Spooky

First off apologies to Delphy for duplicating his tool but I was becoming increasingly frustrated by it crashing all the time and taking forever to load the files so I decided to write my own new one:



This tool is blindingly fast at loading and populating the hierarchy view (c. 1 second for homeworld2.big ) and I have yet to make it crash (someone will prove me wrong here!).

I also avoided using the comprezit.ocx wrapper and used direct calls to the zlib API so the extracting should be a little quicker as well.

v1.5.0 Update
1) The .GRM* game rules files should now open and extract OK.
2) HW1 .BIG files can now be read in - no extract function just yet - I wanted to get a new version working with the GRM files out ASAP.

v1.6.0 Update
1) User created .BIG files should now open and extract OK.

v1.7.0 Update
1) Now has the ability to decompile Lua files. This is accomplished using the LuaDC.dll kindly written by Age2uN. There is a new icon for decompiling the selected file and also a new menu option (Overwrite Lua) that will either replace the original compiled Lua file with the decompiled one or create a new file with a .LuaDC extension.

You will need to copy the LuaDC.dll and zlib.dll files into your windows\system32 folder. The LuaDC.dll will also need registering.

v2.0.0 Update
1) W40K: DoW .SGA files can now be opened and extracted . I have also included comdlg32.ocx and mscomctl.ocx in the release along with a readme file...

Anyway - try out and grab the latest copy from here:
Archive Tool v2.0.0

EmteeMoe

Very nice Spooky!

There is one problem though. I can't find where the files are extracted to. It is probably my fault!

Spooky

Oops - forgot to mention that. A 'data' directory is created in the same directory as the .BIG/.SGA file you open and everything is saved in there...

pipakin

Spooky, I wanna have your children.

:jk:

Good work man.

-Philip "Pip" Kin

Greggy

yeah, good job +)
can I ask you about adding lua file decoding?

Delphy

*sobs and runs off*



Edit: I dont mind as long as I get a credit

starfleet

aww see you've gone and upset him now <chuckles> he's crying.. *glances sideways then whispers* Now we just redo all his mods and he'll curl up in the corner and refuse to come out (jk)..

Can i make the suggestion that given archive.exe is out some one write a 'front end' that allows compression as well visually doing it would be 20x's easier then constantly doing the list file etc etc

Spooky

Credit added

BlueTech

Spooky, this LOOKS awsome...... but i have a little prob...

When I try to run it, it just says "Component 'MSCOMCTL.OCX' or one of its dependencies is not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid"


can u plz help?:matrix:



-----------------

Hiigaran|SF = :3dcool:


P.S.
Delphy, I redid your HWSE fot u........

Spooky

You need to download the VB6 SP5 Runtime files which are available from Microsoft's site...

BlueTech

oh ok.... i have vb5, but not vb6.....

dling now!

BlueTech

Another prob: ok, SAME prob: I downloaded and installed the bv6 sp5 Runtime files, BUT.... it still dosn't work! ill try getting ALL the vb6 runtime files............................ any light to shed on the problem again?

Ammon Ra

hehe, talk about insta-load gr8 job.

HOWEVER, could you also include hw1 big suport? as the hw1 big viewer takes at least a minuit to load, and its a pain.? please?

BlueTech

for me, the hw1 viewer took 10 mins.... a little hard to mod, if u know what I mean!!!!!!!

I FINALLY GOT IT WORKING!!! YAY!!!!

but, i didnt really usa it for several reasons....

1) the Data.zip file has most of what i need already

2) I cant see whats in the files before i extract them! Also, I think that Thought's modified LuaC should be integrated, so that u can decrypt them when u exctract. some of the files dont need it, so u should have a preview window and when they want to open it ask them is they want it decrypted (or mabye automatically have it decrypt if LuaC can detect if its encrypted or not)

3) Otherwise, its GREAT!!!!!!!


btw... i already made a TINY mini-mod.... The Advanced Platform Mod: Includes Flak, Pulsar, Torpedo, and Hyperspace for BOTH races!!!! (ok, so far i only did flak... but the rest should be easy!)

