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Warrior Gryphon
site owner
Original Poster
#1 Old 2nd Mar 2005 at 11:53 PM
Default DatGen News
Hi All,

Some of you who have been on MTS2 for a while may recognise DatGen... this was one of the original tools that could extract package files. The guys over on the DatGen site and IRC chat are very cool, and understand the Sims 2 file formats inside out - they are responsible for the vast majority of information in the Wiki here at MTS2. Congrats must go out to them for that vast undertaking, but also for the general release of the latest version of DatGen - 0.7.0.

DatGen is a full-featured and flexible package editing and modding tool for use with The Sims 2, The Sims Online, and SimCity 4. With DatGen, you can edit many of the file formats used in Sims 2 .package archives now. DatGen has a very extensible architecture, and new plugins to edit more file formats are written each week.

It's a program similar to SimPE, although as with any modding tool, there are differences in functionality - however, I would suggest that everybody take a look and try it out... I think you'll be suprised

There are also several major plugins for DatGen in the works that will make it very easy to edit Characters and Objects, clone SceneGraph (RCOL) trees and objects, and several other things.

I've attached the full list of plugins that DatGen currently has to this post. The DatGen site is http://www.datgen.info/

Regards,
Delphy
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Warrior Gryphon
site owner
Original Poster
#2 Old 2nd Mar 2005 at 11:53 PM
DatGen Features
===============
* Unique sidebar-based interface, keeps things organized.
* Plugin-based architecture allows just about any functionality
to be added.
* Dynamic file type management system allows new file type decoders
and encoders to be added as new unknown files are deciphered.
* Dynamic file type description system provides user-friendly
names and descriptions for all known filetypes.
* Provides a rich interface for browsing DBPF archives (packages).
Called the file browser, ingeniously! :P
* Includes a full set of tools to extract files from packages,
and insert those files back in after they have been edited.

Plugin Features
===============
* DatGen supports several types of plugins:
+ Viewers, which show up in the file browser and allow custom
viewing and editing of files. More than one viewer can be
assigned to each file type.
+ Browsers, which are new buttons in the browsers sidebar,
and allow custom browsing for one or more filetypes. Each
browser gets its own custom UI.
+ Editors, which are new buttons in the editors sidebar,
and allow any variety of editing tools. Each editor gets its
own custom UI.
+ Import/Export filters, which allow exporting files in a package
to different formats on disk (i.e., GMDC to 3DS exporter).
+ Tools, which are utility type plugins that can do a very wide
variety of things.
+ Stand-Alone plugins, which have their own window and can do
pretty much anything the author wants.

* DatGen currently has plugins for the following (these plugins view
and edit files, even though they are called viewers):
+ String (STRT) Viewer. (CTSS/STR#/TTAs)
+ Image Viewer. (BMP/JFIF/PNG, TGA to come soon)
+ OBJD Viewer.
+ GLOB Viewer.
+ BCON Viewer.
+ FCNS Viewer.
+ SLOT Viewer.
+ TTAB Viewer.
+ PALT Viewer.
+ BHAV
+ SKIN Viewer. (SKIN is 3idr in SimPE)
+ WRF Viewer. (Wants and Fears)
+ SceneGraph Vieer. (Supports all SceneGraph (RCOL) files: CRES/
SHPE/LGHT/GMND/GMDC/TXMT/TXTR/CINE/ANIM)

With the release of the first Expansion Pack for Sims 2, we are hard
at work updating our viewers to be fully compatible with both the
original file formats, and any new versions that may come with the
new EP. DatGen will be compatible with all versions and expansion
packs that come out for Sims 2.
Zombie Coder
#3 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 12:50 AM
Download the "DatGen v0.7.0 Release" version. The RC versons are older, and do not include the latest plugins and updates.
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 1:29 AM
For the people who use DatGen and SimPE:

Which do you prefer? Which is better?

Which is more user-friendly? Which has a better interface?

Which has more tools (i.e. Object Workshop)?

