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Petroglyph Releases Universe at War Mod Tools

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At long last, Petroglyph released the mod tools for Universe at War. The mod tools contain:

  • Asset Viewer
    The Asset Viewer allows you to view models, animations and particles as they would appear in the game. While viewing, you can tweak various lighting parameters to see how the asset holds up in various lighting conditions.
  • Particle Editor
    The Particle Editor is a powerful editor that enables you to develop, debug and preview particle systems. You use it by setting up emitters that emit particles defined by a rich set of plugins that modify the various properties of those particles independently. A set of simulation options are available to preview how the particle system would look in game. Particle systems are, for instance, explosions, weapons fire, halos, fire, sparks, splashes, radiation and much more.
  • GUI Editor
    The GUI editor, combined with the GUI Lua files enables you to completely reprogram the GUI. Every button, textfield, slider, window, dialog can be changed, removed or added to. The GUI Lua files contain the code that makes your creations in the GUI Editor come to life. With it, you can completely redesign every faction's interface, add buttons to control your special units, add new menus in the main menu, and so on. A GUI file (.BUI) is a hierarchy of UI elements such as buttons, lists, sliders, lines, quads, and so on, where each element has certain properties.
  • Lua Debugger
    The Lua Debugger is an application that allows you to, as the name says, debug the Luas files as they are executed by the game. The program connects to the game and once connected, all debug output by Luas executed by the game are shown in the debugger. This tool is invaluable if a set of Lua files do not behave properly and you can't figure out why from just looking at the code.
  • Data Miner
    The Data Miner offers modders the ability to extract various bits of information from the game's XML files. Use it to compare unit statistics or other properties. This will make balancing units in your mod a piece of cake.
  • 3D Studio Max 9 exporter plugin
    Max 9 exporter is a pretty self explaining tool. It is Autodesk 3d max 9 plugin that allows 3d max 9 to export to .alo and .ala for models and animations. Exporting to .alo and .ala means that models exported from 3d max 9 can used in Universe at War.
  • Terrain Editor
    The Terrain Editor (aka Map Editor) allows the creation of single and multiplayer maps for in game use.

Download the mod tools from FileFront. We're looking forward to seeing what the community will do with them!

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Too little too late really. Letting out these tools 11 months after a game's release when very few people still really care is not loyal fanbase support.

 

To be honest Mike you've done a better job at supporting this game for tools, and you're only 1 guy with a limited insight into the game itself.

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Blame SEGA and Microsoft for that.

Edited by mirza044

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SEGA own UaW, they are the publisher, they have to market it. And as we have seen they did a **** job doing that. Since the game uses LIVE all patches/tools have to be tested by Microsoft, and their testing takes for ever.

 

So its not really Petroglyph's fault, they did their job, made the patches, got the mod tools ready but because of SEGA and Microsoft their hands are tied.

 

The tools were made available on Monday the 27th, looking at http://files.filefront.com/UAW+Mod+Kitexe/...;/fileinfo.html there has been a total of 7 downloads.

 

I thought there were heaps of people waiting to get their hands on these?

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True I suppose, but I'll be blunt.

 

UaW was not a very good game. I'm sorry to say this, maybe it's just me, but I didn't find it fun at all which was very, very depressing.

 

28 downloads at the time of posting, by the way.

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Holy hell, finally?

 

I thought there were heaps of people waiting to get their hands on these?

"Were" being the operative word here. After 11 months how many of those people just gave up and moved on? It makes me sad. :(

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Well with Red Alert 3 now being the "game of the moment" so to speak, no-one is going to care. The greatest RTS franchise of all time is more in every heart of the strategy gamer than a poorly received game that got tremendously poor 3rd party support.

 

I still speak with Adam Isgreen. He knows that UaW was a failure and put a lot of the blame on himself, because the game was his vision.. However, while it knocked him back, he's learnt from these mistakes and is a much wiser man because of it. It'll be interesting to see what he can come up with next. While not at Petroglyph anymore, the man has plans!

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Well with Red Alert 3 now being the "game of the moment" so to speak, no-one is going to care. The greatest RTS franchise of all time is more in every heart of the strategy gamer than a poorly received game that got tremendously poor 3rd party support.

 

I still speak with Adam Isgreen. He knows that UaW was a failure and put a lot of the blame on himself, because the game was his vision.. However, while it knocked him back, he's learnt from these mistakes and is a much wiser man because of it. It'll be interesting to see what he can come up with next. While not at Petroglyph anymore, the man has plans!