Spooky

I have thought about a HW1 option as well but that will require a lot more coding as it is an entirely different file format to the HW2/IC .BIG. Maybe a release or two down the line

More likely to happen though is some sort of preview function. A .ROT option will happen first (should be easy as I already have written the app for that

BlueTech

.ROT??? (dont even know what that is!)

A preview would be kind of pointless without decryption, so make sure to have it automatically use Thoughts LuaC for .LUA and .SHIP (or whatever files it needs to decode)

PLEASE do the preview firsT!!!! (ill give u the platform mini-mod i just made.......)

BlueTech

sry to double post but this should be docked on the Tanis Shipyards forum instead of Adv Modding Lab....... this is a REALLY good tool (and it could be even BETTER if u put previewing and decoding in!!)

Spooky

.ROT files are Relic's format for the graphic files used in the UI, weapon effects etc... They do not need decompiling, just previewing.

BlueTech

PHEW!!!! then that means that u can do that in like an instant and then put in previewing and built-in LuaC?

fil

Hello guys and gals,


I am tring to write a tool written in perl/Tk to mod many things all-in-one (ships, race, maps, weapons, campaign). All this with integrity checking.

But from now i depend on third party's tools (to obtain a correct data directory).

From now i am not able to find the full specifications of the BIG format so if you could tell me more or where to get it, i would be really pleased.

By advance, thanks!

BlueTech

So spooky, ROT has been implemented already, so now u can put in previews?


ok... ROT takes longer than 1 night........ but it cant be that bad if u know the format all u have to do is set up a subrutine to translate it into an image then assign a PictureBox (or Image) to have the visable thing be true and the preview box not whenever theres a rot file and then POOF!!!!!!!!!

ITS DONE!!!! (i could do that if i knew the format... lol)


Unfortunately, i only have vb5 pro, not 6 so if u give me code then it might not work............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... WAAAAAAAAA I WANT THE COOL LOOKING BUTTON CONTROLS!!!!!!!

Spooky

It is not quite that simple as the picture preview is actually showing a D3D image of a 2D rectangle that has the the texture mapped to it. This is then zoomed in/out accordingly so that the whole image fits in the picturebox.

I am going to modify the code from the ROT Tool for this task so that you load the image from memory rather than a file so it will take a little longer...

BlueTech

darn... i know, i was being a bit OVERLY optimistic, and not respecting how hard it actually is to program.

i was exited when i saw the thread of the .ROT tool, but then i realized the thread was 3 months old!

Spooky

More like 3 weeks than 3 months. Homeworld 2 has not been out for that long.

BlueTech

um.... it hasn't???? geeeee... wait a min, it came out sep 16... * counts on fingers.. * oct 16, nov 16, ... YOUR RIGHT!!! ITS ONLY BEEN ALMOST 3 MONTHS!!! lol...

* conjures a level 16 Delphy summoning spell * DELPHY!! YO!! CAN YOU PUT THIS ON THE MAIN FORUMS??

o wait.. nm

hey until u get ur previewing done ill just stop buggin ya


SPOOKY DA MAN!!!!!!

:bow2: :bow2: :bow2: :bow2: :bow2: :bow2: :bow2:
:3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool: :3dcool:

NovaBurn

nice work spooky!

DELPY JUST GOT

Delphy

heh.

Spooky

Well that's hardly fair on Delphy...

littlegreencube

Who is Delpy?

Delphy

Spooky... add in the autorenaming FDA to AIFR that I had... that'll save some other threads in here.

Oh and I'd be interested in seeing the code to populate the treeview so quick (VB? C?)

Spooky

Will do old bean - I'll send you the code today.

It's just VB code BTW - I managed to work out what all the values in the header blocks meant so honed my code accordingly...

