Event picture file location

[WWII44]

where are the event picture files located, I ask as it would be nice to be able to reference them quickly when creating event triggers in my scenarios.

[Erik2]

They are part of the Resource file. You can access them by name in an event, but of course you need to know the name...
Adherbal posted a picture file listing all event pictures.
You need your magnifying glass

http://the-artistocrats.com/files/Modding/events.jpg

[blond_knight_new]

I realize that Unity probably makes it easier for developers having a pre-made engine to use, but its a real pain in the arse for modders.

[WWII44]

what sort of program do I need to open the resource file?

[blond_knight_new]

http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10085

[bru888]

Wow, this is wild but very, very useful. And it works!

I took these notes, starting with what the author of Unity Assets Explorer posted as instructions. I edited them for using the program in conjunction with OOB, specifically for extracting event picture files for use in OOB scenarios, the subject of this thread.

Note: I did everything in steps 1 through 7 successfully. I did not do step 8 but I imagine the program would perform as advertised.

Unity Assets Explorer (for use in conjunction with OOB)

Download the program at http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10085 - the latest version is 1.5 (despite what the author says in the opening post). It is a stand-alone executable file; that is, it runs without actually installing itself.

How to work with the program:
1. Open Assets-file in program. To do this, click "Open Assets-file" and select file (e.g., C:\Slitherine\Order of Battle - Pacific\Order of Battle - Pacific_Data\resources.assets)
2. Program will read the file and a list of files in the window. It may take a while to read all of the files contained within; there are currently 69,404 files in resources.assets.
3. To extract all the files you can use button "Extract All". This will extract all the files into a folder with the name of opened assets-file ("resources"). You don't want to Extract All, really, unless you plan to spend a large amount of time waiting.
4. To extract a single file, select it in the list, click the right mouse button and choose "Extract This File". Use the search box to find the name of the picture you are looking for; the file names are shown on the image available here: http://the-artistocrats.com/files/Modding/events.jpg
5. To convert TEX-files to DDS-files (when extracting), you must checked "convert TEX to DDS". (Works with extraction of all files, and with extract a single file). This is a must, because your photo editor will recognize the DDS format but not the TEX format.
6. Open the DDS file in a photo editor like paint.net. It should open normally and the picture will be visible and be in the correct size of 512 x 415 pixels.
7. File, Save As the picture in PNG format if you are using the picture for a scenario event.
8. To import a changed DDS image back into the archive:
a) As above, extract image from the archive (with converting it into the DDS format).
b) Edit it in a photo editor. Make sure that you saved it in the right format (the same as the original), and that the file size is the size of the original file.
c) Save the modified image in the same location where the original image was extracted.
d) Find in the program window the TEX-file, click it with the right mouse button and select "Import This File from DDS". The image will be imported into assets-file in place of the original picture.
e) To save the new assets-file, click "Save as Assets-file."

[bru888]

I have a few updates on this. Again, this is based on a SAMPLE OF ONE, so it may or may not work out the same for you.

When I said above that you probably don't want to "Extract All," well maybe you do because it does not take all that much time and if you can retrieve all 329 event photo images at once, like I did, then it saves you having to get them individually when you need one. Also, once you do have them extracted and saved, you can actually see them as thumbnails in your folder! (That events.jpg file which The Artistocrats provides is tiny - you cannot see the photos very well.)

To Extract All, after locating and loading the resources.assets file (see above), click the Extract All button but first, clear out the options to the right of the dialog window. For me, that worked; I was unable to extract all 70,000 items with those options on because I would get an abend error message about 10% of the way through. Leave the convert TEX to DDS options selected, however:

000081.jpg (136.55 KiB) Viewed 2730 times

The UAE will dump all 70,000 files into a folder called "Resources." Go in there and sort the files by file type. You want to get the files with the extension .tex.dds together so that you can delete all the rest of the files. I believe there were something like 2,039 of those .tex.dds files left. Of those, there are only 329 event photo files, but which ones? Well, there is a clue in the dimensions (choose to display Dimensions in the detail display of Windows Explorer). The photo files are all 512 x 415 pixels. (By the way, look for "Lena Marine" among the other .tex.dds files. )

Now, as explained above, the dds format is visible in a photo editor program like paint.net or IrfanView. Somehow, you want to get those 329 photo files isolated by themselves so that they can be converted to .png and renamed to remove the .tex.dds part of the file name which will be left after converting the files to .png format. I will not get into the particulars on this; I will only tell you that I used Irfanview (not paint.net which does not do this) to batch convert the 329 files to .png first, then I used it to batch rename the files to remove the .tex.dds, as shown here:

000082.jpg (112.47 KiB) Viewed 2730 times

The good news is, now I can choose large icon / thumbnail display and actually see what there is to choose from!

000085.jpg (115.33 KiB) Viewed 2730 times