modding retribution

[Shaggydog]

so i haven't really been around here since chaos rising came out.
and i seem to have forgotten how to get the my mod working, have the files in the \dawn of war ii retribution\...\data\simulation\attrib\.... rest of the file structure.
i've checked spelling and are running the game with -devmode to load the files in the data folder... but they arent showing up in the campaign.
i just added 4 stormtroopers as a retinue on the inquisitor.
if anyone has any input i will post code relating to what you think the problem may be..


cheers,
shaggy

[MegaHurtzMPG]

Well you can't mod DoW 2 Retribution with the existing mod tools currently. You'll know you've done the "right" thing when your game crashes at launch. Your file structure sounds right, but you will need Cope's RB2 Extractor. But again, it won't do you any good for now.

Full game title should be "DoW 2 Retribution On Modding Community". An added bonus: many (if not most) old community maps also have missing textures and are useless. Thanks Relic! :rant:

[Shaggydog]

oh wonderful, i thought i was doing everything right and wondering why it kept CTD.
now i know i was doing everything right and it is just the game. Wonderful

[MegaHurtzMPG]

Despite how irritating it is, I have faith that Cope will update his tools and we'll just have to be patient. I wonder if packing the modded rbfs into SGA would make a difference?

[Shuma]

Well Relic just said that we'd get mod tools in the future, so here's to hoping it's soon.

[Shaggydog]

nah i tried packing into a .sga and modifiying the default .module to read it. still no luck =/

[Croaxleigh]

Shuma: Did they say that at the community forums, or elsewhere? I'm woefully behind the times when it comes to modding news. :(

[Shaggydog]

Despite how irritating it is, I have faith that Cope will update his tools and we'll just have to be patient

I find it irritating that I just have to wait, and that I can't actually help with bringing out the new tool needed.

[MegaHurtzMPG]

Yeah, I'm pissed too but what can you do?

Croax: It was the Interview with Clint (Senior Balance Designer) and Josh (Multiplayer Designer), in the Livestream event thread by Yurdle the Turtle. I think Shuma asked the question about mod tools and it was answered yes.

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OK - This is really weird because now the game starts with the -dev, and the multiplayer stuff (like Last Stand) is grayed out as if the mod should work, but then the changes do not take effect. What gives?

[Shuma]

@Croax:

What Megahurtz said, i asked, struck gold and got a straight answer, unfortunately to get the highest chance of an answer i purposely made the question vague so the eta on the mod tools could mean "after Retribution comes out" or "someday" but tl;dr the good news is that they plan to release mod tools.

[Copernicus]

@MegaHurtzMPG:
I don't have Retribution and I won't buy it before its price drops significantly. Thus I can't examine the current situation, so you'll probably have to wait a bit longer.

-cope.

[BigDawgKS]

I can't even get the game to run in dev mode, it just crashes on startup. Won't load any new archive files either. Did Relic just completely remove mod support from Retribution?

[MegaHurtzMPG]

@ Cope - I would be glad to buy you your copy, if you're ok with just having the digital copy - consider it a donation for all you've done for the community. Seriously, I would have stopped playing this game looooong ago if I couldn't mod it. I'll try to figure out how to PM and get back to you later today. Would you be ok with all that? (Don't worry, it wouldn't mean you're in any way obligated to get it done now or anything - no strings attached).

[the_hunger]

So, let me make sure I have this right. If I bought Retribution and tried to change unit attribute files using the SgaReader2 or RbfConv utilities, it simply would not work? The files cannot be opened with these tools?

[General Kong]

looks like it hunger :(

[the_hunger]

Man, that's awful. I only play single player, so I could not imagine buying this game without being able to mod it. I also understand that at least some DoW2/CR custom maps will need some alterations for Retribution due to missing textures.

I guess I'll just have to lurk around here until this all gets fixed, assuming that Relic provides the game with some kind of support before rushing into the next project. As always, I assume that the modders will step up and make things right.

