Modding topic

[Ne0Que]

Hi,

I do not know if this is allowed.. but i really hope so. Just for hobby/study/non-commercial projects it would be really great if I or / and others may continue with this:

Anyway, I extracted all the gs files... moved the gs files to a backup folder and start 'back-engineering the whole thing'. It looks like the script files are written in javascript.In a few minutes i was been able to add a new menu item called "test button" by editing the main.script. It has no functionality as i do not know how to edit *.states files. (in the main.script).

The way the engine is designed is very well and mod-friendly. I don't know if this was intentional but i think we have a whole lot of possibilities here! I've see lots of script files, i think the game can be completely re-modded (even to a city-builder game) if we understand how for example the .states files are stored. I believe this is partly binary code? I am unable to edit these files without corrupting it. I see function calls in it. (attach functions to menu buttons for example?).

It is even possible to build an IDE around this whole engine.. I know i know, i do not think this was intentionally the goal of Colossal.. but imagine the freedom.. i hope they will not be worried about this, because it attracts lot's of people for buying this game. The bigger the fanbase, the better. That is why Simcity 4 still has tens of thousands of fans participating in a custom content creating/modding way.

I hope more people like me are interested in this. I have been working on he CityMania project (A Small Artist gallery here) which is currently failing because of the lack of time, manpower and knowledge to build it from scratch. I hope that a city-builder title from the community (so it is non-commercial) will gain new life breath after discovering this great potential game engine.

Thanks,

 

[unmerged(262504)]

This is quite interesting...

Modding is getting increasingly popular, with more and more new releases allowing it. Modding possibilities definitely increase the popularity of the game as they create communities, sharing mods and tools. Sim City 4 is a great example - the game may not be perfect but the mods and all the custom content has made it much better!

I've been modding for Cities XL 2011 and would love to create mods for Cities in Motion, too. It would be great if the developers could share some tools to unpack and edit the game files!

 

[woz]

This is quite interesting...

Modding is getting increasingly popular, with more and more new releases allowing it. Modding possibilities definitely increase the popularity of the game as they create communities, sharing mods and tools. Sim City 4 is a great example - the game may not be perfect but the mods and all the custom content has made it much better!

I've been modding for Cities XL 2011 and would love to create mods for Cities in Motion, too. It would be great if the developers could share some tools to unpack and edit the game files!

Large commuinties can be built around modding. Just look at Simtropolis and TWC and also M&B.

 

[Ne0Que]

A working mod-able game:
I extracted every gs archive.
Put in /metro directory except for the data.gs.
The files from data.gs should be extracted in the root of the program.
Then everything should work.

For an overview, the directory structure should now look like this (seen from root)

C:\Program Files\Cities In Motion

C:\Program Files\Cities In Motion\metro

I must note that in order to safely modify stuff, i made a backup of the gs files in
C:\Users\Nique\Documents\Cities In Motion\gs\*.gs

About the states files
Does anyone have a clue about these *.states files?

 

[TheCheeseMaster]

If a game isnt modifiable then dont get it is my rule of thumb, unless its for ps3.
Mods make a game your own, or in most cases, make the game alot more fun. For example, the jet-pack mod for Fallout NV.

 

[Ne0Que]

A bit of sad news i found out after back-engineering for a while today:

I wanted the game to load from another directory, leaving the original directory (metro) alone. So i fired up a Hex editor and changed the 'metro' string to 'ctgam' (i had to choose this kind of name (5 characters) because otherwise the exe file would be corrupted). Now, i copied the metro directory and renamed the copy to 'ctgam'. Now, that works! I had to edit all the script files to point to the ctgame dir instead of the metro dir, and it worked.

From this point, i was able to edit / modify anything without harming the original files. I saved the hex-edited "Cities in motion.exe" file to "CityBuilder.exe".

But now i found out big problems:
The main problem is, that for instance a lot of CONSTANTS are being hardcoded inside the GSystem.dll. I am not able to change, delete or add new constants to the list. It was great to see a lot of scripting is done without 'hardcoding' it in the EXE and the dynamic library (dll), but the main keys are hardcoded.. thus... makes my statement that we could reshape the game to a city builder game invalid.

It is possible to use an HEX editor, but then you are restricted to the filesize.. if you remove or add bytes, the program will not work anymore.

 

[Sonik-hedgehog]

Reality Sound Mod for CIM (Demonstration)

Theme of this mod

[video=youtube;RHmPBWh3ghk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHmPBWh3ghk[/video]

What has been changed:
- New distance for vehicles sounds
- New sound of the door for each vehicle
- New sound for steam, diesel and electric trains
- 3 sound groups for metro trains
- 4 sound groups for trams
- New sounds of a train stop
- Changed interface sounds

 

[OlaHaldor]

Wow, that's great! My head went dizzy after an hour or so with all these sounds fighting for attention.
Now I'm longing to know how to decompress the .object files, and how to make my own models go back in the game. LightWave 3D - here I come!

And oh! Buildings! HA! I modeled a Statoil gas station a while back for another game mod. That would look nice in any city..

 

[stevebone]

@Ne0Que look in addons.script and you will notice that the game can load additional files from other locations such as metro\addons or <userdata>\addons where userdata is your folder in "My Documents" or Documents (Cities in Motion). Looking in that script you can see what kind of files and fuctions can be loaded but am sure more can be added. There is no need to alter the gs archives at all. Hope it helps!

 

[Ne0Que]

Hi stevebone,

There is no call for 'objects' in the addons script. I think objects are a very important part of the game.

 

[vanadio]

Very very good

In the weekend i will try to do something...

 

[hybrid87]

How do you remove that the company color is put onto a tram?

I tried repainting the tram, but in the game still the company color was put on and was a mix of my paint and standart paint.

 

[stevebone]

Hi stevebone,

There is no call for 'objects' in the addons script. I think objects are a very important part of the game.

that call can be added there or we can use #include file to load new objects and create new functions, etc

 

[hybrid87]

How do you remove that the company color is put onto a tram?

I tried repainting the tram, but in the game still the company color was put on and was a mix of my paint and standart paint.

Any ideas?