Splinter Cell Series (SC1-4)

[Joshhhuaaa]

Thanks for taking a look, I figured that was probably the case.

The Xbox 360 version was packed into .ULL files (likely a variation of .LIN) and then compressed. He managed to decompress them to get readable data, but they still aren’t standard Unreal packages that UModel can load, so I’m assuming that’s probably a dead end.

[spiritovod]

@3A2watup: There is only one link with the reference to specific build in the mentioned topic, and you need the "materials" one from the linked archive. The reason why it's not provided directly is because the build (and the link) is updated over time, as it's not dedicated to the game series.

[spiritovod]

@3A2watup: I don't quite understand the question. Those strings are just names of classes/structs/properties that you may see in any UE game. Such things are read upon reading package summary or any object.

As for lin format, it was briefly explained long time ago by Gildor in original game topic (and there is also more complex explanation available here). Basically, lin contains only those parts of original UE packages, which are used by the game, and in the exact same order as the game is reading them, making the whole process seek free, which is not possible by design in umodel and default engine. Currently existing tools are more about extracting native packages from lin, where import/export tables are patched to avoid reading incomplete data of unused objects, but that's also not totally correct with dependencies in mind.

I really don't want to clamp the topic with discussion of this format, as the topic has different purpose, and I would be grateful if people would provide only something helpful (like working solutions or links to related researches) on this matter.

[spiritovod]

@Joshhhuaaa: If you could provide a package with such mesh (or at least with something that can be it), I could take a look. You can disable everything at startup screen, then upon loading any package or asset you'll see list of all included objects. Also, some games are using collision boxes as part of actual mesh geometry (for example Brothers in Arms series).

[spiritovod]

@Joshhhuaaa: Not sure Splinter Cell games can be used for researching default collision implementation. From what I understand, collision data is a part of respective mesh object, which allows to create collision geometry based on the mesh and respective parameters with a shader at runtime. In editors collision is represented as a mesh for convenience. As result, collision data can be 1.5-2 times larger than actual mesh, because it may contain multiple presets, but it doesn't store result geometry for them explicitly. I doubt I'll look into it further.

[spiritovod]

@Joshhhuaaa: I was talking about content of the cooked package. Thanks for UT2004 sample, it has minor difference (probably game specific), but overall approach is the same. If the editor can load collisions from the cooked package, I guess it's doing the same as the game itself, i.e. creating collision meshes from cooked collision data. Basically, it contains expanded info about base mesh geometry (like 3 sets of positions with different orientation), some orientation vectors for shader computations and other related things. And actual collision is calculated as transformation/difference of base mesh, maybe with collision geometry included as part of expanded geometry for collision data. For example, all collisions from UT2004 sample are clamped to single block (in SC sample there are 3 collision blocks) and takes as much as shown on the screenshot, the highlighted part is the transform/diff.

[Joshhhuaaa]

@spiritovod Sorry to ask again, did you ever get a chance to check SCCT Versus animation packages? I remember you mentioned a while back you might take a look when you had time, but totally understand if you've been busy with newer releases.

I assume they're similar to the first two games, which your UModel build already supports, since SCPT/SCCT Versus is still mostly vanilla UE2. I know SCCT single-player is a different story due to the engine overhaul, so I'm not expecting support for that.

If it's not an easy add, no worries. I'm mainly asking because I'm looking to import/modify animations for SCCT Versus, and being able to export the originals would help a lot. Thanks.