[nathaniak]

Boo! I wanted to attempt to mod the Valkrie in as an IG unit!

[Khorney]

are we sure rbf's aren't supported packed in SGA's? it doesn't make sense the engine would suddenly be unable to read them, considering everything in the data folders works fine without editing from CR (even the .lua's and other things)

did you check your warnings.log? are you sure you didn't just cock something up on your end? unfortunately can't use my game till the end of the week =/

[MegaHurtzMPG]

I personally did not try to pack the mod into an SGA, so I can't say first-hand about that. I extractd using the RBF/RB2 extractor thingy, and I set up the file structure exactly as in Vanilla/CR. Made my changes using an older version of Cope's mod utility and saved them. It crashed on loadup, but then I moved some folders around - I think I had extracted the 3 files under GameAttrib into the GameAssets folder and when I moved it out the game started to launch and seemed to tolerate the -dev command but the changes were not showing up. I just started small (changing the popcap for each race to 200) but no go. I'm gonna see for myself if packaging it into an SGA and replacing the original GameAttrib will work and bypassing things. (So not using the module file).

@the_hunger - agree 100%, after I finish the campaign (this game becomes useless if I can't mod it). I would not count on the official mod tools coming out soon, but I hope I'm proven wrong.

[Croaxleigh]

MegaHurtz: Well, Relic claimed to be looking into mod tool prior to the release of CR... it's possible that they decided to go ahead and work on a set as the changes in Retribution were being developed. They seem to keep an eye on the modding communities (as they knew what tools we did and didn't have at the time of the Q&A I did) so if they decided to do mod tools then they'd have a good idea of what all would be needed. If (big if) they were working on Retribution with the intention of releasing mod tools as part of post-release support then the tools could be finished and shipped once the game is released worldwide and they've taken care of any initial patching or bugfixing that's needed.

[MegaHurtzMPG]

True - I don't think they don't care about the modding community, the question is do they have the resources to put that caring into being able to develop the tools? Retribution really is a low-budget release comparatively. But there's lots of factors here. Also for me personally, I found the unofficial mod tools for say DoW1 a lot more friendly than the official ones at least as a lite user. Then again, if someone here develops tools, what incentive does Relic really have in creating them given limited budgets and the current state of PC gaming, especially RTSs? But that's all a lot of conjecture though.

[BigDawgKS]

Got dev mode to work (had to remove the sounds folders from the module file), but the game still won't load the RBF files. Packing them in SGAs doesn't help. Warnings log says the mod was loaded, but none of the changes are apparent ingame.

[Zetrial]

I've managed to get dev mode working and so far the only thing that has loaded after any changes are lua files. I can change starting levels, gear, stats etc for campaign but that is it, anything else isn't working. So perhaps they have changed it so it won't load rbf files anymore and only rb2? The only natural rbf file I came across in the archives wasn't able to be opened by any existing editor we have.

[lugburz]

Zetrial, how did you get dev mode working exactly?

[Verstorbene]

Yes, how. Be specific. Mine just crashes. Not trying to load a mod, just straight -dev.

[Zetrial]

-Dev just works fine for me straight off the start, zero issues zero crashes. No work around for myself needed at all. I just have -dev and -nomovies set via steam and voila.

[MegaHurtzMPG]

Mine sometimes starts and sometimes doesn't. I can't explain it. I had activated the map packs by changing the module, but that wasn't it.

[Zetrial]

I've had that too, up until now I hadn't experienced any ctd's from using dev, now all of a sudden constant ctd when loading up a map of any sort. It's rather funny, it's like a roll of the dice. I've tested with steam on online and offline mode and that hasn't made any difference.

[lugburz]

I've tried several times when I got home today and no luck. Crashes every time with -dev. Also tried to run the "world builder". It opens fine, but I get the same crash when I try to open a new map. What the hell? Are we not supposed to make custom maps? I wish someone from Relic would comment on why mods aren't allowed in Retribution...

