Tags: Projects

Duke Nukem Forever


Duke Is Totally Takei The Duke Nukem Forever demo is out. I can't even convey how surreal it is to me to be typing those words. But anyway, I've been poking around the demo for the last couple of days, and a new version of Noesis is up now that supports extracting 5 different variants of its included .dat packages.

The picture is of the world's first (well, probably) right and proper DNF content mod, with Duke sporting his brand new Takei Pride tanktop. Noesis spits out all of the info you need to re-inject textures while it's extracting them, and I've already got a fully functional repacker that I intend to release sometime relatively soon. I've also finished hammering out the model format now, and Noesis v3.27 and later can view/export them.

Duke modelDuke model
Duke modelDuke model

The process of exporting the models is pretty simple, but requires a few steps. Here's a step by step of what you need to do.

1) Using Noesis, extract the contents SkinMshes/defs.dat, SkinMeshes/meshes.dat, and SkinMeshes/skels.def. By default, Noesis will want to extract these to separate folders. You don't want this, and instead you want to extract them all to a single folder. (e.g. "c:\steam\steamapps\common\duke nukem forever demo\SkinMeshes\allfiles")

2) Browse to the .msh of your choice in Noesis and open it.

3) If .skl or .def files cannot be found automatically you will be prompted for them. Additionally, Noesis will attempt to find MegaPackage.dat and TextureDirectory.dat relative to the path of the .msh file. If it cannot, you will be prompted for those files as well.

4) Export and enjoy. Note that materials are still a work in progress, and it can't automatically find the right materials in most cases. But certain models are working. (like Duke and one of the Holsom twins)

I've got model re-import/modification working, but the material situation limits it pretty severely. In the coming days/weeks, I'll be continuing to reverse that data and trying to figure out a reasonable process for replacing/overriding assets that doesn't involve rebuilding all of the game's packages.

Also, if you haven't heard yet, you can play the vehicle sequence in first-person. It's much nicer this way.

Update: I've successfully exported a model to COLLADA, modified it (re-weighted, added and modified geometry, modified the texture), re-exported it to .msh using my in-progress Noesis exporter, and got it to load in the demo. Have a look:



Wait for the scene with the twins.
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131 comments in total.
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IP: 68.0.165.94

Rich Whitehouse

November 25, 2011 at 11:00 pm (CST)
Yeah, I decided to shove a Python implementation into THAT PROGRAM (I should really remove that from the word filter sometime) during the week before I was set to start at Sony. I had a feeling I'd end up working with Python a lot based on what I'd seen/heard of their pipeline, and it turned out I was quite right. So it was nice to already be fluent and fairly aware of good Python practices (and of the terrible things it does under the hood with its memory management and data types) when I started. And THAT PROGRAM got a more accessible scripting interface out of it.

I still personally prefer to work with native binary plugins. Mainly because the MSVC debugger can't be beaten. I've considered integrating a real Python debugger into the THAT PROGRAM Python implementation, but that's a good bit of work and I have a feeling that a good chunk of Python coders don't even know what a debugger is anyway. There's also the fact that a Python debugger probably still wouldn't be particularly flexible in terms of looking at memory and casting arbitrary data structures over that memory, which is probably the single most useful property of a debugger in the context of reversing binary formats.


IP: 71.58.190.78

ukurereh

November 24, 2011 at 1:58 am (CST)
Holy crap, when did noepy happen? This is what I get for not keeping up with the times. I think I'm lazier when it comes to 3D stuff than... um... finishing sentences :/


IP: 76.203.195.71

LUBDAR

November 19, 2011 at 10:45 pm (CST)
I would think that this would be one of the more narrow avenues to query whether or not there was interest in a title. Larger forums with more daily traffic would probably yield a better response than the one you're getting right now.

hope this helps...


IP: 99.188.40.155

Exatrive

November 18, 2011 at 4:01 am (CST)
Just curios if anyone had any interest in the Saints Row the Third character formats. just passing by because there had been some interest by the mod community but lack of a proper understanding of the format.. They never even figured out Saints Row 2 format.

And with how the future DLC is going to be handled it seems like a lot of stuff might be locked down to prevent this..

Like I said.. just curios.


IP: 12.21.1.3

LUBDAR

October 27, 2011 at 1:27 pm (CST)
It is nice to see people making more contributions


IP: 99.21.103.174

Rich Whitehouse

October 24, 2011 at 9:42 pm (CST)
I've barely put a dent in the vodka, but I could use some more Captain. And some more Sapporo.


IP: 99.147.87.249

LUBDAR

October 24, 2011 at 2:39 am (CST)
I like how I made it into the Readme!!
I can't imagine you got through that bottle of Absolut already?!



IP: 110.174.41.198

HeWhoWas

October 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm (CST)
Don't wish that upon Rich. A job is a necessary evil to tolerate, until such time that he can afford enough alcohol to drink himself into a coma.


IP: 99.147.87.249

Mr. Jackson

October 4, 2011 at 6:31 pm (CST)
You're MOST certainly welcome!!! ahhh what a double edged sword, I hope you will always have a job but also love seeing lots of updates.
Keep doing what you do, and I'll gladly continue help blurring your weekends!!!



IP: 99.21.103.174

Rich Whitehouse

October 1, 2011 at 3:00 pm (CST)
Well, if you can understand Blender Python, you can understand (and probably get more effective use from) Noepy as the kids like to call it. So, good luck with that.

I've never really formally gone through and stated which games I have interest in. I have a few long-running interests that I want to get around to, like various FF models and anims, T3B anims, and a bunch of other crap, but higher-priority immediate things usually come around and prevent me from even getting to that list. The latest thing on my queue is looking into some multi-mesh Source MDL files for chrrox. I don't personally give a rat's ass about Source MDL files, but that format is already in there, so I treat improving it as a higher priority than adding new formats. That one's been sitting there untouched for a few days now. I'm not sure I'll even get to it this weekend, because work has really been sucking my code-motivation out lately.

If I suddenly become jobless again I'll probably power through most of my queue pretty quickly, but I otherwise expect I'll continue crawling along at a snail's pace, spending most of my weekends drunk on vodka.


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