Delphy

Ahh cool There where some I hadn't worked out (or hadn't commented in but I knew what they where)

Spooky

Some more progress - I have nearly finished developing the next version that also loads/extracts HW1 .BIG files:

NovaBurn

looking good spooky, finally an all-encompassing BIG/SGA viewer and extractor that is fast too! I don't know if it would be possible to implement a feature in the extractor that it decompiles the lua, usc and other files so they can be opened directly without having to be decompiled and such.

Demon_Eyes

Am I doing something wrong? still getting some LUA files improperly extracting..

Spooky

Demon_eyes - what do you mean by improperly extracting?

Demon_Eyes

the lua files in the scar folder, most of the script folder lua files aside from the familylist.lua race.lua etc come out as gibberish. for instance

race.lua looks like:

{
"Hiigaran",
"$1100",
"hyperspace_gate",
"etg/special/SPECIAL_ABILITIES_HYPERSPACE_IN",
9.5,
Playable,
"HGN_",
},

while restrict.lua looks like:

Lua@
  æ[¡°¹²A @Restrict.lua
 ¬ÿÿÿ ðÿÿÿ ýÿÿ  RestrictOptions  MPRestrict   @Restrict.lua 
  playerid Î  playerRace  Î A ûÿÿÿ þÿÿÿ ýÿÿÿ
 ÿÿÿÿ  þÿÿÿ  " & * . 2 6 : > B F J N R V Z ^ b f j n ÿÿÿÿr v z ~ ‚ † Š ùÿÿÿŽ ÿÿÿÿ‘ þÿÿÿ• ™ � ¡ ¥ © _ ± µ ¹

CnlPepper

Demon_Eyes Most of the lua scripts are compiled hence the "gibberish". Thats how they are ment to be. Thery need to be decompiled before you can edit them.

I'm working on an automatic decompiler right now. Its almost finished.

CnlPepper - Not far from releasing it....

Demon_Eyes

Pepper: thought the .big was the compression?
As far as the gibberish, not all the extractors showed the same results, so far, spooky's new extractor seems to have gibberish on some of the ship files I have looked at, while delphy's original version of it produced ship files that were in workable format, its not that big of a deal though since I already have working files of the ship/hod and script files was just curious as to what was going on.

Spooky

Demon_eyes - the .BIG file is the archive that contains all the game files, some of which like the .lua, .ship etc are compiled. None of the .ship files are in plain ASCII format and Delphy's extractor most definately does not decompile them. If you have seen any in a legible format then they did not come out of the .BIG like that.

Demon_Eyes

strange, dunno why I would have readable ship files with the old one then.. well it possibly might have been i mixed up the old one with the sga extracted files.. not sure though.

BlueTech

PLZ SPOOKYZ ILLZ GIVEZ YOUZ ALLZ MYZ MODZ IFZ YOUZ PUTZ INZ DECOMPRESSIONZ ANDZ ILLZ GIVEZ YOUZ FULLZ CREDITZ FORZ ALLZ OFZ MYZ MODZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! IM DESPERATE!!!

frodoski

Hey Spooky I tried to dl the viewer but the link does not work...Great work the screen captures look great...Thanks for the hard work! Great Job.

pipakin

Speak english man!

translation anyone?

-Philip "Pip" Kin

Delphy

Demon,

SOME of the lua files in the Homeworld 2 big files are in original text format. MOST are not.

You may have seen some of the ones that weren't compiled

BlueTech:

Please read this thread again. Your answer already lies in the replies.

Demon_Eyes

ahh, I get it now

BlueTech

Hey delphy, which question and answer? i read through a couple of times already........................

Spooky

This is what Delphy was pointing to...

Comradesniper

Im getting the MSCOMCTL.OCX error.

i downloaded the VB6 sp 5 from msoft, but i still cant get this thing to work! i ran the install, but i cant find the file on my HD anywhere.