Right now I'm with SimPE, but is DatGen better?
Shaken, Not Stirred
#5 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 1:55 AM Last edited by Karybdis : 3rd Mar 2005 at 7:25 PM.
SimPE has more tools at the moment. Datgen's (Sims2 oriented) design phase is much earlier on than SimPE, so we're putting out a lot of user friendly File viewers, while working on the big stuff at the moment.

I would suggest trying a couple of things like the SLOT and TTAB viewer though. they're very nice and well done by Breon.

(Those are only in Todays release, and there's going to be another release with an EP Ready simple Person Data editor soon as well as a couple of little bugfixes sometime in the next day or two)
Zombie Coder
#6 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 3:13 AM Last edited by DarkMatter : 3rd Mar 2005 at 8:05 PM.
Nevermind this post, actually. SimPE has been the only modding program for a while, so comparisons probably do need to be made. Ask what you need to.
retired moderator
#7 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 5:29 AM
Sounds great to me.
Lab Assistant
#8 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 1:28 PM
Quote: Originally posted by DarkMatter
I would preferr this not become a SimPE vs. DatGen debate. Not here. If someone wants to start a thread to debate who thinks which is better, thats fine, but please don't debate it here.


Yes, I know. I didn't want to start a debate - so I didn't reply back. SimPE and DatGen are both great tools

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Test Subject
#9 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 4:28 PM
Easy to use? no way, for me this tool is a crap (sorry for the creator, but it´s my opinion) the only hope for the non-advanced users is the SimPE´s Wizards, that it´s a really easy to use tool, the rest is a waste of time.
Zombie Coder
#10 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 5:06 PM
There are several easy-to-use tools in development for DatGen. Some of them are wizards, some are just small windows with several steps to complete and a "Go" button. We also have plans to make it very easy to export files, like a mesh, from GMDC to any number of other 3D model formats, like 3DS, OBJ, LWO, MA, and others.

DatGen does not yet have all the tools that SimPE has, yet. One of my goals was to make DatGen compatible with more games than just TS2, so its taken me longer to develop it to the point where its useful to anyone.

One of our goals is to develop easy to use tools to perform common modding tasks. At the moment, we only have those tools in the design or development phase, and none of them are released yet. We have a very simple tool called SceneGraph Workshop, which aims to make it a very simple, few-step process with a "Go" button to clone *and* rename objects, automatically. I hope to have that finished in the next couple days. It'll also clone sim Outfits (SKIN/3IDR), SceneGraph chains, and several other sets of files. It takes about 4 little steps and the click of a button.

SameCameron, I appreciate criticism, but you don't need to be rude. This is the first release of DatGen, and were VERY open to requests and suggestions. I want to make this a tool that everyone can use, not just modders (although we do want to develop tools that modders can use, too). I'd like to hear peoples feedback on what they thing of DatGen, "so far". I'd also like to hear what people think could improve DatGen, make it easier to use. If you want an advanced tool, we can make it. If you want a wizard to do something, we can also make that. DatGen is very flexible, and its plugin architecture makes developing new tools pretty quick.

I'm not here solely as competition to SimPE, and actually, thats really the last thing on my mind. I think I can offer the community something...basically, whatever the community wants/needs, I hope to provide. I know everyone currently uses SimPE, and I'm not asking you to stop. I'm a tool writier, its where I get my entertainment from Maxis games, and I want to write tools that can help this community make better mods. So, I look forward to everyones feedback and questions.
Zombie Coder
#11 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 5:12 PM
P.S. I guess there is no escaping comparison between SimPE and DatGen, here. So far, SimPE has been the only tool to mod TS2 with, so its only natural people will want comparisons. Feel free to ask whatever questons you want. (Sorry..would have edited my previous post, but I couldn't.)
Test Subject
#12 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 5:17 PM
sorry if you feel sad for my comment, was not my intention, but I was very frustated when I tried to use some options clicking in different parts as plugin manager, open file, and hundreds of options without response from the program, didn´t do absolutly nothing if lots of options, and I didn´t saw any menu to edit items, etc ... just a few windows with hex and other codes, I will really apreciate something as the standalone wizards of SimPE or similar, also I find very difficult to use SimPE, I´m designer not a programmar, so I would like to edit my models to share with the community but I can´t handle SimPE, maybe with this tool in the future if you can do it very easy a lot of people could create some great stuff.
Zombie Coder
#13 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 5:29 PM
Hi SamCameraon (sorry, misspelled your name last time :0 ). I'm not sad, just trying to introduce my program. Now, first, I apologize for the incomplete features. There are some, like the plugin manager, main options, and a couple buttons. DatGen is a pretty huge system (its 130,000 lines of code at the moment), and I've done my best to get as much of it completed as I could. I keept putting off a release because there were missing features. DatGen does quite a bit right now, though, so I've released v 0.7.0. Its not the final release, and there will be lots of regular updates from here on out, so all those missing features will be added soon.

