioned screenshots of your favorite game. Post your entry here and you might just win a free year of Invader!

 

Spoiler

But seriously, fuck paywalls for modding tools and other reverse engineering efforts of stuff you don't own. Just whyyy >.<

 

[Sunstriker7 751]

Had me in the first half, ngl.

 

I will still offer pizza pics if desired.

[Kavawuvi 7133]

15 hours ago, Sunstriker7 said:

Had me in the first half, ngl.

 

I will still offer pizza pics if desired.

It can be the tiebreaker.

[Kavawuvi 7133]

Working on some more features. This one's a command for fullbrighting BSPs so you can quickly debug them without baking lightmaps. This is great for incremental changes or for placing objects in Sapien without lighting.