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Warhead

23 Sep, 2013 @ 1:34pm

New to CryEngine?

If you're new to how everything works and want to get into modding State of Decay (or any other CryEngine game) then I'll explain some basic stuff here.

The engine version they're using is 3.3.8, some files reference that version number.

Folder Hierarchy

CryEngine has 2 folders (Game and Engine)

Game is for assets, scripts, sounds.
Engine is for graphics variables and shaders (but shaders are not editable)

Inside of Game, you'll find numerous .pak archives and a levels folder.

Each .pak archive can be extracted, and be left extracted for editing. If you make a change to the file and open up the game, changes will be made. The Engine will load .paks first, then softly overwrite with folders.

How Textures are made

Textures in the CryEngine are either one of two things, .tif or .dds.

.tif represents the source file, it is the original quality before it's processed by the rc.exe (which is not included with SoD)

.dds is a common texture file. Some textures use the alpha channel as either transparency or glow (self-illum)

You'll need to get Adobe Photoshop for the CryTif plugin (which I'll explain later)

Last edited by Warhead; 23 Sep, 2013 @ 3:49pm

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Showing 1-14 of 14 comments

Novamonk 23 Sep, 2013 @ 1:56pm

Thanks for doing this write up. Learning more about how cryengine works is on my to do list. So any insights will help before I dive into any tutorials I can find.

Warhead

23 Sep, 2013 @ 2:05pm

Ask me anything, I'm sure I have an answer for it.

Alex 25 Sep, 2013 @ 2:48am

Hello, I have tried to uncompress objects.pak with winrar, but I recieve this error:
! D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\State of Decay\Game\objects.pak: Unknown method in objects\abstract\solids\x_trees.mtl
for ever single file inside the archive, though I can see the files.
Could you give me an advice what I am doing wrong?

Last edited by Alex; 25 Sep, 2013 @ 2:49am

Warhead

25 Sep, 2013 @ 8:30am

Yeah.
Have a read here: http://forums.undeadlabs.com/showthread.php?33518-How-To-Change-keybindings-and-other-graphical-settings

Alex 25 Sep, 2013 @ 9:56am

Thank you Warhead I will take a look at it, so far could you give me a hint what files do I need to look for if I want to edit durability or other properties of weapons or items?

FlyinBuddha 26 Sep, 2013 @ 3:22pm

This is awesome man. Thank you

Kahvipannu 16 Oct, 2013 @ 9:45am

New to cry-engine, so couple questions:

I haven't noticed normal-maps or such anywhere, is there a reason they are missing, or am I just missing something?

Also I'm very curious about one thing, for example when I open skin_d.dds with PS, no problem, but anything with _ddn in the end will give error, why is that? And what are those _ddn versions of the textures?

Also is Milkshape viable option for Cry-engine, or more preciselly for DoD?

Last edited by Kahvipannu; 16 Oct, 2013 @ 9:46am

Warhead

17 Oct, 2013 @ 1:14am

Originally posted by KahvipannuMNC:
New to cry-engine, so couple questions:

I haven't noticed normal-maps or such anywhere, is there a reason they are missing, or am I just missing something?

Also I'm very curious about one thing, for example when I open skin_d.dds with PS, no problem, but anything with _ddn in the end will give error, why is that? And what are those _ddn versions of the textures?

Also is Milkshape viable option for Cry-engine, or more preciselly for DoD?

_ddn's typically are the normal map textures, I have no idea why you wouldn't be able to open them.

I don't think Milkshape alone will get you far, but you can probably use it to model and probably export it into a format 3dsmax can read. (OBJ, FBX, etc.)

Kahvipannu 17 Oct, 2013 @ 2:39am

Thank you for the quick answer. Yeah it is weird, never had the problem opening dds files before, altought I use PS 7.0, which is really old, with the dds-add on, so maybe that is it. It's only those ones with this game I can't open. Also Irfanview, program I use to view DDS files can't see them either, gives error when I try to open them, not sure what is different about them?

Have to check the 3dsmax thing, thanks for the tip.

EDIT: I try again with the Crytek-plugin for Photoshop.

EDIT2: Yup, installing Cryteks PS-plug-ins worked, apparently you need those to open the normal maps. Thanks a lot, now to test some skinning. :P

Last edited by Kahvipannu; 17 Oct, 2013 @ 3:01am

Warhead

20 Oct, 2013 @ 8:20pm

http://puu.sh/4Vmb6.png

#10

_________LuNandor

21 Oct, 2013 @ 8:43pm

The bit about the photoshop plugin was in my post about opening the files :)

Blender works for modelling, I've done it and it works. CHR exports are the part I'm working on now. Free modelling program.

#11

JG_Lives 8 Jan, 2014 @ 4:20pm

@Warhead Killer, I am looking at Nexus Mod Manager to determine a way to get it to work with State of Decay and possibly other CryEngine-based games. If I have questions related to CryEngine, could I PM you on this site?

#12