It would take an experienced MODDER only 1 HOUR to help me!

[Renwood]

Hey, I have the internet again. But I am having much trouble trying to figure out how to build a new version of GC with maps from different versions of the MOD. Most the help files that come with the BF1942 MDK are all bad links that go nowhere. All I need is a good MODDER to walk me through (hopefully with VOIP over TS3 or Skype or ventrillo) how to take maps from 5.0 , 5.3 ,6.31 , and 7.0 to compile 1 working version from all those. I have a bunch of new maps and it would be the best version of GC to date. Most mod communitys I have tried to work with over the years on various games wont give you the time of day if you are new to modding.
Thus people who are new GIVE UP! Please help me! I can do everything else myself if somebody will show me how to put maps from different versions together into a working version of Galactic Conquest 8.0

Nobody is playing GC even with all the new players from the free origin version. We need to release and promote a NEW version 8.0 of GC with new maps and lots of bug fixes to get people playing the greatest MOD for BF1942 and best STAR WARS video game ever made again!

-Renwood

[fo0k]

Nobody is playing GC even with all the new players from the free origin version.

-Renwood

This is not one of the best reasons for someone to get involved in this project.



It's certainly not an hours work..
there is plenty of help around the bf modding community but a request like this is so broad and general that most will not have the time to commit.
You will need to start this yourself using the many tutorials here and within the serversidemodding backup (linked on front page)
..then it will be easier for people to help with specific questions rather than a general mod clean-up.

[Swaffy]

I'm walking in feeling like a sheep ...

... but I feel like it would take me weeks to do a job like that.

[Renwood]

So are you guys saying that showing somebody over VOIP how to take different maps from different versions of GC and compile them into a new working version would take weeks? I really dout that would be the case.

Are there tutorials that cover exactly what I am talking about? Because if there are, I have not come across them. General tutorials are NOT what I am looking for. For insatnce, telling me how to make a map will not help. as I am trying to figure out how to take PREexsisting maps from different versions of a MOD and create a new build or release with all these maps from different versions, as well as a few all new unreleased maps my team was working on a few years ago.

They all have since moved onto other games, so I can not look to them for help.

[Senshi]

Merging maps into different mods or mod versions is not difficult to explain, but it is difficult to explain EVERYTHING to a modder layman. If you really want to complete a project of your anticipated scale, you won't get around understanding at least the basic principles of how mods, maps and objects interact and are referred to.

Actually, merging maps is so easy I can lay out the basics right here:

Maps are simple: They will always work on every mod version (they don't really care about mods at all, actually). However, they do care if they can load all the objects that are referred to within the map files. If there's object spawners defined in the map file that try to spawn objects that the mod simply doesn't have, it obviously won't spawn anything (which is much preferable to a simple crash, however ). But the same goes for all statics, sounds, etc. used on the map. Static objects that are defined and placed, but whose .sm files are not in the current mod will not exist ingame. Things get worse if e.g. kits are defined that do not exist. Those are a crucial element of gameplay and BF42 can't handle empty kit slots well, so this usually leads to a crash. These are the single main culprits that cause maps not to run with various mods.
Getting them to work means testing them, figuring out which objects failed to load or cause issues, then either replace them or making sure the necessary files are integrated either mapside or modside.

If you are a complete layman, the above paragraph will be difficult to understand, but as I said, I really don't see any way around it if you really want to get on with your project. And as others like fook said, asking specific questions you encountered while trying sth. yourself usually leads to a way better responsiveness than general "Tell me how to do this all"-kind questions. The reasons for this are:
1) The generic questions really have been answered over and over again in various forms. I know it might be difficult to find them due to the lack of proper search terms, but this simply doesn't really make it enjoyable for experienced modders to write it all out again.
2) Generic questions always look a lot like "I don't know things, but I don't really want to bother to learn things, so I'll just ask and those gurus will surely give me a perfectly tailored solution...". This might be true or not, but it's just how it often feels (and sadly sometimes is true). It's like a schoolkid asking you to do its entire homework instead of asking you to help it solve some issue it is stumped on while trying to solve its homework...
3) Thinking about and answering generic questions simply is not much fun. It is exhausting, it is boring, and this means most people won't bother to write elaborate responses (if any).
4) Which kinda sums up all the above: Asking intriguing, specific questions that present a rare(r) and unique(r) challenge to the modder are much more interesting, even more so if there are various possible approaches. Threads with this kind of question usually quickly get a good and steady support from various people, as the bfmods creed is: Everything in BF42 is possible, you just gotta find the right workaround...and we are damn good at finding them!

Another issue is VoIP. Many people simply don't like it, some don't have it. I myself find it very refreshing and time-saving on many occasions, but modding-stuff usually is done on-the-side of other things, and talking requires continous full attention, which also can be exhausting. That's why forums still thrive.