To get started, and learn how DatGen works, check out the tutorials in the Help directory. Each tutorial is in its own directory, so just open the html file in one to read that tutorial. We have lots more on the way, to teach everyone how to use the current plugins, find your way around other DatGen features, etc.

SamCameron, if you have any kind of specific tool you would like, please feel free to ask for it. If you like a tool SimPE has, but would preferr it worked differently, don't hesitate to make a request. There are two other programmers besides myself who can work on DatGen plugins, and I'm hoping to find some more soon. DatGen does excel in one area that SimPE often lacks in, and thats speed. DatGen is a little slower when first loading a package, but after that, loading files and doing anything with them is pretty much instantanious. DatGen has been highly optimized for speed, so working with the files you want to work with should be very quick.

I'll check out what Wizards SimPE has, and see how soon my team and I can duplicate the same functionality in DatGen. If you have specific tools you need, just ask. We'll try to write things in order of most need by the community, but simple tools can of course be written much faster.
Test Subject
#14 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 6:34 PM
well DarkMatter, my priority in a Modding Tool as designer is the re-color option (that is already in the SimPE wizard) but the main tool I´m looking is a easy mesh import / export, keep us updates, thanks.
Zombie Coder
#15 Old 3rd Mar 2005 at 8:14 PM
Hi SamCameron. Just an FYI to keep everyone up to date. One of the plugins were working hard on right now is something called the SceneGraph Workshop. This is an object cloning/renaming/exporting tool that should greatly simplify what is currently a several step process. The goal of the tool is to make it easy to find the object (or sim outfit, and possibly other kinds of "cloneable" things), choose which files you want to export, and make sure that all the internal names and ID's used in those files are 100% unique. Right now, the tool asks you which object you wish to clone, which of the files related to that object you wish to export, and what package you wish to save the cloned files into. After you choose those three things, the plugin does the rest of the work for you (except, of course, editing the exported files ).

Automatically renaming the SceneGraph (RCOL) files is beeing a pain at the moment. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do it properly. The goal is to allow the user to enter in a new "base" name into the SceneGraph Workshop before clicking the button that starts the process. This base name would then be appended with _cres, _shpe, _txmt, etc. as neccesary for each RCOL file in the set. But there are other complications thats making it very difficult to get a fully accurate automatic rename. The SceneGraph Workshop will also eventually automatically assign new ID's to cloned OBJD files, but I need to figure out how to get DatGen/Plugins to talk with the current OBJD magic number database MTS2 has been using first.

The SceneGraph Workshop will currently extract files, but I'm also working on making it export files (extract just copies a file to disk, while export converts say a GMDC to a .3DS). The tool will hopefully be able to export to the following formats: .3DS (3D Studio Max), .OBJ, .LWO (Lightwave Object), .MA (Maya Scene). We'll add export capabilities as the appropriate export filters are written.
Test Subject
#16 Old 4th Mar 2005 at 2:33 AM
I installed the DatGen 7.0 but I don't think it installed correctly. Now, however, I cannot delete, uninstal or otherwise get rid of the exe.
Help.
Zombie Coder
#17 Old 4th Mar 2005 at 4:30 AM
Oich, thats a weird one, Numbnumb. First, open Task Manager and see if DatGen is running. If it is, End Task on it, and then try to delete.

