The Unofficial AlienSwarm Modding Thread!

[Noodles]

I thought it might be a good idea to start this as soon as possible so that we can collate all (if any!) knowledge we have on modding for AlienSwarm.

I don't have a great deal to offer right now, but I'm hoping as the user base grows we can add more.

1) To start with, here's a useful tutorial on unpacking and decompiling models from ASw.

http://forums.blackcatgames.com/showthread.php?t=12993

I'll add a couple of notes on this here: You need the latest version of GCFScape for this (1.8.0) I had 1.7.1 and it wouldn't work. Also, you must use Notepad++ to edit the mdls, I tried Notepad originally and it wouldn't decompile.

2) Having played around with the models in 3DMax and XSI, it would appear that Valve aren't making this easy for us. The models need to be converted from left hand coordinate space on importing (that's possible in max, not sure about XSI), unfortunately, I think you may need to do this to the animations as well, there are a lot of them, and they aren't a seperate mdl like most HL2 characters.

3) Also, decompiling seems to throw up a lot more problems, as on recompile I'm having to contend with this:
http://pastebin.com/E9MHU5un

4) Seems to be that you cannot add mods to the ASw SDK yet, no idea if Valve are planning to remedy this.

5) Hearing from coders on my team that a lot of information (such as stuff on weapons) is stored in res files, some of these are in the vpks. (From what I understand, before we just had script text files).

So all in all, not looking good so far. Anyone who has anything else they discover, I'll add it to the list.

[Preamp]

i've tried to compile a player model for this game.. but it seems that it is "force loading" the original playermodel from the VPK's and therefore rendering us unable to use costume player-models

also my alien swarm model-viewer have a hard time opening the models and folders
seems you have to unpack them from the vpk's to even load them in the viewer

[stoopdapoop]

hmm, I looked at the boomer model too see how valve handled the pulsating/inflating. It's very strange, there are 3 flex sliders, but they don't appear to do anything when you move them around.

BBUTTTTT the Boomer's ballsack only has one bone and it's not responsible for the the bumps on the ball, so I assume that it's really being controlled by the flexes, does anyone know what's happening?

Also, it appears that they've added a "selfillumFresnel" parameter to to the VertexLitGeneric shader.

[MrTwoVideoCards]

Actually, I never thought about the tech behind it expanding, thats pretty neat stuff. Could be a jiggle bone that expands?

[stoopdapoop]

Actually, I never thought about the tech behind it expanding, thats pretty neat stuff. Could be a jiggle bone that expands?

Well, as of the OB engine you can't control the scale of a bone (or jigglebone), but maybe this has changed in the ASW SDK. Either way, it wouldn't be able to account for the complexity of the flex though, the scrotum has many bulbous parts that expand and contract. There has to be something else.

[Gradius]

Honestly, the forum automatically going to the last post threw me off. I was really confused as to why you wanted to add animated testicles. O_o

[Groxkiller585]

One of the recent updates seems to have made custom content have priority over the VPK's.

I actually got the boomer's whole model into Source SDK Hammer simply through drag-n'-drop to the right folders. However the skin doesn't work, which I assume is because the .QC file specifies it's somewhere else.

That and how do you open version 7.5 VTF files? My VTFedt can't open them.

[omnicoder]

One of the recent updates seems to have made custom content have priority over the VPK's.

I actually got the boomer's whole model into Source SDK Hammer simply through drag-n'-drop to the right folders. However the skin doesn't work, which I assume is because the .QC file specifies it's somewhere else.

That and how do you open version 7.5 VTF files? My VTFedt can't open them.

I made a little utility that swaps 7.5 to 7.4 (and vice versa)
Download
Just drag a 7.5 or 7.4 vtf onto it and it'll make a copy of it as the other version named oldfilenamec.vtf.
Dragging multiple files on at once works too.

And here's the source code for anyone that cares (as you can see it just swaps the header number)

Code: Select all

static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            foreach (string file in args)
            {
                BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(new FileStream(file,FileMode.Open));
                BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(new FileStream(file + "c.vtf", FileMode.OpenOrCreate));
                bw.Write(br.ReadBytes((int)br.BaseStream.Length));
                br.BaseStream.Seek(8, SeekOrigin.Begin);
                if (br.ReadByte() == 4)
                {
                    bw.BaseStream.Seek(8, SeekOrigin.Begin);
                    bw.Write((byte)5);
                }
                else
                {
                    bw.BaseStream.Seek(8, SeekOrigin.Begin);
                    bw.Write((byte)4);
                }
            }
        }

[ErikKiller]

Damn coders fixing the world!

[joe_rogers_11155]

With all the upgrades to jiggle bones and stuff, the "Ep3 Blob" is closer than ever. Possibly for a new version of the Advisors.

[Noodles]

Hey didn't realise this thread had actually got some replies lol. Some really useful stuff there. If anyone finds out more about the ballsacks put it on here - scaling or at least, the effect of scaling will be a really big thing, especially if it's available on all models!

[ErikKiller]

I say rename this to "The Unofficial Ballsack Thread!"

[joe_rogers_11155]

Stoopdapoop's Unofficial Ballsack Modification and Jigglebone Enlargement Thread. A subsidiary of Enzyte and Viagra.

By Interlopers, For Interlopers.

And now back to the topic of Alien Swarm modding. Did I see a First-Person version of the game somewhere on Lopers recently? That would be freaking sweet.

[Plague]

Stoopdapoop's Unofficial Ballsack Modification and Jigglebone Enlargement Thread. A subsidiary of Enzyte and Viagra.

By Interlopers, For Interlopers.

And now back to the topic of Alien Swarm modding. Did I see a First-Person version of the game somewhere on Lopers recently? That would be freaking sweet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8mB6JML ... re=related

Its all console commands, in theory you could make an fps mod with AS.