[Khorney]

what happens when you drop the sga's into the gameassets mod folder?

perhaps the problem is with the module/mod loading rather than the rbf's (all my mods that worked did so through dropping sga's straight into there)

[lugburz]

Well, this: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?215909-Multipurpose-Autoexec-Gamespeed-Superscreenshot-UI-Scaling-Update-6th-March
is what I'm trying to use. Requires -dev for it to work. Believe me, single player is so much better when you can shrink the ui and slow down game play a notch.

[BigDawgKS]

what happens when you drop the sga's into the gameassets mod folder?

Still nothing. Hope Relic resolves this soon.

[Zetrial]

It seems my crashes weren't caused by -dev as it was happening without it after I turned it off, instead just looks like I glitched and maps wouldn't load until after I restarted. Still the game loads perfectly fine while under -dev for myself.
For those of us unable to use -dev what version of the game do you have, dvd, steam, collectors, steam + wargear packs? Perhaps it may have something to do with that. Maybe they disabled -dev on basic versions of the game so as to not lose out on dlc money from people buying the wargear packs?
I have the steam version with all the wargear packs.

[BigDawgKS]

It seems my crashes weren't caused by -dev as it was happening without it after I turned it off, instead just looks like I glitched and maps wouldn't load until after I restarted. Still the game loads perfectly fine while under -dev for myself.
For those of us unable to use -dev what version of the game do you have, dvd, steam, collectors, steam + wargear packs? Perhaps it may have something to do with that. Maybe they disabled -dev on basic versions of the game so as to not lose out on dlc money from people buying the wargear packs?
I have the steam version with all the wargear packs.

Err, no. The problem for me at least was that it crashed when trying to load the GameAssets/Locale folders. Removing them from the module allowed me to run dev mode without it crashing, but no matter what I do it still won't load the RBFs.

[lugburz]

I've got best buy dvd version with SM wargear.

[Zetrial]

Err, no. The problem for me at least was that it crashed when trying to load the GameAssets/Locale folders. Removing them from the module allowed me to run dev mode without it crashing, but no matter what I do it still won't load the RBFs.

I know it won't load rbf's, my belief is that retribution will only load rb2's or a new version of rbf's as the only straight rbf file in gameattrib.sga won't convert, all the rbf's in the rb2 do convert though, so I have a hunch there is something to that. I can use custom lua's currently using dev mode, I'm just trying to work out why dev crashes for some people and not others.

[Copernicus]

It currently seems to me as if DoW2 tries to load single RBF-files the same way it tries to load RBFs from within RB2s. Either there's a way to enable a non-RB2 mode or we'll need to provide RB2-RBFs with a FLB file.

[Zetrial]

My thoughts more or less Cope. I have read that removing the sound folder section from the module files is helping some load -dev but I haven't touched mine and the lines are still there yet it loads. So it has me puzzled why it works for some, perhaps check the sound directory in data to see if there are any files there.
Mine is currently empty and perhaps some versions have installed a faulty file in there in tries to read?

[BigDawgKS]

Yea, for me at least the crashing was related to loading the sounds. The warnings log clearly indicated that in dev mode it was crashing when trying to initialize the sound stuff. So to my surprise removing the nonexistant (specifically the sound folders for other localities are nonexistant on my English only installation) sound folders from the module file did the trick. The fact that it worked from the beginning for some people is interesting though, perhaps they have all the different localization folders installed?

Anyway, my biggest concern is figuring out how to get Retribution to load RBFs (or whatever new format is needed for attirbute editing). Perhaps Cope's tool can be reengineered to bring RBFs back to Retribution compatable format, or in the less likely case Relic will release some tools or a patch to fix this. Either way I am eagerly waiting to get attribute mods working.

----------


or we'll need to provide RB2-RBFs with a FLB file.

