IBBoard

As well as general PHP hackery of the phpBB powered forums that I run, I have also created a variety of projects. Details of my existing and upcoming projects are detailed below.

Dawn of War tools

The following tools were created for the Dawn of War computer game made by Relic Entertainment. Relic are well known for making games highly customisable and 'mod'-able, and so these tools were created to maximise the use of that customisability.

Some tools that follow are completely unique, others are my own alternatives to existing tools from other third parties, and others still combine the features of multiple existing applications in to one place.

Dawn of War Pattern Switcher

Dawn of War uses texture files that can be overridden by users to change their (local) view. Sometimes users had multiple textures to switch between and sometimes users just wanted help to put the files in the right place.

The Dawn of War Pattern Switcher is a small application to help people manage multiple sets of textures. The Pattern Switcher tracks your available textures and what is installed, and then lets you install, combine and remove textures before launching your game.

Dawn of War Texture Tool

Dawn of War uses texture files that can be overridden by users to change their (local) view. Some of these files can take user-selected colours (WTP) while others are fixed colours for the campaign (RSH and RTX). These files are bespoke format with multiple layers of bitmapped or DDS images.

The Dawn of War Texture Tool was a small application that allowed artists to convert textures into images and images back into textures. Normal users are more likely to need the Pattern Switcher.

Dawn of War Command-line SGA Extractor

Dawn of War's game data is stored in archives called "SGA files". The Command-line SGA Extractor provides a way for developers to extract files (with optional in-line hex editing) using a scriptable command-line interface. This can be easier than using the SGA Explorer when extracting multiple files.

Dawn of War SGA Explorer

Dawn of War's game data is stored in archives called "SGA files". The SGA Explorer is a GUI application for developers that can open the archives and extract files.

Games Workshop and general war gaming tools

The following tools were created or are maintained for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer and others, as well as other game systems from other companies.

WarFoundry

A cross-platform (Windows and Linux), open-source (once it's suitable for release), multi-system army creation application to replace Rollcall and its closed-source, Windows-only alternatives.

WarFoundry is designed to be flexible, intuitive and useful for all war games, while also complying with the legal restrictions of corporations such as Games Workshop that would otherwise result in separate applications, some of which are just overblown calculators.

WarFoundry is currently on a long-term development hiatus.

Rollcall

Rollcall is an inherited army creation application that I took responsibility for back in 2002. Following some updates and some big plans for an updated and multi-system version it has now been side-lined in favour of WarFoundry.

Website development

Back in 2003, the options for content management systems were limited. You basically had phpNuke (which was bloated and ugly) or nothing. Instead, I started to create my own CMS, which was called Grots (named after the small greenskins in Warhammer 40,000 who do all of the work for Orks). While I once had plans to release it as a world-beating CMS, it's always just been my bespoke CMS and is still in use for HiveWorldTerra and Skins@HWT.

As well as writing my own CMS (and various other small scripts), I've also written some modifications for phpBB 3.0, back when the Hive World Terra forums were running. The mods were all cosmetic, but got thousands of downloads:

• User Rank Progression Bar - show how close a user is to the next post count-based rank
• "Multi-Race" Rank Themes - allow users to pick themes for their post count-based rank images
• Special and Normal Rank Badges - allow users with 'special' rank badges (like admins) to show off their rank progression as well (compatible with the other mods)