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Author Topic: tribes ascend  (Read 61639 times)
Laksen
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« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2012, 22:27 »

@SeptaScarabae, the program should be told where the *.tfc files are, or those should be copied to the same folder as the program.

@Churchie, Glad you could use it Smiley

It was fun trying to RE the format, so it's even nicer to see some having use of the program just as I had of umodel.
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Churchie
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« Reply #16 on: May 06, 2012, 11:32 »

Okay, I have made some edits to the textures. Issue I have ran into and I will need your help Laksen, is that I need to REcompress the files back from the TGA to TFC. Anything you can do or make would be great.
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Churchie
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« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2012, 11:59 »

Below is a snapshot of the texture mod I have made. The old image is on the right and the new altered image is on the left. My goal is to RE a way to repack the TGA Textures back to the TFC file and see if this is possible to do before I waste more time creating new cool textures aka skins. Any help is welcome!!!

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SeptaScarabae
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« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2012, 22:03 »

Once you have all these files in the same folder, it will take about 12 to 20 mins depending on your computer speed. The files that come out is every texture Tribes Ascend has, plus they are in an easy edit format TGA. W00t w00t.

Thanks. I was trying to open the *.rtc cache file, instead of the *.tfc file.

As for exporting things back into the game, you might try looking at the Tribes: Vengeance mod tools, which was also based off of the Unreal Engine. Not sure how compatible the files are.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2012, 22:06 by SeptaScarabae » Logged
Churchie
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« Reply #19 on: May 07, 2012, 02:31 »

Let me make sure I know what I am doing as this is my first time doing it for Tribes.

The TFC and rtc File formats are just a cooked compression of other formats to help the load times. Aka like a Zip but more compressed?

I had to use the tfc cache files to open the tfc file, after trying to get the game to run without the rtc files by commandline addons, I have it mostly working. To answer your question, the only way to open the cache files is to do the process I did. That I know about, but when you do this it will open EVERY texture for the game and it's about 22,000 TGA and other objects.
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SeptaScarabae
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« Reply #20 on: May 07, 2012, 05:58 »

I was doing a little reading..

http://servers.dvts.org/ut3/installation/
http://servers.dvts.org/ut3-maps.xml#SKINS (download a skin and examine)
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/677922-Install-skins-into-game-folder

It looks like we should be able to create a folder with the Unreal Engine (CustomChars) to allow for the game to read skins. It's a little more complicated than just plopping a *.tga image in there, but it sounds like a very real possibility to get custom skins in-game.
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Gildor
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« Reply #21 on: May 07, 2012, 10:36 »

Don't mix "Unreal Tournament 3" and other games.
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Laksen
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« Reply #22 on: May 07, 2012, 13:43 »

The main problem with doing that is that all mipmap levels are stored in the file. I haven't made code that can export or import that yet. Importing will be slightly harder as there will have to be some sort of DXT compression going on too.

It's futile if the game checks the files for modifications(which I really think it does). Have you tried just changing a single byte in the data tfc to see if that changes anything?

I won't have time to change anything for the next month
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Churchie
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« Reply #23 on: May 07, 2012, 18:53 »

To give you all some insight on where I am at. I have started running the game manually without having to recompile the textures back into the tfc format. I am learning how to cook the file so I can recreate the whole game from scratch. This will allow me change ANY Texture that I want to do, to start. If you want to learn what I am doing here is the link on how to do it.


http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentCooking.html#Content Cooking
« Last Edit: May 07, 2012, 18:57 by Churchie » Logged
SeptaScarabae
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« Reply #24 on: May 08, 2012, 03:57 »

The main problem with doing that is that all mipmap levels are stored in the file. I haven't made code that can export or import that yet. Importing will be slightly harder as there will have to be some sort of DXT compression going on too.

I'm not familiar with the *.tga format, but I know Adobe Photoshop will create mipmap levels for *.dds files.
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Churchie
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« Reply #25 on: May 08, 2012, 07:08 »

@Laksen, I've found a solution to our problem. Check your email.
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SeptaScarabae
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« Reply #26 on: June 01, 2012, 03:43 »

I don't suppose you guys made any progress on this, have you?
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Churchie
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« Reply #27 on: June 01, 2012, 05:15 »

I have, and got served with a cease and desist letter from Hi-Rez Studios. Since receiving the letter by certified mail my attorney has been involved and I can't say or comment on what I am doing publicly. But I have definitely made improvement!
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Gildor
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« Reply #28 on: June 01, 2012, 08:01 »

It is very strange that I never got such emails ...
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Laksen
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« Reply #29 on: June 02, 2012, 09:37 »

Churchie, I wonder how you managed to get that..

Did you put up any data publicly on the web?
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