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Author Topic: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?  (Read 13753 times)
HotDog
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How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« on: February 02, 2010, 17:08 »

I want translation the Language.

and Compression the .ppc?
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Lavans
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2010, 05:25 »

I'm also interested in finding a way to compress a .pcc file. Then we should be able to make mods for Mass Effect 2 Smiley
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esr911
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2010, 06:23 »

I'm also interested in finding a way to compress a .pcc file. Then we should be able to make mods for Mass Effect 2 Smiley

Not going to happen. Good luck.. If that were possible then someone could open the pcc file right in UDK. Currently it's not possible.

..:: ESR911 ::..
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Lavans
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2010, 01:59 »

I don't see why it's not possible. We can already extract from a .pcc file using the Unreal Package Extractor, now we just need to find out how to compress one.

Usually when one finds a way to extract data, they can find a way to put that data back together.
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Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2010, 13:50 »

We can already extract from a .pcc file using the Unreal Package Extractor, now we just need to find out how to compress one.
There was a lot of questions like "how to pack extracted package back?".
The answer is: it is not possible. Usually people patching decompressed packages (not extracted).
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Lavans
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2010, 15:02 »

I'm curious as to know why it's not possible to compress a .pcc

Is it because there's no tool for it? Or is it because of another reason?

Basically what I'm trying to do, along with the rest of the mod community, is add models to a .pcc file. From my understanding, that's not possible to do by simply decompressing a package, which is why extracting and compressing .pcc files are so important.
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Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2010, 15:12 »

Compression (reverse action for decompress tool) is possible.
But it is not possible to combine files produced by extract tool into a new package so it will be correctly handled by Unreal Engine. This task is too complex and in common case will require modifying all extracted data before placing back into package.
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Lavans
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2010, 22:11 »

Is there any way to add a model or texture to a .pcc?

I don't understand how decompressing the .pcc is even supposed to work for editing. All the decompressor tool does for me is makes the .pcc larger in file size.
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Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2010, 12:22 »

Decompressor removes internal compression of UE3 package. This allows localizers to edit packages with hex editors.
Quote
Is there any way to add a model or texture to a .pcc?
No. Only using UnrealEd.
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Lavans
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #9 on: February 11, 2010, 13:50 »

Ok so decompressing a .pcc will allow me to work with it in unrealEd?

There's no extension for a .pcc file in the editor...
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Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2010, 14:09 »

You should read more carefully.
This allows localizers to edit packages with hex editors.

You may load ppc only into UnrealEd from Mass Effect 2 if you'll get one.
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AstralStorm
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2011, 07:40 »

Hello.
I suspect that binary patching is all that's necessary, the format (as you know) is very similar to UPK. Unless they've added checksums everywhere, that is.
But without the compressor (which should be something simple, since you're able to decompress the files) the binary patch is impossible...
So, what's the compression algorithm they use?

Mass Effect 2 seems to use UDK from January 2009 with some added ported patches from February based on the shader comments, so the best possible match is UDK from November 2009, the oldest one - the file format is probably identical.
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Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2011, 11:37 »

Mass Effect 2 seems to use UDK from January 2009 with some added ported patches from February based on the shader comments, so the best possible match is UDK from November 2009, the oldest one - the file format is probably identical.
Mass Effect 2 uses old engine - modified Mass Effect 1 engine, it has version lower than UT3. There was no UDK at that time.
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AstralStorm
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2011, 09:29 »

Of course there wasn't any. I just meant the general Unreal engine version.
Have you by any change written a simple "replacer" tool already to replace objects? Specifically, for Texture2D (should be simple).

I seem to have found a bunch of posts mentioning such a hacky tool. Seems like it would require rewriting offsets of everything or just tacking the new file to the end of the package and then rewriting just one offset in the table. Not that hard, assuming old Pascal package library is still valid.
(there's also UnHood which seems to work for extraction but not replace - could start with that instead)
« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 09:34 by AstralStorm » Logged
Gildor
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Re: How to open the .tlk? and How to Compression the .ppc?
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2011, 09:32 »

Textures and sounds in UE3 has additional block compression in their data formats, so it is not possible to replace texture (or sound) with the data of the same size - because size will be different.
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