Saracen, please can you tell me where Adam now works?

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I wish I could tell you exactly, but I can't. Simply because I don't know, he's not telling anyone... Not even ex-colleague Driph knows! (apparently)

 

All I do know though is that he is working for a new game company. I'm not sure whether he's got together a small team of Ex Petroglyph and Westwood Developers, or a joined a recently established Vegas company, but he's doing something. To me it sounds like he's one of the founders for this new company. But all he states is that he's "focussing on the next big thing"

 

That's all he's really told anyone. However Adam has developed a huge interest in X-Box 360 gaming, which suggests to me will be his primary focus for this project vision he wants developing. He's often talked about and dissected games in a critical view and made clear about changes he would make to have the game work better. Whatever he's upto though, he is focussed, and he wants to come back into the industry all guns blazing!

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This sounds very hopefull :D

 

First post on the petro forums! (they're so green :o)

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I wish I could tell you exactly, but I can't. Simply because I don't know, he's not telling anyone... Not even ex-colleague Driph knows! (apparently)

 

All I do know though is that he is working for a new game company. I'm not sure whether he's got together a small team of Ex Petroglyph and Westwood Developers, or a joined a recently established Vegas company, but he's doing something. To me it sounds like he's one of the founders for this new company. But all he states is that he's "focussing on the next big thing"

 

That's all he's really told anyone. However Adam has developed a huge interest in X-Box 360 gaming, which suggests to me will be his primary focus for this project vision he wants developing. He's often talked about and dissected games in a critical view and made clear about changes he would make to have the game work better. Whatever he's upto though, he is focussed, and he wants to come back into the industry all guns blazing!

I'm looking forward to Adam's new project :D Thx for your answer Saracen.

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So uh, completely off topic, is UaW still going to be a 3-part saga like was originally announced?

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I highly doubt there will be any more UaW games. The game bombed big time and you can by for as little as $5 or $10 now.

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NZ$?

 

If so I may go and see how crap it is (how bad can it be?)

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It's an MMO on the horizon... unless it has some form of RTS foundation then it's gonna be hard to kick up an interest. I'd much prefer p04, which is apparently an RTS, but is no-where near any sort of announcement.

 

Rumour has it that they're struggling to get this MMO off the ground. They've been wanting to announce for months now... since the Austin Games Convention in September.

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ah ok, i forgot about P04, and MMO? i must have been out of the picture for too long, can you give me a quick rundown?

 

we in this credit crisis let just hope petroglyph say open and there head above ground.

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ah ok, i forgot about P04, and MMO? i must have been out of the picture for too long, can you give me a quick rundown?

Press Release Here. Petroglyph have confirmed to forum fans that the game is MMO based. This is still all we know. The only thing we do know is that the game will be published online, be free to download and play, but will require gamers to purchase additional content to get the most from the game.

 

we in this credit crisis let just hope petroglyph say open and there head above ground.

As I've said to Sonic. I couldn't care what happens to them. Both their games so far have been promising from the outset, only to turn into rather average games at best. In the case of Universe at War, I regarded it as one of the best RTS games ever... But once you play the campaign, and then suffer what Windows Live has to offer, it just dies. It's like a conjoined Siamese twin in that respect. Fascinating to look at, but doomed to death.

 

In my eyes, Petroglyph have become nothing more than a promising studio gone awry. In this cut-throat industry, a small studio stands very little chance unless it produces an amazing overall package for its first game, and then continues to show that quality for at least 2 or 3 consecrative IPs after that. This is ideally done through a single publisher from the start.

 

Instead, Petroglyph jumped on a classic franchise bandwagon, moved onto Sega, who don't have a clue about third party games support, then in a struggle to stay afloat, have joined an online games publisher using the above MMO model. This is extremely risky and could bankrupt the hell out of them before the game even gains a foothold. P04 has interest from a couple of publishers, but not much more has been said recently.... but that's probably because I'm not a member of moderator staff at the official site no more.

 

All I know is that Petroglyph need to pull their head out of their asses and pop the bubble around itself, so the few remaining fans they actually have left can determine what the hell is going on over there. They are rather destitute company which quite frankly could do with a company like EA to guide them, publish their games, take them over or whatever. That way they might have a true sense of direction, instead of looking like a hard-up company with no real credit to their name other than George Lucas' own Intellectual Property.

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Hash comments Saracen, but with the stench of truth.

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