avp/README

Aliens vs Predator Linux  http://icculus.org/avp/
------------------------

This is an unofficial Linux port of the Fox Interactive / Rebellion
Developments game, Aliens Versus Predator.

The port is currently under development; it is not yet "suitable for
end users."  Hopefully this status will change in the not-so-distant future.





(Please see note below regarding installation/running.)


Obviously this README is totally incomplete, and will probably remain so for
quite a while, so I'll just try to list a few important notes.


The original copyright statement for the source code:
"The source code to Aliens Vs Predator is copyright (c) 1999-2000 Rebellion
 and is provided as is with no warranty for its suitability for use. You may
 not use this source code in full or in part for commercial purposes. Any use
 must include a clearly visible credit to Rebellion as the creators and 
 owners, and reiteration of this license."
Take that as you will.
You can find the original source code and other related tools at: 
http://www.avpnews.com/mods/tools/


Yes, the code does something.  No, it's not ready for a release. No, it is not
vaporware.  I hope to at least complete the single player part of the game 
before making an official release.  Check out the TODO to see what's needed to
be done.


If you are really itching to try this out, either install the Gold Ed. in
windows/vmware (read below to find out why), or download the AvP Alien demo.
If you are wanting to run the Alien demo (the installer is an .exe but you
can just use unzip to extract the files from the .exe), add -DALIEN_DEMO to
the CFLAGS line (the one that's uncommented) in the Makefile. Rename all game 
files lowercase. Be sure to install SDL 1.2 (http://www.libsdl.org) with
OpenGL support, nasm 0.98, and the latest OpenAL CVS (http://www.openal.org).
AvP requires a 3D card with OpenGL support.

***
IMPORTANT:
AvP now uses $HOME/.avp/ to load/store configs, logs, etc.
NOTE: Windows profiles probably do not work in Linux and vice versa.

AvP will no longer use the current working directory to look for files.  You
must either copy or symlink the AvP binary to the game data directory and run
that, or set AVP_DATA to the data directory.

Currently:
If you want to install the mappacks from
http://www.avpnews.com/files/avpfiles.html, install them with the rest of
the game data, not in ~/.avp/.  Make sure everything is lowercase (although,
the maps in avp_rifs/Custom do not have to be totally lowercase, just the .rif
extension).  Maybe in the future users will be able to install the files in
~/.avp/ also.

Hopefully all the necessary file loading changes were made.  Please let me
know if something goes wrong.
***

The next line can be ignored for now:
If you have the regular edition, add -DREGULAR_EDITION to CFLAGS.

If the version you want to use is not the Gold Edition, download
http://www.icculus.org/avp/english.txt.gz, extract it, and rename it
language.txt (Regular Ed.) or aenglish.txt (Alien Demo). 

If you get "Aborted" after starting a new game the second time or so,
try recompiling with gcc-3.0.2.  This problem should be fixed now; if not,
let me know.

If you have Debian, the Debian SDL package, and an NVIDIA card, you will
have to uncomment a LDLIBS line in the Makefile.


relnev:~/avp/AvP Demo 3 - Alien$ ls
aenglish.txt  alienavp_huds/  alienfastfile/  avp_rifs/
relnev:~/avp/Gold Edition$ ls
avp_huds/  avp_rifs/  cd tracks.txt  fastfile/  language.txt

Support for the demo is not quite complete (some sounds are missing).


Linux Port-specific commands:
- ALT-ENTER for fullscreen
- CTRL-G for mouse grab
- PRTSCN for screenshot


The source code that was released only works with Aliens vs Predator Gold. 
This port currently supports Gold Edition, Regular, and the Alien demo.
(The Marine and Predator demos are a bit older and might not work.)


At least with the Gold edition, a number of files are encoded on the CD. So
you would need to install the game in Windows (VMware works also) in order
to get this to work.  WINE will not work because the CD Check fails.


Currently, all AvP files and directories need to be lowercase, and the
program ran from the directory with all the game data (language.txt,
avp_huds, avp_rifs, fastfile).  zakk recommends
http://blemished.net/chcase.html for renaming the files.


Apparantly AvP Gold is no longer available at most places.  I had ordered my
copy May 2001 from http://www.dragon.ca, but they no longer list it. 
Try searching http://www.amazon.com, http://www.ebgames.com, 
http://www.ebay.com, or the bargin bin at your local computer store.


It is unknown if the Mac Gold Edition will work with this (I'd be interested
in knowing if it does or not).


The full motion sequences cannot be played because they are encoded with
proprietary codecs (Bink and Smacker - http://www.radgametools.com).  But I 
do not think they will be greatly missed.


More information about the game and the series can be found at
http://www.avpnews.com.


Last, but surely not least:
Thanks go out to Chuck Mason for testing and the OpenAL code, Dan Olson for
trying the code out with the Regular version, Zachary 'zakk' Slater for
providing tons of feedback, Tim Beckmann for sending patches, and Ryan C. 
Gordon for hosting this project.

---
Steven Fuller <relnev@icculus.org>