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Author Topic: Splinter Cell Conviction  (Read 97311 times)
Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #45 on: January 22, 2013, 12:59 »

That's no good Sad Anyway why do you think they 'encrypted' the files with some impossible-to-break encryption? Most games have the files in some zip-like container that just involves renaming the extension compared to Conviction. All i wanted to so was to extract the files, decompress all the games files.
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #46 on: January 22, 2013, 13:09 »

I think textures are stored in .ass files. I reversed .umd file format, but know nothing about .ass.
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #47 on: January 22, 2013, 14:00 »

Reading around, it appears that .ASS and .UMD are similar formats but I can't say much about that as I dont have much experience in this type of thing. I used offzip on Conviction.ass and it came back with a .dat which I have no idea how to use.
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #48 on: January 22, 2013, 14:13 »

I'd give my right kidney just to for a method of extracting any of the resource files. It all seems so complex. The only mention of .ASS files anywhere is 'ASS I/O' a file compression software for compressing 'multiple' files together. I fired that up but there was no reversing option. This game is also similar to Ubisofts 'I Am Alive', both run on Unreal 2.5 and share the same folder hierarchy and file formats. On 'XeNTAx' (game research forum) people were having just as much trouble decompressing the UMD and ASS files. They were doing it for localization translation. I have no idea what Ubisofts problem is but they sure like there files encrypted  Sad
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #49 on: January 22, 2013, 14:37 »

The only mention of .ASS files anywhere is 'ASS I/O' a file compression software for compressing 'multiple' files together.
UMD and ASS is some alternative to UE3's cooking process. That's quite easy to implement way to make seek-free level loading without rewritting full UE2 code.
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This game is also similar to Ubisofts 'I Am Alive', both run on Unreal 2.5 and share the same folder hierarchy and file formats.
All Ubisoft's UE games has enough modifications in comparison to previous game (for example, Splinter Cell 4 compared to Splinter Cell 3) so I'd rather suppose formats are quite different. UMD is a wrapper around Unreal's package format. It consists of file chunks, some directory (which helped me to restore original game packages), and they're compressed with XBox360's LZX library (even for PC version!). Encryption is very simple - just XOR'ed all the data with single value.
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On 'XeNTAx' (game research forum) people were having just as much trouble decompressing the UMD and ASS files. They were doing it for localization translation.
I've provided my decoder for UMD files to one of Brasilian's localizers and as I know he successfully localaized Splinter Cell: Conviction. But replacing texts and replacing textures are quite different tasks, especially for this game.
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I have no idea what Ubisofts problem is but they sure like there files encrypted  Sad
As I said, encryption is very simple. Everything else done for optimization.
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #50 on: January 22, 2013, 16:23 »

It may be a big ask, but would you by any chance still have the UMD decoding tool? I could try running it on the UMDs which I assume have textures and configurations within. I have learnt from 'I Am Alive's file structure that the ass files contain mostly mapping data and some textures so I am assuming that the rest lay within the UMDS.
Thank you for all your help Gildor Smiley Smiley

P.S Im wanting access to the games configuration file to fix up some FPS bugs when playing multiplayer. When on matchmaking with a friend it locks FPS at 30 which is not playable but thats another story. Smiley  Grin
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #51 on: January 22, 2013, 16:43 »

UMDs has Texture objects inside, but their mipmaps are stored somewhere else (I think inside .ass). When my tool restores utx files all textures has zeros instead of actual data.
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #52 on: January 23, 2013, 04:43 »

After doing some more research it would appear that some textures for relevant models might be inside the UTX file format.

It wasnt so much the MipMaps I was looking for but the colour maps and specular maps that I wanted to change. At the moment I am using TexMod to do this for me but that requires a pirated version of the game when I own it. If UMD and ASS are similar it would seem they renamed the file extension to identify what both files contain rather than having seperately named files.

All of this optimization you mentioned must of been done for the XBox360's hardware. As this game was ported im guessing they left it all in as there was no advantage in 're-writing' the filesystem for PC.

If I can successfully extract any textures or models (or config files), (I am learning 3DS MAX) I would at least owe you a beer next time im in Russia Smiley  Tongue
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #53 on: January 23, 2013, 08:10 »

After doing some more research it would appear that some textures for relevant models might be inside the UTX file format.
Texture metadata are inside UTX, but texture data itself - not. They're stored separately.
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If UMD and ASS are similar it would seem they renamed the file extension to identify what both files contain rather than having seperately named files.
They're not similar. They can't be similar.
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All of this optimization you mentioned must of been done for the XBox360's hardware. As this game was ported im guessing they left it all in as there was no advantage in 're-writing' the filesystem for PC.
Loading time optimization is important on all hardware.
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I would at least owe you a beer next time im in Russia Smiley
I don't drink beer Smiley
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #54 on: January 23, 2013, 08:33 »

OK, Thanks for all your help, it would seem impossible to achieve what I wanted so I will move on.  Roll Eyes
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #55 on: January 24, 2013, 07:30 »

Aside from all the texture and model, where would things like game assets and configuration files be at? I have been reading the Conviction.ini and it mentions Engine.Console and Developer commands such as toggles for god mode and AI commands yet none of them seem to be bound. The game itself uses input key translation and has a list of keys and their relative translated listed but none of them seem to work. If the only files in the 'UMDS' directory are indeed UMD and ASS which contain their respective files where else could game assets be stored? I have been reading over 'iservealot's previous posts on the ubisoft forums and he mentions that the files would be encrypted, which to me makes little to no sense.

Tweaking with the main config about how to game should boot just doesn't seem to change.

Code:
RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
GameRenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
AudioDevice=DareAudio.DareAudioSubsystem
Console=Engine.Console
DefaultPlayerMenu=UDebugMenu.UDebugRootWindow
Language=int
GameEngine=Engine.GameEngine
EditorEngine=Editor.EditorEngine
WindowedRenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
DefaultGame=Echelon.EchelonGameInfo
DefaultServerGame=Engine.GameInfo
ViewportManager=WinDrv.WindowsClient
Render=Render.Render
Input=Engine.Input
MarketingCamInput=Engine.MarketingCamInput
Canvas=Echelon.ECanvas
Editor3DRenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice

Where there are mentions of debugs I can't find any relevant information in the other configs so they must be stored elsewhere.
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #56 on: January 24, 2013, 08:21 »

Most configs are stored in UMDs.
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #57 on: January 24, 2013, 08:39 »

You mentioned something about yourself being able to decode UMDS for localization? I would imagine that localization takes place with text files as do general configs?
Thanks,
Lenners
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Gildor
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #58 on: January 24, 2013, 08:45 »

I mentioned that someone used my tool to do the localization. I never digged into game modifications area by myself, it's not interesting for me. By the way, when I restored original game files from UMDs I obtained .ini and .int files as well (don't remember exactly, did it more than 2 years ago).
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Lenners
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Re: Splinter Cell Conviction
« Reply #59 on: January 24, 2013, 09:25 »

That is very good news. I wasn't sure where the configs would be located. I would assume they would be location in Conviction.UMD because the others are map related (although there may be map-specific configs in those, im not too sure).  The other UMDS are for localization.
If I had a method and/or tool, I would test PEC-Main.umd, Menu.umd and conviction.umd for what I was after. Then again the one tool would decode all of the UMDS I would assume.
Many thanks,
Lenners
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