How to Mod AvP 2010

Posted by ikarop on September 10, 2011 (Updated: 22-Aug-2023)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Required programs
  2. Exporting the game resources
  3. Types of moddable files
  4. Editing the textures
  5. Sounds
  6. Extracting the Chunk
  7. Importing files back into the engine
  8. Your Mods in-game

INTRODUCTION

This tutorial will touch on the basics of modding and should give you enough to get you started. By reading this, I assume you have a basic knowledge of 3D/2D design or experience with tools such as Photoshop and 3DS Max, which you might need to fully understand the potential of this method.

As for now, no tools allow to add extra content in AvP. However there are ways to modify the existing textures and sounds and import them back into the game. The talent in the AvP community has been proved to be endless, and so are the possibilities now.

This guide is by no means complete and we invite others to share their knowledge with the community at large. If you have any questions or comments after reading this guide, please feel free drop an email to ikarop@avpgalaxy.net.

 How to Mod AvP 2010

THE GUIDE

1. Required Programs

To get started, there are a number of programs you need to download in order to be able to start modding the game.

QuickBMS
QuickBMS Asura Script
Asura Engine Extractor
Photoshop DDS Plugin

2. Exporting the game resources

  • Run the program QuickBMS.exe.
  • Select the BMS script to use (asura.bms).
  • Pick the input files to extract from your target Asura file ( *.asr, *.pc or *.en). For e.g: Multiplayer.asr, StreamingSounds.asr, A04_Colony.pc.
  • Enter in the output folder and press ‘Save’. The program will start exporting the files to the specified folder now.

After the process has been completed, QuickBMS will ask you to keep or delete a TEMPORARY_ FILE. Do not delete it.

3. Types of moddable files

Textures:  First thing you notice is the texture files are extracted with a *.tga extension. The textures are in .DDS format actually, hence why you need the DDS plug-in to be able to import and export them in Photoshop.

You will encounter many different types of texture maps in AvP. The most common and the ones we are going to use  are Diffuse, Normal and Specular maps. Below you’ll find a little bit about the differences between them.

  1. Diffuse maps represent the diffuse reflection and colour of a surface. In other words they define the colour and intensity of light reflected back when it strikes a surface.
  2. Normal maps define the slope or normals of a surface. In other words, they alter the direction a surface appears to be facing. Bump mapping adds an illusion of depth and texture to images. It doesn’t actually alter geometry but rather affects the shading over a surface.
  3. Specular maps represent the specular intensity and color of highlights on a surface. In other words they define the “shininess” and color of specular reflections. The brighter a specular map is, the more shine is applied to the final material.

Sounds: Sounds are exported on its original format, *.wav.

4. Editing the textures

  • Install the Photoshop DDS Plug-in* and restart the program.
  • Pick the texture you want to edit from your extracted files. The character textures are always placed in a folder called /Graphics/Characters on each Asura file. For e.g.: graphics/characters/predator/newpredhead_col_1024x1024.tga. The rest of editable textures are outside this folder.
  • Change the texture extension to .dds if Photoshop gives you any trouble when importing it. (Be sure to make file extensions visible)
  • Open the .dds file you want to edit in Photoshop and edit it.
  • Once you are done editing your texture, save the file as .dds. A new window should pop-up. Select DXT5 settings and leave the rest of them as default. Click Save.

If you don’t have/use Photoshop, you can use any other programs such as Paint.NET or GIMP. DDS converters are also a possibility, you can either use ATI Compressonator or DDS Converter 2.

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Comments: 12
  1. Can someone please explain to me how to extract the sounds from the game, i would really want to edit some sounds to make some sound packs, but i just don’t know how, the tutorial doesnt really explain that to me. If i want to extract the sounds only, all i need is the quickBMS and the asura script, i have them, i tried to extract some modded sound files from here, an .en file with quickBMS, it all worked ok. but when i try to extract the files from the game like streamingsounds.asr or common.en with quickBMS, it doesnt prompt me to save no TEMPORARY_FILE, nor does it extract anything. Tried it with Asura engine extractor, same thing, it gives me an error while trying to extract the files. What am i doing wrong?


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