BuildMod.bat reversal

[CCA]

Hi,

I was wondering whether someone could perhaps figure out how do decompile the XML assests in the .big files using the reverse process of the BuildMod.bat, now that the SDK is released. I am asking because I am wondering how EALA removed the ability of the cranes to build the defensive structures, given that when I looked at the LogicCommandSet.xml and LogicCommand.xml, the commands for building the structures were still present and not commented out or removed. Also when I was browsing through the defensive structure xml files, I could not see a line that would perhaps cause the cranes not to be able to build the defenses.

The other reason is that I am attempting to create a new walls mod, and I think I have added all the required bits, except it still doesn't work, so I suspect if I saw how EALA removed the defensive buildings from the cranes, I would perhaps see which bits I missed.

Any help would be appreciated,

CCA

[CodeCat]

I'm having similar trouble actually. I tried removing the Crane and Surveyor from GDI's commandset, but after I ran the mod through the mod changer, I was in the game and there was no change. I tried the SampleMod, thinking I might have done something wrong. The SampleMod is supposed to add a unit to the GDI Barracks commandset, but again there was no change at all. Both mods compiled without any critical errors.

I believe these two issues might be related somehow. Perhaps EA put some kind of override in place that stops commandset changes from doing anything.

[CCA]

I think they might have, either that I we have both missed something quite simple :D, lol.

[CodeCat]

Well I've looked and posted on the official forums (despite the huge mess they are) and here's three threads that seem to be dealing with this issue:

http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=270835
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=270883
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=270551

[CCA]

Cool, :), i'll take a look.

Update: I took a look at the first thread, and I had already updated using the autoupdate utility, followed by the install of the SDK, so that didn't work for me.

Update 2: Reading the tiberiandawn.com thread, and checking the BuildMod.bat compilation set for my mod, I think I have found some problems that might be easily fixed - there are some random characters in the logiccommand files along with blank entries in the wall files. Fixing these should do the trick.

Update 3: I've got a headache. Both the logiccommand.xml and logiccommandset.xml files I have are littered with random symbols, like the files have become corrupted, and also the files themselves are a mess - all the blocks are in random positions, and don't line up in any real order, so I have been ironing out the files, and it is taking a while :(.

Update 4: IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!

Ok. Not sure whether this will help with you problems, but it solved mine - I downloaded a proper XML editor (open source and free - www.philo.de/xmledit (http://www.philo.de/xmledit)), and used that to edit and save the .xml files. This prevented all those random characters coming up as I was previously editing with WordPad (works with everything else, lol). Then I created the mod as you would do normally - create a mod.xml file, run CMD Prompt and do BuildMod MyMod, then created a skudef file using notepad, and saving as "All files" MyMod_0.1.skudef. And IT WORKED :D *dances*. Still got to get the walls building wall segments *grumbles*.

I hope that helps you and any others CodeCat.

[CodeCat]

Random characters? I just wrote my XML files from scratch. Maybe you were saving them as UTF-16 by accident and that was messing them up?

[CCA]

Most likely was, lol. Funny no other game that uses XML files I have had that issue, and I was using WordPad all the time, but now I switched to an XML editor, I'm not having any problems so far.

[CodeCat]

You should give Notepad++ a try. It's free, open source, and it has lots of useful tricks to make text editing easier. And it also has syntax highlighting (it colours the names of XML tags and attributes so they're easier to recognise).

Also, on the issue, here's the solution to my problem (and perhaps yours, too):
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?messageID=2753441

It turns out that C&C3 needs 2 files: mod.xml and mod_l.xml. If you have high model detail settings it reads only the former, and with low detail it only reads the latter.