If that's the case then it's unfortunate since I'm guessing it would slow down testing/editing workflow; having to compile all RBFs into a single RB2. Or do you think the RB2 format would still work with individual files for each RBF so we only need to convert the ones that have been modified?

Of course, it would still be better if there were an option to have the game load older style RBFs. I guess hoping for feedback from Relic on the situation would require a lot of patience though.

[Copernicus]

@BigDawkKS:
We don't need to create any RB2 files ;). We just need to adjust the RBFs so they look just as if they've been taken from an RB2 file.

[BigDawgKS]

We don't need to create any RB2 files ;). We just need to adjust the RBFs so they look just as if they've been taken from an RB2 file.

I see. So does that mean it would be easy enough to integrate a solution into the tools we have; say for example, your toolbox?

I'm just curious about how it all works. From what I understand, the RB2 contains all the data in a collection of structures similar to RBF files, but indexed in a way to make it more optimized. If you had a standalone RBF file I guess you would need to decorate it to have the same structure as an RB2 (just with only one entry). But there are also some changes you mentioned to the actual RBF structure as a result, so the RBF data itself would also need to be converted. So it seems to me that all you would have to do is extract the RBF-like entries from the core RB2 into individual files that have their own RB2-like structure and the game should load them; of course we would probably not be able to edit those with the current tools we have. So essentially the process would involve extracting them from the RB2, converting them to old RBF format, editing them, then converting them back into the new format; unless of course a tool were created to edit them directly from the new format. Does that sound correct?

Either way, it seems we are going to need some new tools.

[Copernicus]

I'm currently working on it, it is not that hard to implement but it comes with a few implications -- and I want to do it properly, so it might take a few days before I consider it done.

[MegaHurtzMPG]

That's great Cope!

(Ever get tired of hearing how awesome you are?)

[BigDawgKS]

I'm currently working on it, it is not that hard to implement but it comes with a few implications -- and I want to do it properly, so it might take a few days before I consider it done.

In that case, I guess I'll be waiting patiently and hoping things go well (nobody bother him for a while :P).

[Croaxleigh]

To make it easier to tell Cope how awesome he is, we're looking into the possibility of just having a "Like" button installed on his forehead.

[Khorney]

or we could gift him a copy of retribution, considering he doesn't have it yet =P

[Copernicus]

Actually MegaHurtzMPG already bought me a copy :).

[Potatosock]

So when are the maps gonna have their textures un-screwed up? Forgotten Glory keeps calling my name since IG came out!

[Khorney]

you could open it up in worldbuilder to check which textures are missing and copy them from CR

[Chaos Godstone]

I know what you said BigDawgKS but I am just wondering, will you be populating the .rbf's in the tool you're working on with virtual rbf extentions Cope, so that only the extentions that are edited will be written?

[Existor]

WHat about placing custom SGA files with modified files inside Gameassets/Mods folder ?

[BigDawgKS]

WHat about placing custom SGA files with modified files inside Gameassets/Mods folder ?

Still doesn't load any RBF files. According to others, other types of files are loaded fine no matter where you put them, so the problem would appear to be specifically with RBFs.

[lugburz]

BigDawgKS, I just tried removing the sound folder (with nothing in it) and I still crash with -dev. Is there anything else you can think of that you did to get it to work?

[Khorney]

i guess last thing to try, is instead of using cope's tool, is use rbf-to-text, make a test change, then just re-encode that, which would presumably keep closer to the original format (though probably not as close as a purpose built converter, just eliminating possibilities)

[lugburz]

Thanks Khorney, I would try that but I have no idea how to do it :(

[Shaggydog]

i made all my changes in using notepad, convert the .rbf to text make the changes and back again, making sure i kept the file structure the same as relic, using the -s and -r commands in the tools provided =/
still doesnt work

[Clonesa]

I'm guessing they changed the RBF format ever so slightly so no amount of fiddling is going to make this work as the existing tools aren't creating Ret readable RBFs. Wait for cope. Unless I'm misunderstanding the problem...

