MP2 file formats [Archive] - 3D Realms Forums

MrUniq

08-21-2003, 11:18 PM

I know you said more detail will be given, but I'm not sure if this will be answered on release. Does MP2 still use the KF2 format from the first game? I doubt they will, one of the things that helped mod wise was the ability to import using milkshape. I hope they include an import plugin.

Sloth

08-22-2003, 12:45 AM

I hope Max Payne 2 isn't limited by using only one mod at a time. Or at least an easier way to combine mods.

MikaRMD

08-22-2003, 01:36 AM

Originally posted by Sloth:
I hope Max Payne 2 isn't limited by using only one mod at a time. Or at least an easier way to combine mods. Cut my legs and call me Shorty! Is there any game where it is possible to run several mods at the same time?

(Just so that you know...that was NOT sarcasm, I would really like to know. From programming point of view (and I don't know much about that) it seems like it would be Very Difficult.)

Yatta

08-22-2003, 01:38 AM

Perhaps he means small tweaks? I've seen 50KB mods that just play around with the animation, and you don't necessarily have to choose them from the game menu to have them run on the game.

KillJoy

08-22-2003, 01:50 AM

(Just so that you know...that was NOT sarcasm, I would really like to know. From programming point of view (and I don't know much about that) it seems like it would be Very Difficult.) -Unreal Tournament to name one. Had "Mutators" which could be toggled on and off, randomly. You could have as many as you want running at the same time.

-Jedi Knight 2 (Outcast)
Let you load as many as you want, even thougn the interface was a little clunky.

-The Grand Theft Auto 3 & Vice City
You could have as many mods running as you want running, but there was no interface, it was all manual.

There is probably more that I am not thinking of. The suprising thing about most of these games is you can edit which mods are bieng used, while running the game.

SkavenRMD

08-22-2003, 02:38 AM

On the other hand, there are countless games out there that do not allow modding at all. The modding possibility in Max Payne is a nice bonus, no?

I can say at this point that Max Payne 2 will still allow only one mod at a time, selected at startup. It would be very difficult to change it at this point of development - it is something that needs to be taken into consideration from the very beginning, when the engine and its asset management structure is planned. Keep in mind that we are using an upgraded version of the original Max-FX engine.

However, overall, the modding possibilities of the game have expanded somewhat. You'll see. I should also mention that MaxED has gone through a major revision, and is really starting to kick ass now. And yes: it has Undo. images/icons/grin.gif

Anyway, what you point out there, those are good things to be considered for whatever our next game project might be. images/icons/smile.gif

MarkusRMD

08-22-2003, 03:18 AM

You can run multiple small mods in Max1 as well by extracting the mods. As long as they don't overwrite the same in-game files, they should work simultaneously.

Otherwise you need to do a "merge" to the script files...

LeadBullet

08-22-2003, 03:31 AM

What about this:

You have a /MaxPayne2/ folder and then you have another folder like /max2/ and have the game files in there. The main exe and files that won't change in mods stay in the /MaxPayne2/ folder and the art, levels and stuff go in the /max2/ folder.

Then if someone makes a mod they can just have another folder like /MaxPayne2/KungFu/ and put the files in that, and anything needed not found in the kungfu folder would be taken from the /max2/ folder. Then to install uninstall mods people just delete the folder for the mod.

To run a mod just have a shortcut similar to how you ran it in developer mode in the original, have have a shortcut that just has "-kungfu" in the shortcut.

biXen

08-22-2003, 03:38 AM

Considering there's no mod worth running yet except Kung Fu that doesn't have new levels, I don't really see the need for many mods at the same time. Good to hear MaxED is improved though, maybe I'll actually finish a level now images/icons/smile.gif

Uisor

08-22-2003, 04:10 AM

yes, that UNDO option will be very handy

MrUniq

08-22-2003, 08:21 AM

so if it's usging max fx...that means we can use our current kf2 formatted meshes?

Thank heavens MaxFx is easier..and has an undo. It'll make mapping alot more effective and less time consuming.

Kudos to remedy...and the modders out there. Without them they may have never released dev tools for part 2.

Sloth

08-22-2003, 01:07 PM

Originally posted by MikaRMD:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Sloth:
I hope Max Payne 2 isn't limited by using only one mod at a time. Or at least an easier way to combine mods. Cut my legs and call me Shorty! Is there any game where it is possible to run several mods at the same time?

(Just so that you know...that was NOT sarcasm, I would really like to know. From programming point of view (and I don't know much about that) it seems like it would be Very Difficult.) <hr /></blockquote>Morrowind lets you use lots of mods at once, even has a nice loader to make it easy to do. NWN also lets you load more than 1 HAK PAK now, which is essentially the same thing as a mod (new levels, items, models, textures)

Jokke_r

08-22-2003, 04:29 PM

what does the game do if two mods have the same thing in em for example both mods replace the same weapon..

i mean there is no need for a stupid thing like that...

and it won't happen neither. if you wan't to combine mods then you haveto learn how and not be that lazy

Sloth

08-22-2003, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by Jokke_r:
what does the game do if two mods have the same thing in em for example both mods replace the same weapon..

i mean there is no need for a stupid thing like that...

and it won't happen neither. if you wan't to combine mods then you haveto learn how and not be that lazy your comment makes no sense, because in the first sentance you say it causes problems when you have two things overwriting each other, then you say you need to learn how to combine mods.

Your solution does not address the problem in your first sentance.

Fact is morrowind does multiple mods fine. The loader for it is really nice. NWN doesn't have a loader, but all you need to do is copy whatever mods you want to the HAK dir.

KillJoy

08-22-2003, 05:45 PM

Morrowind, thats the one I forgot.

