Gabriel Knight 3 - Unveiled secrets - Dr. Bonny Ploeg

[Signore Buchelli]

So it seems those .bik files are used to pad the CDs.

Thanks a lot, Brad. The gk3.shp file is the definitive proof: Mystery solved. 

The gk3.shp script is itself very interesting:
- The introduction and the comments will come in handy for sure.
- The goodies in the SYMBOLS section: gk3.shp, combine.exe, binkplay.exe, viewer.exe
- The BuildRandomFile commands are at the very end in the GK3_CDEnforcer$() section. The section begins with:
  Total$ = 681 * 1024 * 1024;     // total size our cd's will be (681MB)
  Threshold$ = 1 * 1024 * 1024;   // how much we can be "off" before needing rebuild of random files

[Signore Buchelli]

GK3 ends rather abrupt, with the freed unicorn vid and the theme that stops playing suddenly... what could it be?

At the very end of the Design Bible Jane Jensen wrote:
Lightening is striking nearby. Then, it strikes in the garden. But it doesn’t hit the horse, it strikes a tree in the garden, sending it crashing to the ground. The unicorn bolts in terror, but it doubles back once the crashing stops. It looks. The fallen tree is next to the wall, providing a step up. The unicorn carefully jumps onto the tree, then over the wall and gallops away.

It's slightly different from the final cutscene of the game. But no more stuff beyond the unicorn getting free. 

[BBP]

Hmmm... all the things I tried in-game to get a happy ending... I just never could accept this one, I suppose. I mean, it's past midnight, Grace is in the middle of nowhere, she probably didn't take the Harley if she wouldn't be able to return it, the taxi could take her to Couiza but there's nothing there, she could spend the night at the railway station but besides unhealthy and dangerous, she could easily be found.

Thanks, it seems like a logical explanation... and now I'm checking out the shp-file you posted. Very interesting!

[Signore Buchelli]

I just never could accept this one, I suppose.

I agree with you. I hoped that in the Design Bible there would be the text of the Grace's note for Gabriel. Maybe that text could help us to understand, but Jane Jensen decided to leave us in the dark:

""Then he spots the note on the desk. It’s stuck with tape to the monitor where the picture of the Llama had been. He turns pale and goes over and picks it up. He reads it (we don’t see what it says), then gets a lump in his throat. He takes a deep, wavering breath, crumples the note, tosses it on the desk and walks away. C.U. of crumpled note on desk."" (Design Bible)
 

[BBP]

It says:
Gabe
I'm moving in with the C...
Grace

I'll see if I can make a nice screendump now...

[Signore Buchelli]

Last year I found in a French web-page a video about the secret places of Rennes-Le-Château.

This one is not a secret place, but an inaccessible one: Real-life Blanchefort.

In the video appear Château de Serres (from above), Pech Cardou, Peyrolles and RLC (4 Km!).

These are the remarks of the guy (David A. Williams) who recorded the video:
""Le Roc de Blanchefort (Blanchefort Rock) is a fairly prominent limestone 'spur', on top of which (at 476 metres above mean sea level) is found the scant remains of a watchtower that is possibly of Visigothic origin. Just a few metres east of the watchtower is a cistern. The 1:25000 scale IGN map for the area refers to the remains as the "ruins of the Château de Blanchefort", however the 'Château' probably just comprised the watchtower, cistern and perhaps a small shelter as there is not enough room on the rock for very much else.""

[Signore Buchelli]

I'm moving in with the C...