So don't be disheartened, all of us will readily provide assistance, but you gotta go into more detail. Explain what exactly is the issue you have with merging your maps or where you need help. If you need a simple layman's How-To on how to make maps work in a new mod at all, ask just that. It's super easy:
1) Put the map .rfa file into the new mod's levels folder
2) Open the .rfa and make sure the \menu\init.con has the "game.setMapID "XXX" value set correctly. If not, change this to the correct mod's name.
3) Start the game. If it crashes on startup, there's some serious issue with the map that will require debugging. Either use the debugger or debug "light" by using windowed mode (windowed mode gives a single error message on crash, at least).
4) If the game starts up, the map will appear in your regular map list, just fire it up on local and see if the map loads. again, if it crashes during mapload, check it with windowed/debugger for error messages.
5) If the game does not crash, you'll be able to play the map. Test it thoroughly and make sure that all objects that should be there are there. Take note of missing vehicles/objects and fix the responsible files.

EDIT: These 5 steps should be enough to direct you. There really are plenty of tutorials on how to handle .rfa files and edit value in .rfa files. Debugging crash causes is a whole new topic that usually is a lot more tricky, and for that the above guideline will help: Crash issues usually are interesting and the well-known bane of every modder and everybody will jump in to help solve them.

[Renwood]

Thanks Senshi.

I have no problem working hard long hours to find out things on my own. There is just an almost complete lack of information on what it is exactly that I am trying to do. most BF modding took place 2003-2005, long before Youtube arrived on the scene with countless video tutorials on just about everything in the universe. A lot of links to learn how to mod BF1942 are also dead, just try looking up the help files in the MDK, they lead to non exsistant links.

I worked on Galacitc Conquest in 2004-2005 as an internal Alpha tester, and poked the brains of lots of Devs on the ins and outs of how things worked within BF. I also worked with some of those Devs on a version 6.0 and 7.0 over the years. I have MODed the hell out of the Myth franchise from Bungie, I am just a noob to getting my own hands dirty within BF1942.

I will follow your tips over the next few weeks and see if I can get this all figured out. I will post exact instances of problems as you suggest in future posts.
Galactic Conquest (The Star Wars MOD) really is one of the very finest and most FUN multiplayer games ever created. This is what drives me to create a new version of it for a release 8.0 I think its the only way to get people playing it again. Now with tons of new people DLING the Origin Free version of BF1942
this is the best and most likely LAST CHANCE to get a dedicated following of people all over the world playing GC again and finding out just how awesome it really is.

I am currently working on a "Galacitc Conquest The Movie" Machinima movie to help promote GC and a new release 8.0 with a marketing campaign to go along with it. Maybe when I get that uploaded on youtube, I can gather more interest from the BF1942 Modding community to help out.

Thanks for your time. Anybody else with TIPS or links to tutorials I will certainly be thankfull for them!

Have a Happy New Year!

-Renwood

[Senshi]

Googling "Battlefield MDT" spits this as the first result:
http://bfmods.com/mdt/
Have fun .

I just had a long post almost finished here, then my browser crashed...

In short: Another thing to take note of: Maps usually consist of simple lists of indices and referrals and only have their unique terrain (height/materialmap.raw, ground texture files) and in addition just refer placements of objects that are stored centrally in the mod archives (objects/textures.rfa etc.). However, it is possible for maps to "bring their own stuff", as map archives are also just being parsed like every other game file. I suggest to take a look at the vanilla "Battle of Britain" map, as it includes several objects (like the Ju88), that are entirely unique to this map and can NOT be used in other maps "just like that" as you can use objects that are stored in the central archives. It might be some of the GC mappers have used this approach to overwrite or add new content in their maps. This method is also commonly used to replace generic textures of statics or vehicles with unique ones that are more fitting to the map. This can be achieved by simply using the name texture name and placing the texture file inside the map.rfa "\texture" folder. The game interprets each .rfa as a unique folder that is based on the root game folder (no matter where the .rfa is located. This is why map .rfas still need to have these superfolders "bf1942\levels" in them). So the "texture"-folder of the map will - by the game - be seen as the same texture folder of the texture.rfa. As the map is always loaded after the central archives (makes sense...), files in the "texture"-mapfolder will override the central ones.

If GC deals with a lot of these mapside moddings (as I like to label them) or even reuses several of them in multiple maps, it's usually wise to transfer these from the maps to the central archives. Things get more tidy and filespace-saving and modders have it a lot easier to keep track of things (especially if things override each other).
Textures can also be stored in "themed" packs in the main texture.rfa - which also can be seen when looking at the vanilla files - by using a simple subfolder in there (Africa, Pacific, ...). In the map's init.con you can define a custom texture path that'd point there, which again means all content from this custom texture path will override possible existing textures.