Arrrghh at this UT engine !!!

[Deleted2725050User]

Right! Well first of all thanks for spelling out exactly how to go about this. You've been a huge help man to me man, even though I haven't really accomplshed anything in my 3 or so weeks messing with this game, I appreciate it. Second, even in my limited knowledge I know that, like you said, if I change the meshes at all, even if I can keep the file formats straight, the filesize will change. So at this point there is no way around that at all?

 

edit: The .upk files with meshes in them aren't checked and don't require the .exe file to be changed, I know that for sure from my tinkerings with the game and with XSHAPE. Does that matter at all, or at this point is it just completely impossible to switch in a mesh withe a different file size on a bytecode level?

Edited November 4, 2012 by Guest

[kayttaja]

I know right? I'm sure he's a smart guy, but everytime I've asked or even seen someone ask a technical question on his forums he just tries to beat them down with condescending, snide remarks.

Yup. Every wise man knows he's building on the work of others, without his predecessors he'd still be banging two rocks together. But this is the internet so I'll give him the benefit of a doubt, maybe he's just not good with people or can't express himself.

 

I just wait for the day we get all the tools to get a total conversion going. Sadly, I don't have the brains to help create them, so I just use this time to model.

[tsanford01]

The textures in the UPK files are only a reference 64x64 texture pointing to a full size texture stored in the *.tfc files that are compressed and streamed. At least that is my understanding from the Unreal docs. Edited November 4, 2012 by tsanford01

[Deleted2725050User]

I just wait for the day we get all the tools to get a total conversion going. Sadly, I don't have the brains to help create them, so I just use this time to model.

 

I hear ya man, I'm right there with you. I've put more than a few hours into models for this game, I'm sure you have too. It sucks we won't get to see them in game for a while, if ever. :down:

 

The textures in the UPK files are only a reference 64x64 texture pointing to a full size texture stored in the *.tfc files that are compressed and streamed. At least that is my understanding from the Unreal docs.

 

 

Man, that explains those messages that came up while I was working with the UDK.

 

I wonder if that makes it at all more likely that the bytecode for a single mesh is all in one spot on the file, and therefore more able to be swapped out with the bytecode for another mesh? Honestly I have no clue, maybe DaemonJax in his computer wizardry has some idea.

Edited November 4, 2012 by Guest

[Kaerar]

Meshes are nearly always going to be different length. Swapping a larger for a smaller mesh maybe possible if you were lucky and have angels sleep with you at night, other than that good luck...

[Daemonjax]

Ok... I think Gildor has explained that textures work this way:

 

 

 

1) TFC files are compressed (LZO, ZLIB, LZX), and that single compression type is used throughout the entire file.

2) The compression type used isn't stored within that TFC file, but is stored in other upk files within a Texture2D object data (explained here: http://www.gildor.org/smf/index.php/topic,297.0.htm)

3) Uncompressed TFC files contain concatenated textures of various formats (most are dxt), and different resolutions (mipmaps) for streaming purposes.

4) Each of these mipmaps has a length in bytes that is some multiple of 0x8000 (32768 in decimal).

 

 

XCOM Modmanager (as written) cannot do this. Writing a program to do what's needed would not be simple, but it's doable.

Edited November 4, 2012 by Daemonjax