Duke Nukem Forever

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.




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.

Comments

131 comments in total.
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LUBDAR

October 1, 2011 at 12:18 am (CST)
It's all good, I was able to explore some of it using the python scripts and blender. If I learn how I'll try and work on a plug-in for the community.
Is there a place on your site where you have the games you're interested, I've gained some idea from the posts on this blog, and from the another Forum, but I was just curious.
Take care until next time, I appreciate your reply
Lubdar

Rich Whitehouse

September 30, 2011 at 9:49 pm (CST)
I have it, but it's back at my house in Arizona. I've never looked at the disc contents, and don't really plan to. But who knows. If it happens, it's not likely to be in the next year or so, between work and the stack of other games I'd rather look into.

LUBDAR

September 28, 2011 at 8:41 pm (CST)
Hiya Rich!!
Hope you're doing well. I was wondering if you had Chrono C ross (I just got done playing it for the first time and gotta say that it was excellent!!!) I just asked if you had it, to see if you were ever considering exploring it? Based on my communication through this site I guess you can tell I fancy Square titles.
I've been communicating with FaustWolf, and obtained a whole lot of model files, their textures, and some python scripts for moving things around in blender I presume. Unfortunately for myself (and all other chrono fans) I have a very limited knowledge in this area.

I thought I'd let you know first, since I(as well as so many others) consider you amazing. Its hard for me to not sound flattering with these messages.
Lubdar

Quake

September 14, 2011 at 10:11 pm (CST)
"Hey Rich, I'd like to throw my vote in, and let you know that I too would be interested in FF12 model support. I don't want to bother you too much either, but I'm just confident that you'd be the best person to get the job done. keep on keeping on"

LUBDAR

September 7, 2011 at 7:01 pm (CST)
@FF-Fanatic: You and me both buddy...patience patience...

@Carol: I don't know which is more interesting, the fact that you were so persistent to let us know about midgets, or the midgets themselves.

Carol

September 6, 2011 at 6:06 am (CST)
Oh no, my html tags didn't work. Here, maybe these phpbb-standard tags will work! [url=http://www.midgetonmidgetaction.com/]jobs online[/url] Oh no, they didn't work. But that won't stop me from touching myself to midgets.

Carol

September 6, 2011 at 6:06 am (CST)
I had to type horrible words into the captcha manually in order to make a weak attempt at spam, and I don't know why I bothered. Oh, god, I hate my life so much.

FF-Fanatic

September 5, 2011 at 9:13 am (CST)
Whewww, well it is a relief to know that it is at least somewhere on your list. Since I've recently started I have been unable to find any program compatible with FF12, and then BAM!! I learn about your work and see that with the exception of 12 I believe you've covered the ps1 and ps2 FF games. Which is great, growing up with the sprite models as a kid I always looked forward to the next FF release to see how much more square could do with their characters/models. In a way it seems hard to believe that they fit all of the FF12 world on a single dvd. But then again I'm uninformed and know very little on how data is compressed. Either way, thanks for your response, this is coming too close to coming off as sycophantic.
-BJ

Rich Whitehouse

September 4, 2011 at 9:33 pm (CST)
Grazia: Sorry for the delayed reply. Also sorry to say that I have no idea why my contact info would have been on that card. It must have contained something I worked on. But I didn't work on or ever use MoonShell, so I haven't the slightest idea what to tell you. You might try Googling for the people that made that instead.

FF-Fanatic: FF12 has been on my todo list for a while, but I've never gotten around to actually looking into it. It will probably happen some day, but I have no idea when I'll get time/motivation to do it.

FF-Fanatic

September 3, 2011 at 7:28 pm (CST)
Hi Rich,
I'm glad to hear that you're settling in with your job.
First order of business, Congratulations!!!!!
Second order of business, Is there any hope that you could add support for FF 12? I know it takes time and I'm not wanting to be one of those pushy people who thinks you owe me this, but I was just curious if it has been on your list, and if you would ever consider moving it up in the projects list?

I'm very grateful and appreciative of the work you've done this far (heh, I'm not worthy!!!)
BJ


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