Quick note on extracting DatGen. Using a tool, like WinRAR or WinZip, make sure the option to "Extract with folders intact" is checked (its named differently for each unzipping tool). DatGen relys on its config files and .dll's being in certain places, so if you extract without including the folder structure, it tends not to run.

When I get some time to write one, I'll put together an install program to simplify installing DatGen.
Lab Assistant
#18 Old 6th Mar 2005 at 1:05 AM
First I want to comment on your site. Under the DatGen > Documentation section, there is nothing. Just "Introduction" and a line below that "Contents." No links or any other text.

Also, I just downloaded this, and I am having some errors.
I clicked on the 'File Groups' menu to the right, and expanded it all the way down to the Objects.package. When I tried to double click on it, it gave me this error:

Quote:
DatGen was unable to load the following files do to errors:

D:\Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Objects\Objects.package
Error: Unable to load the requested DBPF file because it was not found.


No such path exsists on my computer. It should be C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Objects\Objects.package. The 'D:\' drive is the CD-Rom drive.

However, not everything was bad. At least it could open a .package file without failure! :p
Zombie Coder
#19 Old 6th Mar 2005 at 11:23 PM
Hi Erik. The file groups thing is being fixed right now. File groups are a feature that allows you to quickly find and load files you use a lot, like objects.package. Currently, the file group that lists objects.package is set up for my system. I'm writing a File Group configuration utility right now, which will allow you to configure as many file groups for any set of files you want. I'm also finishing some other file groups features, such as the ability to load all the files in a file group at once. This will be useful in the near future, when certain plugins will require a certain set of files to be loaded. Rather than manually find and load them all, you can just set up a file group, and load that.

About my site, well, I've put all my energy into DatGen, so my site basically sucks. I'll be uploading a Tutorials download .zip file, which contains several tutorials on using DatGen. That should cover the documentation thing. In the near future, I'll be moving DatGen's home to The Sims Workshop, which will free me up from having to maintain my own site, and let me work on DatGen completely.

Later on today I'll upload DatGen v0.7.1. It'll include several bugfixes, command line file loading (so you can associate .package files with DatGen if you wish), a plugin manager, so you can easily register new plugins with DatGen, and hopefully a complete file group manager tool. This release of DatGen will also contain that BHAV editor that was missing before.
Retired Duck
retired moderator
#20 Old 7th Mar 2005 at 12:55 AM
Ah! I was wondering why nothing happened when I clicked on the "plugin manager" icon...
Zombie Coder
#21 Old 7th Mar 2005 at 6:02 AM
Ok, I've uploaded DatGen v0.7.1. You can get it at www.datgen.info in the downloads section. This version includes the plugin manager, fixes numerous bugs, adds the BHAV viewer, and a new Property Set viewer. The file group editor isn't done yet, but the shell of it is there. I'll finish that before the next release.

The current list of files that can be viewed or edited with DatGen is:

SceneGraph (ANIM, CINE, CRES, GMDC, GMND, LGHT*, LIFO, SHPE, TXMT, TXTR), Images (BMP, JFIF, PNG), BCON, BHAV, FCNS, FWAV, GLOB, OBJD, PALT, Property Sets (PSET, BPSET), SKIN, SLOT, Text Lists (STR#, CTSS, TTAs), Wants&Fears (WFR).

Were going to be adding lots of viewers soon. The new plugin manager should make it fairly easy to download a plugin and register it in DatGen, without having to download DatGen again. To register a plugin, go to the plugin manager (the button in the Plugins sidebar, or from the plugins menu), go to file->register. Pick the .dll file of the plugins you wish to register, and choose which plugins you want to make available (or just register all). You'll have to restart DatGen for the plugins to work.

A .zip file with all the current tutorials has also been uploaded to the downloads area of datgen.info.
Test Subject
#22 Old 7th Mar 2005 at 10:50 PM
DarkMatter: I'm interested in trying/learning DatGen. Would you prefer any issues encountered, if any, be reported in this thread or on your website?
Zombie Coder
#23 Old 8th Mar 2005 at 12:16 AM
You can report them here, or to the thread in the Modding Tools forum. There is a thread titled "DatGen 0.7.0 Release" in there that is probably the best place for right now.
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