I have looked for that phrase in Internet and I've found these pages:

http://gkpages.altervista.org/Interviews/Chat_Feb2000.html:
Dave: Adam already revealed the letter, Leonardo - check the thread on the forum.
Swordmaster: The letter was revealed on the GK3 forum!
Dave: The GK Games forum, GameDame. Go to www.sierrastudios.com and click on 'Community'.
Noni27: "Gabe....I'm moving in with Joe Camel...sorry.....Grace"
JaneJensen: As for the letter... Well, I thought that it was pretty clear what it said and that, you know, as a writer it's better to be subtle...
Leonardo007: Adam... Did you reveal the letter? I must've missed it... In which page of thread is it?
adb: Page 4 Leo
Me (Grandpa Buchelli): I've tried to access to that Page 4 with the Wayback Machine, but failed. 

http://justadventure.com/forums-phpbb/archive/justadventure.com/forums/posts21d1-3.html?t=350:
I don't remember the exact wording, but it says that she's run off with Joe Camel.
But the texture used as a note in the cutscene really does say that Grace ran off with Joe Camel. I'm not kidding.
Who the guy from the monastery is isn't a mystery at all. His name is Chadrel Gyatso. This isn't that hard to find out. Grace also received an e-mail from him.

Pinkerton Road Forums (Cache):
Paula: Oh yeah, didn't they in fact release a picture of the original note? Didn't it say something like "Sorry, I ran off with Joe Camel" or something?
Shandra: I love when Adam (ADB) posted that and everyone went nuts, lol.

Me: I've tried to find that picture/texture(.BMP) in the .BRN files with the Barn Browser by BradDaBug and the gk3.log file, but failed miserably. 

Who is Joe Camel? I've looked for him in your transcript, but he doesn't appear.

[BBP]

ADB is Adam Bormann, who also popped up at the GK4 Campaign and was keen to inform me that he was the one who made up the line "Hey Roxanne, my pants are a little dirty, would you be able to clean them for me?"

I think he was kidding about Joe Camel, it sounds like a nonsense name - either he used that text as dummy, or he was joking about the note saying that. Since Jane tries deliberately to keep that last note vague, it's better not to attach any value to Joe Camel.

That picture could be one that ADB posted on the original GK forum, which means it is still hovering around - when Vivendi closed down the user forums, its members (including me although I wasn't into GK3 yet) helped to save all the discussions they could. These threads were to be archived at GK4Campaign, but that never really happened.

I saved the technical forums and three months of the general discussion - all I recall from that was there was a topic where everybody posted pictures of themselves. I don't have these files anymore and at either rate I doubt I had any game-specific data in that, just general chit-chat. I don't know who I sent this data to either.

[Signore Buchelli]

I think he was kidding about Joe Camel, it sounds like a nonsense name

I've found this page about Joe Camel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Camel

Now, look please at the attached image. It looks like Joe Camel stole Gabe's clothes (leather coat, white t-shirt and pants), then picked the Harley up and moved in with Gracie ... 

[Signore Buchelli]

Noni27: "Gabe....I'm moving in with Joe Camel...sorry.....Grace"

I have talked with Adam D. Bormann (by means of Facebook) about Joe Camel. Adam:
<<The concept was that Grace was going to be going to India or Tibet to study with a spiritual leader like the Dalai Lama.  Lama is similar to llama, which is an animal similar to a Camel.  So Joe Camel is a play on words for "Dalai Lama".>>

The attached image is a screenshot of the message by Facebook.

[Signore Buchelli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxamibd8U5Y
#10: Missing temple room. One large puzzle was cut from the temple. I got to ask Adam Bormann, he didn't remember it and promised to check if he still had some art related to it - the GK4Campaign forums unfortunately closed down before he came back with an answer.

I've found Adam D. Bormann at Facebook. You can send messages to him, he responds very kindly.

It seems like a maze with puzzles relating to the quaternity (square). This would go between the Pendulum/Scales (circle) and the Solomon (hexagram) puzzles, so the map geometry is repeated in the temple.

I've found the maze in the Design Bible by Jane Jensen (page 138):
""Temple Part II: The Sanctuary/The Vampires
The Sanctuary is twice as long as the porch. There will probably be some fighting here. We can use bats and other vampires (not Montreaux).
Also planned are puzzles involving the geometry. For example, Le Serpent Rouge talks about the parchments being like the thread of Ariadne. We may do a maze through which the player must move only in directions that outline the geometric figures of the parchments – such as the hexagram.
Or, we may have to move blocks around to form geometric shapes that mirror those of the sacred geometry in order to rise (or sink) to a new ground level.""

