[Mere_Mortal]

Does anybody have any ideas for modifying the demo version of Tiberium Wars? It doesn't look like there's much potential, but anything would be welcome just to make it somewhat more interesting.

For instance, PlayerTemplate.INI exists, so we can start with a GDI ConYard and a NOD MCV, allowing for both techs. GameData.INI is also there, so things like the amount of resources given by Tiberium can be altered.

It's also possible to replace the original maps, maybe even include new ones.

[IHM]

Well, when I opened the .big's in XCC Mixer, all the INI files seemed to be encrypted, so I couldnt do anything.

[Mere_Mortal]

That's odd, they're not encrypted here, no matter which program I use :tard:

Hmm...maybe it's the type of BIG archive they are. I extracted everything from DemoData.BIG and then recompiled it using FinalBIG. XCC will open the modified file but not the original.

Forget XCC because it's not an editor, you need the latest version of FinalBIG for this job because it can edit and compile BIG archives. You have to recompile the archive after editing the original contents.

[IHM]

I grabbed the BIG editor that banshee made, that works on them, looking at it theres not really too much that can be done.

Other than breaking the frame rate limit and stupid things like that.

[Waraddict]

I've got a feeling those ini files are redundant, I mean check the AIData.ini for instance, it blatantly refers to BFME 2 objects.

You have to consider that the object inis aren't present either, so obviously whether these inis are redundant or not, they're hiding a considerable amount of code elsewhere (probably hard coded in the exe).

[Mere_Mortal]

Yeh, I haven't found much to play with. I did get a rather colourful Twilight Flame on the go, however. A shame the AI weren't scripted though.

I was wondering about all this BFME crap. It might be because it's a pre-release and they've just reused old cold for now, but it'd be rather stupid if it's all still there in the full version. Else where gonna get spammed by Hobbits!

These objects must be somewhere, they're not in the executable, it's too small, so I guess they're in the DAT. Maybe even in DemoStreams.BIG.

[jonwil]

Firstly, the files that look "encrypted" aren't encrypted, they are actually compressed with an EA algorithm called refpack.
This thread:
http://www.derelictstudios.net/forum...howtopic=15016
contains links to a number of programs capable of decompressing this compression.

As for the unit data and stuff, it is all XML which has then been compiled into binary format to speed up loading. (the binary data is inside various files inside demostreams.big) Modding C&C3 in any real way is not going to be possible without the source XML files (which EA will need to provide)

[IHM]

Yeah, I got a new version of the big extractor by banshee which sorted that out.

A few things about your list.

.str files are redundant, they dont support multiple languages, .csf files are used for languages

.wnd files are the old method for ALL interfaces in generals, they changed that in BFME to use a flash based system, so I was told anyway, which I assume will be used in C&C 3, the .wnd files in C&C 3 .bigs are useless AFAIK.

It also seems INI is used a lot, which is stupid, as they were supposedly dumping INI and moving to XML, most of the INI files that are there talk about BFME/2 stuff as WarAddict says.

So, overall I would take everything in the demo with a pinch of salt.

[Mere_Mortal]

I had a read of those threads at DS, couldn't make head or tail of any of it though :lol:

A shame they've discarded the INIs, that's my skill with modding Gens/ZH
But if it's going to improve the speed of the game, then very well because ZH is certainly laggy.

[IHM]

Its not going to be massively different to the Generals INI code AFAIK.

Also, its not going to improve the speed ingame I think, I think it just speeds up loading times as it will be faster to parse the code.