What do you mod: 2K15 Edition

[Mr. AS]

I recently stumbled upon this thread that was made almost exactly 3 years ago and decided to bring up the question again. What do you have experience in modding?

-How much experience do you have in each?
-Learn any new modding knowledge recently?
-Favorite type of modding?
-Favorite mod? No TC mods like DSL, RWRA2 or ironforge. I'm talking about mods specific to one or two categories.

[Mecha]

 1.   Bot File Editing - yes, for names or amour (not sure on chassis editing)

 2.    .gib file editing - wat

 3.   Component.txt - mebey for renaming or the description or something

 4.    Component.gmf - no

 5.    Arena.py - i want too but no

 6.    Arena.gmf - ^

 7.    AI.py - no :>

 8.    Bindings.py - yes

 9.    .exe (Serge Bait) - [serge bait]

 10.   .bmp editing - yes    #skillz

[Naryar]

>modding
>2015

[cephalopod]

Done a bit of everything aside from AI.py and .exe.
>yes people still mod in 2015 naryar

[RedAce]

-How much experience do you have in each?

BFE:  I've gotten a good amount of use from it with chassis height and some AAM.
.gib file editing:  Never tried it, but I think I can understand some of it.
Component.txt:  Used it quite a lot, but not enough for it to matter.
Component.gmf:  Just for re-skinning components.  That's it.
Arena.py:  Used it for editing the description, but not much else.
Arena.gmf: I'm starting to teach myself this, but I'm still not quite sure how everything works.
AI.py: Making .py files for AI?  No I haven't done this.
Bindings.py: I've used it for AI'ing bots if that's what you're looking for.
.exe: Nope, never even heard much about this.
.bmp editing: Oh yeah.  I've got experience with this.

-Learn any new modding knowledge recently?

I guess the Arena ones would count.  I'm working on a small project for whenever I actually get it to work the way I'd like it to.

-Favorite type of modding?

Probably .bmp editing because it's pretty fun to skin a bot or component.

-Favorite mod? No TC mods like DSL, RWRA2 or ironforge. I'm talking about mods specific to one or two categories.

i.e. AI packs?  If so, then I'd say ReForged the BBEANS AI packs for Stock and DSL would count. 

[G.K.]

-How much experience do you have in each?

Done a lot of everything, excapt .gib, which I've only started playing about with recently, and .exe, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing if it's not blindingly obvious.

-Learn any new modding knowledge recently?

.gib stuff. Though I had a month off RA2 and I forgot it all already.

-Favorite type of modding?

I like making arenas. And imaginative BFE is cool too.

-Favorite mod? No TC mods like DSL, RWRA2 or ironforge. I'm talking about mods specific to one or two categories.

I liked the PYS AI's UI - I learned my .gib knowledge from it.

Small Arena - just look at the camera names. Fun.

BBEANS AI - specifically their easter eggs. Really cool stuff.

Madiaba's (Or Trov's? Phils?) Arena Rotator thing - just shows the power and limits of what we can do with RA2.

[Trovaner]

I completely forgot about this. I was trying to do it once a year but failed to fall into a routine...

I've pretty much modded everything. I only wish that I had the time and motivation to finish some of the projects that I started. Thinking back, some of of my favorite projects were the action cam, random arena selector, height guide, arena switcher, auto AIing practice arena, and homing GMF housebots (the last three mods are unfinished and I'm still working on a V2 for the action cam).

-How much experience do you have in each?

• Bot File Editing - Enough for most things. I've written parsers in both PHP and Python (for the Bot Exchange and for a custom practice arena).
  
• .gib File Editing - I have some unfinished documentation listing out all of the commands and how to read these files. I also wrote a syntax highlighter for Notepad++ but, due to the way that the file is structured, it is very basic.
  
• Component.txt - I know my way around these files. The guide that Click wrote does a very good job of explaining how to mod these and I would highly recommend it to anyone trying to learn how to create their own components (or arenas). In my modding version of RA2, I have some nifty dividers that take advantage of how these are read by the EXE.
  
• Component.gmf - Before moving on to arenas, I spent some time working with components.
  
• Arena.py - Historically, arenas have had a larger audience than other mods so that's where I spent most of my time modding. I have an unfinished tutorial that discusses how to mod these and Arena.gmf files but the arena hazards tutorial that I wrote awhile back is good enough for most people to get started. I also have a big list of RA2 commands that I've gradually been adding documentation for (Click released an early version of this to the public but I've added quite a bit since then).
  