The artwork is from a tile that isn't used in the game, but the figure can be seen in the credits.

You have forgotten to put the tile as your avatar in this forum. 

[Signore Buchelli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA25IgQdLMY
#18: The REAL Cat Hair Moustache!!! Includes original artwork from the puzzle. And there's a line from Grace about a Wet T-shirt Night.

Interview with Scott Bilas at 2007:
""I remember an action sequence in the game where you had to stomp on rats and whack bats .......
Jane had a puzzle that we had to kill which was unfortunately replaced with the famous "cat hair mustache" puzzle that the game's producer designed. ....... The team hated that puzzle, but we were trying to ship a game .... ""

Bonny Ploeg also found the actions of the earlier puzzle to get the mustache:
""The player was to get a spray gun (not spritzer) that the Abbé uses to water his garden, coil a water hose by the museum, attach the spray gun to it, take the hose to the tree, squirt at the nest to get it down, then take and use those fibers. Improvement? Maybe. But it still has animal cruelty. ......
On the now defunct gabrielknight4campaign, Adam Bormann revealed that this puzzle was cut since the water spray couldn’t be animated. Fortunately there’s archive.org!""

However, in the Design Bible by Jane Jensen there was no option to disguise Gabriel, and so, no need to make a fake moustache. Gabriel rents a moped using the credit card in his wallet (page 24) and:
"".... he’ll automatically get on it and drive down the main street. He will end up at the top of the hill on the only road entering/exiting Rennes-le-Château. ....
Once on the bike, the player can drive the moped down the hill manually and drive the road around the valley in a first person perspective. (funny!!  ) ....
It will not be difficult to stay on the road in broad daylight, but there will be times when the player will be driving at night and things get trickier.""
There's no mention about the Harley in the Design Bible. 

[Signore Buchelli]

I've made my first MOD of Gabriel Knight 3: A little homage to GK2 and ...

Next project: As I have been unable to find it, I'll remake the Hi-Res Paintings MOD with author, title and year in plaques near the paintings.

Big problem:
At this moment, I don't know how I could add the plaques to the .BSP files (room geometry). Right now I'm studying the .BSP format by BradDaBug. At first glance, it doesn't look excessively difficult.

[Signore Buchelli]

At least in the Spanish version it is not possible to open the Mystica entries ingame (SIDNEY), though all the Mystica HTML files are inside the Barn files (.BRN).

The reason could be that the HTML files are the English versions, they aren't translated into Spanish. So in the SIDSEARCH.TXT ('SIDSEARCH - Spanish.TXT') there's no subject/HTML about the Mystica encyclopedia.
You can check that in the English version ('SIDSEARCH - English.TXT') appear all the subject/HTML of Mystica.

In order to solve this absence in the Spanish version of GK3, I've made a very small MOD ('SIDSEARCH.zip'). You must download the ZIP and extract the content to the folder of the game. Then use the 'SEARCH/BUSCAR' option in SIDNEY, look for 'index' or 'topics' and follow all the links. With the MOD you can also look for 'tycho' to earn the 'Penny Arcade' easter egg.

If any of you has other Europen version without access to the Mystica encyclopedia, follow these guidelines:
- Download the above ZIP and extract to the folder of the game.
- Extract the SIDSEARCH.TXT from your version with the console of the game.
- Open your SIDSEARCH.TXT with the NotePad and copy only the 'Jensen/Bormann' entries.
- Go to the folder of the game, then to the subfolder 'HTML' (MOD).
- Open the SIDSEARCH.TXT (of the MOD) and replace only the 'Jensen/Bormann' entries with yours.

