84 replies to this topic

[spyVspy]

I hope they evolved the system to be more intuitive. It sounds like BFME has more complex ini than Generals. I never was involved in any mods for that iteration of Sage.

[Bart]

BFME's INIs are loads better than those from generals. in Generals, basically they threw every unit from a faction in 1 single file. In BFME they split that into infantry, cavalry, etc. BFME II had more improvement with giving each unit it's own INI, and introducing includes.

This is good news. XML > INI any day (not to mention that it will be soooo easy to make tools that reads the files)

[Mighty BOB!]

So, now that the demo is out, does anyone feel like trying to snoop around the internal files and get some "pre-modding" experience and figure them out? EaW had mods for the demo the day after it came out.

[Mastermind]

The BIG files appear to have changed just enough that FinalBig and other editors don't work. There are also a bunch of files that have no apparent meaning. I'm hoping it's just FinalBig mucking up the data, but it's hard to know.

[Banshee]

FinalBIG works, but some of the files were propositally encrypted.

If you browse the files inside the DemoData.big, you'll see that some of them are readable or legible and some of the tga files displays fine...

[Mighty BOB!]

Someone on IRC said XCC Mixer still works on the .bigs. I'm still only at 51% of the download so I can't test anything myself yet.

[Banshee]

Just tested XCC Utilities 1.45 here with the C&C3 demo and the results are the same from FinalBIG. The good thing from XCC is that it separates the legible files from the illegible ones.

[Mighty BOB!]

Are some of the files "encrypted" or just "compressed"?

[Banshee]

I don't know exactly. It can be encrypted or compressed. I wouldn't discard any possibility.

Considering the name of some files that ends with .cddata, I wouldn't discard encryption, but since some of the words is somewhat readable, do not discard compression either.

[Mastermind]

I extracted one of the unreadable TGA files, and took a look at it in a hex editor, and it is quite close to a TGA file, but it's not entirely right. The header seems a little bit off, and there is some junk before the start. I don't know if it's because of slight changes in the BIG format or if they aren't really TGA files, but some sort of compressed or encrypted format. In DataStreams.big I somewhat suspect that the cdata files are some sort of serialized object. If it had strings it would explain that certain bits are readable while the rest is garbage. There are also some entries in the gi.dat file that suggest some form of protection (there are two GUIDs with labels like ProtectionGUID or ProtectGUID).

[Banshee]

Someone has made a decompressor for BIG4!
Check http://www.ppmsite.com to download it.

[Banshee]

Hey folks, I've made a program to view the new .BIG files. OS BIG Editor is available at PPM. We'll also host it here once I make it even more user friendly.

[Lauri]

more userfriendly?

you mean like it doesn't shrink when you make it larger manually? resizing the screen made the window where the files are become smaller, and go away

[Bart]

finally, a FinalBIG alternative, which we can give input about. very nice

i mean, it does work for BFME, right?

some tips in advance (haven't tested it yet - going to):
- when you add files, always be able to specify the directory in the BIG where it should go
- or, make a real (optional?) directory view, ala WinRAR / Explorer
- allow selecting/unpacking multiple files at once (not just single file/all files)
- allow turning off preview. sometimes you just want to extract a file of 10MB, and not wait for it to load in the preview
- allow it to be run with commandline arguments, so we can for example automate our mod packing with a batch file

and feel free to post this program in the The3rdAge news

[Banshee]

finally, a FinalBIG alternative, which we can give input about. very nice

Thanks

i mean, it does work for BFME, right?

Yes, it's suposed to work with BfME1 and 2.

some tips in advance (haven't tested it yet - going to):
- when you add files, always be able to specify the directory in the BIG where it should go
- or, make a real (optional?) directory view, ala WinRAR / Explorer

The second idea is very interesting. I'll try to implement it later.

- allow selecting/unpacking multiple files at once (not just single file/all files)

Beta 0.4 that I'm about to release can extract all the files that you have selected at once instead of 1 by 1....

- allow turning off preview. sometimes you just want to extract a file of 10MB, and not wait for it to load in the preview

Good idea, although it doesn't have a preview yet.

- allow it to be run with commandline arguments, so we can for example automate our mod packing with a batch file

and feel free to post this program in the The3rdAge news

Version 0.4 will accept as parameter the .BIG file that you want to open, so you can associate .BIG files with it. And, I'll post a news about it once 0.4 is released.

[Bart]

Version 0.4 will accept as parameter the .BIG file that you want to open, so you can associate .BIG files with it.

good, but i meant something like:

bigeditor.exe Mod.big -add D:\supermod\data\ini\* ini\*
bigeditor.exe Mod.big -rem data\audio\*
bigeditor.exe Mod.big -create D:\supermod\data\* *
bigeditor.exe Mod.big -update D:\supermod\data\art\* art\*

[Nighthawk]

Topic moved - it seems more suited to the Editing forum rather than the general one.

[stack111]

so u guys are saying that there is a possibility were gonna have to edit the actual .w3x in xml? cuz that makes no sense to me
i would understand if u meant edit the objects(ini that is) using xml

[Master Windu]

I think that you won't have to, but you can edit things like hiding subobjects, making texture changes, big but not huge changes to the model. I don't see how you can move vertices or something from an XML.

[Lauri]

I agree on that one...

it sounds nice if it's like that...