Star Wars the Clone Wars (2003 game) mod request

[Drakov64]

Hello SWBF fans,

I don't know where to post this, as it is not a Battlefront game I'm requesting a mod for, but I'm requesting a mod so I post this to the mods section. (to be moved if I'm wrong)

Well, here's my request...I've been a huge fan of Star Wars the Clone Wars, the 2003 game released on Gamecube, Xbox and PS2 only. It's like a prequel to Battlefront games, using the same engine, and from which many assets and the TX-130 tank among other things have been borrowed for the original BF game.

I wondered if somebody out there would be able to mod the game to give it a second life ? Like let players select a vehicle (originally playable or non playable) to play for each level mostly, but among other things either ? I thought this game had potential to be far better with a vehicle choice ability and deserved to be better known. After all it's this game that brought the famous TX-130 tank to life...

Anybody interested in such a project ?

[Dark_Phantom]

I've honestly thought about it but creating mod tools from scratch is a big undertaking - leaving a lot of holes and limitations for a long time.  We have many of the assets and some idea of the file formats because of their similarity to Battlefront.
It's definitely something to think about, but right now I have a lot of other things going on that makes taking on another project impossible.

[Drakov64]

Hi, Dark_Phantom.

First, thank you very much for answer.

Second, I'm very glad that this idea reach somebody else's mind. I understand that it's difficult to start modding from scratch, mostly for an old, obscure consoles exclusive game.

If you ever start such a project, please reach me. I'm not a dev, far from being a modder, but I'd be much joyful to know such a project is started, if donation is needed...well I could help this way with what I can

[Batteringham]

Hey everyone, sorry for bumping an old thread but I figured I'd introduce myself as well as let you guys know that I am definitely interested in this game and in the project of modding it.

I think the multiplayer, and more specifically the Conquest multiplayer mode, has a ton of potential for improvement and optimization and is generally a really unique and interesting game mode. As a quick reminder, Conquest was the mode where your aim is to destroy the opposing base, either directly or by capturing outposts across the map which produce units that you can order to do the dirty work for you. There are many (many) flaws in the vanilla game and it is quite bare bones, comprising of only 4 playable maps and a handful of playable vehicles. However, it's such a strange and unique hybrid of genres (3rd person tank shooter, MOBA, RTS) that it's a shame that a more polished, fleshed out game of its type hasn't been made yet. I highly recommend going back and messing around with it if you haven't in awhile. I'm open to thoughts/criticisms/questions about it.

Also, I have no experience with coding or modding. I am willing to put in as much work as humanly possible to make this a successful project, though. Hoping to hear from you guys, either here or via DM. Peace

[Dark_Phantom]

The first problem that needs figured out is the file formats.  I almost need to do everything from scratch except for the msh file format.
What file format contains what/does what/etc, and then a way to view them outside of the actual game.  Without a PC port, this is much harder, and I can't get a working version of the terrain into ZE to even help out there.

My mind is kind of jumbled in this but overall I'm not sure how to push this any further at this moment.

[Batteringham]

What would need to be done in order to view/edit the files? Like, how did it get figured out for Battlefront?

[Dark_Phantom]

For The Clone Wars, there is a script at XenHax (or Xentax, whatever it's been called) that will split the big data.zwp (ZWP just being a wrapper file) file into parts.  This is great and all, but I think it converts these files based on a commonality with BF.  I don't know whether this is correct or not.

Sticking with the Xbox version as this is closest to PC theoretically, we can start breaking down the formats of files. The msh (model) file format is pretty well documented in several places. Textures have been converted as they are one of the DXT variants and it's pretty well documented I think.  I can figure out the sound engine, there's some common structures to BF (plus on Xbox they're mostly already WAV format).  Movies are self explanatory.  No one has ever successfully replaced any of these files, and even if we could, we'd have to be very aware of memory limits.

Unknowns:
World data structures are contained in data.zwp as far as I know.
I have no clue what the files in the bin folder are for.  FIL and ANM are the surface level file types.
After that there's very little to explain the mission structure, which isn't good for modding.

For your questions:
1.) Battlefront had mod tools and a debugger deployed with it.  This simplified many of the investigative tasks because Pandemic provided the keys to the car.
2.) Battlefront plays on PC, which makes it many times easier to test file changes and deploy them right in the game.  Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 all require hardware or emulators that may or may not encompass the original hardware (Dolphin runs every Gamecube game now, but for ages TCW was the only game it COULDN'T run because of custom memory mapping wizardry by Pandemic's programmers that was not seen before or afterward).
3.) Battlefront was much more mainstream than TCW2002. Starting from scratch with only a couple people is no simple task.
4.) In addition to the mod tools, there's a former Pandemic dev who helped out a ton, but he was not part of the team for TCW2002.

Battlefront and TCW are not the same engine, before anyone comes and says that.  For example, Pandemic kept the msh format but the BF1 compilers turn it into a totally new file type.  Comparing the two engines may help on the surface because a lot of the same programmers worked on both, but you can't test in BF and play it in TCW.  The closest to TCW is either Battlezone 2 or Dark Reign 2, both of which only ran on PC.

[end long post for now]

[Fuzz]

Hey guys, I know it's been quite awhile since this thread was created, but I can't find ANYTHING about modding this game anywhere on the internet, so I made an account just to respond.

Have there been any updates? This game seems like it would be really fun to mod, even if it's just giving us the option to choose whatever vehicle we wanted in singleplayer, including ones we could never drive before, like the ATTE or Cydon Prax's tank.

I hope this one day becomes a reality!