[BigDawgKS]

BigDawgKS, I just tried removing the sound folder (with nothing in it) and I still crash with -dev. Is there anything else you can think of that you did to get it to work?

Well I've narrowed it down to a single folder for me, surprisingly it's the English one:


[sound:english]
;folder.01 = GameAssets\Locale\English\Sound
archive.01 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_GameSpeechContainers.sga
archive.02 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_002_speech_campaign.sga
archive.03 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_002_speech.sga
archive.04 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_001_speech_campaign.sga
archive.05 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_001_speech.sga
archive.06 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_000_speech_campaign.sga
archive.07 = GameAssets\Locale\English\English_000_speech.sga

As you can see, I just commented it out. If I uncomment it, Retribution starts crashing again in dev mode.

[lugburz]

Hmm, I'm not sure how to go about commenting the sound folder out. What I did was just delete the folder, which didn't work...

[Zetrial]

Lug just put a ; at the start of the line and the file will ignore anything after it.

[Copernicus]

@Clonesa:
You seem to be the only one who has understood the issue ;) ; no current tool will produce working RBFs right now.

[Chaos Godstone]

So do I, somewhat! ... admittedly after beating my head against your steel wall of reason. :D

[MegaHurtzMPG]

...and this is why Cope got a "free" copy of Retribution. Although I get the feeling that he's enjoying himself ;)

I've given up on moving folders around, fiddling with this, or -dev that, and am just enjoying the campaign while keener minds than mine develop the tools at this point. :)

[BigDawgKS]

You seem to be the only one who has understood the issue ;) ; no current tool will produce working RBFs right now.

I think we all came to that conclusion. What's uncertain is how this will effect the workflow; but that depends on the tool. I'm confident Cope won't let us down. :)

By the way, is there any easy way to merge RBF files using winmerge or something, or do we have to convert them all to txt files first (and then back to RBF)?

[SoTAL]

Hopin' Cope gets a couple mod tools out soonish:)

[Copernicus]

@Chaos Godstone:
I'm not planning to add new features; additionally I fail to understand what virtual extensions are ;).

@BigDawgKS:
There's no tool available for merging RBFs. WinMerge only processes text-based formats so it will most likely fail for regular RBFs.

[NastyNoodle]

Just thought I'd ask.. what's the problem with modding retribution? copes tools are working just fine for mine?

[MegaHurtzMPG]

..ummm... what? Are the changes actually showing up in game?

[Chaos Godstone]

@Copernicus
I was thinking that if the tool was to directly open an .rbf extracted from Retribution's .rb2 or direct from the .sga the editor could show an rbf view with all extensions available but in the aegis of Relics optimisations only the edited rbf extensions would be written to the edited file. The rbf view would be showing a virtual .rbf, so to speak. :)

*after-thought*
Your Toolbox might already do this with regular .rbf's in DoW2/CR... hmm.

[NastyNoodle]

@MegahurtzMPG Yeah, just fine... Check out my chaplain mod in the WIP section

[Zetrial]

Nasty is that just a reskin though? We have been able to mod everything bar rbf files. So if you are just overriding the librarians skin it isn't related to our current issue.

[Clonesa]

Just checked his mod. Appears to have a blahblah_attrib.sga.

*edit*

Which contains no files... also there is no .module /confused

[NastyNoodle]

Ah ok, my bad, sorry about that guys. And my boyfriend instructs me to tell you its 'her' mod lol

[Zetrial]

No worries Nasty, we'd all love for rbf's to be working atm.

[NastyNoodle]

Oh and high five for imperial fist goodness :3

[Zetrial]

What can I say, Rogal Dorn kicks ass.

