OpenLoco Object Editor

A modern implementation of 'LocoTool' for Locomotion dat file parsing and editing

Screenshots

Object property editing	Graphics viewing
String table editing	Light/dark mode
Hex dump viewer	Object repository browsing and downloading

How to use

1. Load an object folder

1. Click ObjData -> Add new folder, which will open a folder browser window
2. Navigate to a folder that contains Locomotion object files
3. Click Select Folder to close the folder browser window
4. The tool will load all objects in that folder and display them in the tree view on the left of the tool

2. Select an object to view/edit

1. Expand the tree-view of objects to one you wish to view or edit
2. Click on the object
3. It will appear in the editor view on the right side of the tool

Features

3.0.0+

• Online mode
  • Can connect to the object repository to view and download any object stored in it
  • Automatic upload of 'undiscovered' dat files (ie dat files that don't exist in the object repository)
• Property/hex viewer has been ported over from 1.0.5/the WinForms editor
• Vehicle animator
• G1.dat viewing/exporting
• Editing of the inner list properties of objects
• Indexed image support
• Steam/GoG variation support

2.0.0+

• Cross-platform
• Dark mode
• Flag editing support
• Locomotion ObjData folder:
  • Can open and edit all object types
  • Can save object types back to dat file format (albeit with no encoding)
  • Can display image table and string table of all objects (and sound data for SoundObject), and allow editing of them
  • Can display image properties of images in the image table
  • Can handle many more objects than the 1.x.x version
  • Can change background colour of image viewer
  • Can play sound objects

1.0.5+

• Windows-only
• Property/hex viewer
• Locomotion ObjData folder:
  • Can open and edit all object types
  • Can save object types back to dat file format (albeit with no encoding)
  • Can display image table and string table of all objects (and sound data for SoundObject), and allow editing of them
• Locomotion Data folder:
  • Supported
    • G1.dat - the graphics file
      • display its graphics
      • export all images to folder
      • import all images from folder
    • css1.dat - the sound effects file
      • play each sound effect individually
      • export a sound effect to wav
      • import a sound effect from wav
      • write a new css1.dat file with your new sound effects
    • css{2-5}.dat - the 'system' music tracks
      • play each tracks
      • export a track to wav
      • import a track from wav
      • write a new css{2-5}.dat file with your new track
  • Unsupported
    • Tutorial files, eg tut1024_1.dat
    • Extra language files, eg kanji.dat
    • Map loading, eg title.dat, or any other save game

Misc

Settings

• The program settings file, settings.json will be created on first startup. It is located at:
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\\Roaming\\OpenLoco Object Editor\\
  • Linux/macOSX: /~/<user>/.config/OpenLoco Object Editor
• This file is used to store where the users' object folder paths are, and other program data

Indexing

• When the tool first loads an objdata directory it will scan every file to make an index and save that into objectIndex.json in that folder
• This indexing is relatively slow, but only needs to run once/when the folder contents change
• On subsequent uses of the tool, the index file will be loaded instead, and this is fast
• The tool will print a log message if it detects changes in the folder and thinks you need to reindex it

Unit Testing

• All object types have a unit test which
  • Loads a pre-determined object file of that type
  • Asserts all (or most) of its values are correct
  • Saves the file to memory
  • Reloads the just-saved version of the file
  • Checks that the reloaded file is the same as the originally-loaded file, byte for byte. This is a byte comparison of the decoded and decompressed bytes, not the on-disk bytes

Future Plans/Features

• Better flag editing support
• Validation of object limits/sane values
• Detection of bugged objects
• Support/edit tutorials
• Support/edit maps/savegames/scenarios
• Support language files
• Vehicle previewer
• Better G1 support including palette file editing
• Export/convert object to a future modern OpenLoco file format
• Dark mode
• Cross-platform support
• Full unit-testing suite
• Blank template objects for object creation from scratch
• Use a proper C# image library for image creation instead of WinForms

...many more things

Building

• Open Gui/Gui.sln in Visual Studio
  • You'll need the Avalonia for Visual Studio plugin to use the visual XAML previewer, but it isn't required to actually build or run the solution.

Deploying

See build.sh and tag.sh