SamiV

08-22-2003, 06:27 PM

Some things related to file formats:

.kf2 is still used

.skd still exists, but gets exported from 3dsmax (physique). We'll need to still work out MilkShape/etc support later on.

.dds (DirectDrawSurface) is the texture format. NVIDIA has "NVDXT" tools available free from their website, including command line batch tools and Photoshop plugins.

.ldb is still exported from the new MaxEd. They have nothing to do with the old .ldb files but we didn't want to change the extension... Source level files are called .lv2. Converting old .lvl files will most probably not be supported - so many things are done so differently nowadays that it's going to be easier just to learn the new way.

The new MaxEd comes with seperate "Server" and "Client" applications for a few key operations.

SamiV.

[ 08-22-2003, 06:30 PM: Message edited by: SamiV ]

Kev_Hectic

08-22-2003, 06:43 PM

Originally posted by SkavenRMD:
However, overall, the modding possibilities of the game have expanded somewhat. You'll see. I should also mention that MaxED has gone through a major revision, and is really starting to kick ass now. And yes: it has Undo. images/icons/grin.gif Cool. Will the new MaxED also include a tool that can make primitive shapes, like spheres, cylinders, cones?

FullMetalJacket

08-22-2003, 07:20 PM

Originally posted by MikaRMD:
Is there any game where it is possible to run several mods at the same time?In almost any Quake3-based game like MOHAA or JK2, you can use many mods, which are all in .pk3 files.

Will MP2 mods still be in .mpm format and you simply drop them into the game's folder, or will something else need to be done to the game for mods to work?

SamiV

08-22-2003, 07:35 PM

Getting several "nicely capsulated" and very isolated mods to run together would be downright trivial. The problem becomes when they start fighting over the same files or behaviour - I really don't know how the UT or Q3 based games avoid mods from doing that. What's for sure that if you have two mods, one insisting bullet time multplier is 0.5, another insisting it's 0.2 - you have a conflict without clear winners. Prioritizing mods is IMHO a bad idea and would only lead to more confusion.

To avoid that, we've purposedly made our system to be able to run one mod at a time.

When loading a mod, a similar system to MaxPayne1's ".mpm" is used. We should probably change the extension from ".mpm" to something like ".mp2m" to avoid unintentional problems from trying to use MaxPayne1 mods with MaxPayne2.

SamiV.

The Baskinator

08-22-2003, 08:38 PM

Cut my legs and call me Shorty!*laughing* OK, Shorty.

Froz

08-23-2003, 02:10 AM

So, are the textures included with each level separately like in MaxEd "1.0" or is there a directory for all used textures? That would decrease the size of levels and would be easier for 56k'ers to download.

theHunted

08-23-2003, 05:19 AM

Originally posted by Sloth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Jokke_r:
...your comment makes no sense, because in the first sentance you say it causes problems when you have two things overwriting each other, then you say you need to learn how to combine mods.

Your solution does not address the problem in your first sentance.
<hr /></blockquote>It does! an automated system wouldn't know what to do whereas, if you're into max payne modding, you can make the 2 weapons have different weapon slots and in fact work together. (and now please don't just think of weapons, i know that could be handled rather easy by an algorithm)

Jokke_r

08-23-2003, 06:01 AM

yes but that is called modding. man it's not like you can just pop the two mpm files and play em both without editing first

and .mp2m won't work cos windows only allows 3letter file extensions mac in the other hand does support 4 letter file extensions like .html .jpeg
while their windows counterparts are .htm .jpg

08-23-2003, 07:52 AM

Umm.. what are you talking about Jokke? Atleast Windows '95, '98, NT4, 2000 and XP let you have 4 letter file extensions. Hell, they let you have way more than 4 letters if you want to.

KillJoy

08-23-2003, 01:50 PM

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think the limit for '95-2000 is 8. I don't know about XP.

MrUniq

08-23-2003, 01:56 PM

the 2 mods at a time idea isn't good for a game like MP, it'd take more code and cpu power to sort the mods....and then again the gameplay of one mod will be directly effected by the other.

Say a person makes "Kungfu" with animations and combos.....but another mod which uses the same animations sets but gets preference over the other....then it won't work because the animations aren't there for kungfu to work...and visa versa.

What if someone tweaks the guns for their mod...but another changes it once again the intended overall gameplay is effected. There might be features in one mod that's great but another that u may not want. So when u play two at a time...it's frustrating because that nagging tweak is still there. That's why blending mods manually is a better approach.

Even in Unreal Tournament 2003 mods with similar alterations can't be chosen at the same time.

08-23-2003, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by KillJoy:
Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think the limit for '95-2000 is 8. I don't know about XP. Prepare to stand corrected:
http://netti.nic.fi/~jaasan/hardly.jpg
From W2K.

Guest

08-24-2003, 11:53 AM

i didnt read all the posts but ghost recon lets you run tons of mods at the same time

KillJoy

08-24-2003, 01:39 PM

Originally posted by j:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by KillJoy:
Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think the limit for '95-2000 is 8. I don't know about XP. Prepare to stand corrected:
http://netti.nic.fi/~jaasan/hardly.jpg
From W2K. <hr /></blockquote>LOL, J, that is a little more than eight.

asker

08-24-2003, 09:07 PM

LeadBullet described how HalfLife mods work. Also, HalfLife has a mod called MetaMod that can load multiple other mods at once.

mixuk

08-25-2003, 07:03 AM

I guess someone could write a mod combiner for Max Payne. As in, it could read different mpm's and combine them into a single database and report of conflicts. You are free to try.

Froz, the textures are still stored in the level file.

Kev_hectic, no.

The new maxed is great though, it has some pretty cool shit in it and i'm sure it will fulfill all your mapping needs regarding Max Payne 2.