Looking through the standard extracted tuning.rbf and then a quickly modified version side by side through notepad nothing is showing up as different. All wording is the same, size is the same the ascii text all showing up the same. I'll have to pick up a hex editor to trawl through then checking value to value but I have a hunch it will show up as a mirror image bar the 1 value I change. So my belief lies in that we need to find a way to compile rb2 files with their own flb files over there being a new version of rbf files.

[Potatosock]

@Khorney: I tried doing that, but as of downloading Retribution my WorldBuilder is broken. I didn't mess with it at all but every time I try to open a map it crashes and shuts down. I'm sure it's something obscure I did wrong somewhere along the lines.

Edit: was talking about the post Khorney made on the first page.

[Copernicus]

I've got a proof of concept working already without RB2s.
Reading the posts I believe that I have made myself clear when I tried to explain the whole RBF issue:
RBFs contain keys for every value, these keys were stored within every single RBF in DoW2/CR. Retribution stores all its keys for RBFs in a single file (FLB-file) and has some minor changes to the RBF format, that's why you experience crashes. We don't need to create RB2s, they're just containers for RBFs. We just need to remove the keys from every single RBF and make them reference the FLB-file instead; also you need change some data types, click [url=http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?257133-Format-RB2-files]here[/see] for more information on the changes to the RBF format.

[Gorb]

The day people read and understand the format information threads is the day the world ends, Cope ;)

(admittedly I didn't understand much of Santos' threads at the time, but I've come a way since then)

[Copernicus]

You don't need to sell me on the Apocalypse, I'm already a fan! ;)

[Clonesa]

This sounds like its going to be a huge pain in the ass for modding, having to rebuild the flb... ugh.

[Copernicus]

Currently I don't rebuild FLBs (although it is not that much work). Retribution's FLB file covers the necessary keys, you'll just need to copy that one over to your mod or just reference the original GameAttrib.sga which contains the FLB file.

[stranger]

It sounds like a step backwards as far as optimising for mods go, since even the tiniest mod would have its own copy of the flb... Though it does make the mods unaffected with messing with the original files.

[Copernicus]

No, you don't need your own FLB as long as you still reference the original SGA.

[Valtonis]

how difficult would it be to change stuff like the team colors in Campaign or to have all the wargears at the start?
would be more difficult or about the same as in vanilla/CR?

[Jams]

Both of those don't need you to edit RBF's so they are as easy in Ret as the are in CR.

[Valtonis]

i needed to edit the rbf files when i was modding those stuff back in CR.
how else can you edit them if not by editing the rbf files?

the team colors are in a lua files but the wargears would have to be editing rbf files wouldn't it?

[Jams]

To get all the gear you just need to edit the first mission file to reward you with it all.

[Stellar25]

To get all the gear you just need to edit the first mission file to reward you with it all.

Which SGA file has the list of wargear? I can't find it in the same place as DoW2 & CR.

[Zetrial]

I would suggest editing the starting inventory over the rewards. I tried the rewards once and it only gave me the last piece of equipment I had listed and not the healing wargear or the others. Yet Putting them all in the inventory.lua has worked a charm.

[Valtonis]

GameAttrib.sga has the wargears and rbf stuff but you need the new extractor that Cope has uploaded to extract the folders properly

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?257128-TOOL-RB2-extractor-v1.2-03-05-2011

[lugburz]

Zetrial, I understand about the ;, but what file do you open to put it in to comment out the sound folder?

[BigDawgKS]

Zetrial, I understand about the ;, but what file do you open to put it in to comment out the sound folder?

DOW2.module, or the .module file for whatever mod you're trying to load.

[lugburz]

Holy Emperor's Gonads! It worked!!! Thanks BigDawgKS!!! The -dev command is working, and the autoexec.lua is doing what it is supposed to! Woot!

[Chaos Godstone]

And my boyfriend instructs me to tell you its 'her' mod lol
All this time you've had no qualms about the 'he' references, HE does, ha ha. :D