The SIDSEARCH.TXT is itself interesting. It contains all the subjects (and the related entries/HTMLs) which we can use in the 'SEARCH' option of SIDNEY. There are inside the following sections:
- 'Jensen/Bormann entries': aka Schattenjäger Archives; Adam D. Bormann was the Design Assistant of Jane Jensen during the development of Gabriel Knight 3. So, it looks like only Jensen and Bormann wrote the Schattenjäger Archives.
- 'The Mystica Headings': the tree of indexes or lists of links to others subindexes or to the Mystica entries.
- 'The Mystica Entries': articles of the Mystica encyclopedia.
- 'Dudash entries': only contains the entry of the 'Penny Arcade' easter egg.

Note: All the files (SIDSEARCH*.*) mentioned in this post are in this folder.

[Signore Buchelli]

THE DOG & THE GOAT

In the list of characters of the game (GK3), I found a dog and a goat.

From the resource files of the game I've extracted the 3D models (DOG.MOD, GOT.MOD), the skins or textures (DOG.BMP, GOAT.BMP), and the animations (*.ACT) of the 2 animals.

I have also looked for any icon, sound-clip or line of dialogue about them, but failed at all.

Using the above resources I've recorded and published a video at youtube:
https://youtu.be/itYEs25D9XE

I imagine a lot of nice places at Rennes-le-Château and the outskirts (valley) where release them. And also remember some difficult puzzles involving a dog (Broken Sword 2) and a goat (Broken Sword 1).

In this folder are all the resource files mentioned in this post.

[Quelea]

I don't mean to sound cliché, but that goat is kinda scary. The faceless dog isn't looking to friendly, either. Gabe should have destroyed them along with the demon.

[Signore Buchelli]

Yes, right.  Maybe that was the reason that finally they were not used.

[Signore Buchelli]

G-Engine Viewer

The English-version includes the VIEWER. This program was used during GK3's production and enables you to inspect the character/models separately, and you can run their animations!

The Spanish-version doesn't include it, but as it seems a standalone EXE, I've made up a ZIP file with the EXE and the resource files to see the cow, the dog, the goat, Signore Buchelli and some animations.

If you want to play the viewer, download the .ZIP file and extract the files to the GK3 folder. By way of example, I've recorded a video: https://youtu.be/lE8mHpRxVHg. You can move the camera just as you do in the game (mouse and keyboard). Move the mouse to the top of the screen and click to show the menu.

If you want to inspect other models(*.MOD) or scenes(*.SCN), extract them, copy in the "\Viewer Resources" subfolder and open them in VIEWER.EXE. An error.txt file will be made, describing the resource files the program missed for the specific model or scene. Now that you have the names, just extract the missed resource files, copy the files in the same subfolder and open again.

The extractions are too tedious. To avoid them, you can use the "GK3 Viewer" by BradDaBug; the main limitations of the BradDaBug's viewer are that you can't neither play animations nor change the background color. 

[Signore Buchelli]

SIDNEY.PDF

At least in the Spanish version it is not possible to open ...

As in the Spanish version (at least) it is not possible to access to the Mystica Encyclopedia, and it is easy to overlook some Schattenjäger archives, I've compiled a PDF with all the entries of the Schattenjäger Informational Dabatase (aka SIDNEY), even the easter egg of Penny Arcade. Link to the PDF: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_nakSX0fVyscUZRWVBJVXB2UEU

I recommend the articles about Stonehenge, Rasputin, Zombies and Druidism.

By the way:

- The Mystica Encyclopedia is still alive/active in Internet: http://www.themystica.com

- If you look for Kurt Cobain in SIDNEY (in the game and the PDF), it appears the 'Nirvana' entry of the Mystica Encylopedia.

- The beta version of SIDNEY was very different from the final version. You can see the old version at the site of Christy Lein and Nico Sels: http://sidney.fwheel.net/t_sidney.htm

[Signore Buchelli]

I've made my first MOD of Gabriel Knight 3: A little homage to GK2 and ...

Next project: As I have been unable to find it, I'll remake the Hi-Res Paintings MOD with author, title and year in plaques near the paintings.

The Hi-Res Paintings MOD is at the other thread: MODs or tunning