• Arena.gmf - I know my way around but I have more interest in other things so I try not to spend too much time working with these. At one point, I looked into creating an export script for Blender but I didn't get too far (I was too busy working on other things).
  
• AI.py - Whenever the topic of smarter AI comes up, I work on making better AI and tactics. My goal for quite some time has been to make an AI that is more universal than Omni that can also be used by my auto AIing practice arena.
  
• Bindings.py - I haven't needed to AI anything for quite some time but I know my way around.
  
• .exe - I've worked with it on a few projects but nothing truly noteworthy.
  
• .bmp editing - After Sage released his component skin pack, I started making a mod that would allow you to switch between multiple component skins without having to install custom components. I made high resolution versions of most of the stock components before moving on to more advanced mods. The mod itself worked similar to Click's Collision Viewer. I haven't really done anything more recent. Madiaba ran an Arena Skinning Contest once that I won but, technically, that was to determine the skin for the initial release of the arena.
  

-Learn any new modding knowledge recently?

Unfortunately, I have not. I was working on a unique AI over the weekend but, before I got around to testing it, I was called away.

-Favorite type of modding?

I like working with python files because they give you quite a bit of control. The other formats are fun to play with on occasion but its harder to be unique in them.

-Favorite mod? No TC mods like DSL, RWRA2 or ironforge. I'm talking about mods specific to one or two categories.

The RA2 Cheat Mode Pack because it made the FPS window useful for debugging issues. I also liked Madiaba's cannons that had cannonballs with APs.

[Trovaner]

Since it has been a month, here are some interesting facts based on the results of the poll:

• An average of 4.33 votes were cast by participating members. This is an improvement of 0.28 votes when compared to 2012.
• When normalized and compared to 2012's poll, we saw an increase in everything except for Arena.gmf File Editing and .EXE File Editing.
• We are seeing an increase of nearly 150% in both Component.gmf File Editing and .GIB File Editing (after normalization).
• Approximately 46% of the active community participated in this year's poll when the active community is defined as the number of members that voted in last month's BOTM. When using the same definition, 2012 had roughly 69% of the active community.

If I can find where I stored 2009's data, I'll make another post with more trend data.

[The Red Blur]

I dabble in modding .gmf and .txt files, but only really when I want a custom skin on certain parts (such as the terrible glitch wheel, or the amazing red blur blade.) I DO want to be taught how to reskin arenas and the like, or possibly create entirely new arenas. Are there any tutorials floating about?

[Trovaner]

To be honest, the component tutorial that the Beetlebros made is probably the best turorial for learning how to setup GMF files. If you are trying to figure out how to setup the PY, your best bet is to look at the Low Lag Arena's PY (also a good reference for the minor differences between component and arena GMFs) and try to load your arena without any of the extra stuff. Once you have that down, the Creating Arena Hazards thread has some information that you might find useful (at least I hope others find it useful...).

[Silverfish]

in all my like 5 years of modding, i have hardly even heard of a .gib file. what are they, and what do they determine?

[Trovaner]

GIB files are responsible for defining the 2D look of the screens and overlays that you see in the game. The human-readable format was created by Gabriel Interactive and was used in a few of their games. If you know what you are doing, you can give RA2 a fresh look with minimal effort. A few example use cases would be if you wanted to move around a button on the main menu, add an image to the loading indicator, or remove the health bar from the status bars. The drawback is that you can't add functionality that the EXE isn't expecting. In other words, you can't add a button that goes straight to Exhibition mode from Team HQ, add a slider to resize bots during battles, or add a placeholder for a 3D preview to the status bars since the EXE doesn't have the handling for having these types of things on those specific screens. When the screen is loaded, the EXE looks for controls with specific names to add the functionality to them. If the control has a name that is not recognised by the EXE, you can interact with it but it will not do anything special.

[Serge]

Hey, it's 2016, but I think this is still a decent thread.

I've been brainstorming with a few clever friends on how to approach the problem of the .exe, especially how to get rid of the 7-component-limit.

As you might've heard, it's pretty complex, with tons of instantiated STL templates, C++ object vtables and whatnot. This more or less rules out static analysis. What I'd like to do some day (maybe 2018? :D) is to run a whole bunch of traces of the .exe, before and after hitting the 7-component-limit, and in that way pinpoint the codepath that actually implements the fail-branch of the check. I invite you all to try, the tooling is there (although not sure if for Windows), albeit a bit slow.