Red Alert 3 Mod SDK Interview

[Sonic 296]

Did you know that the Red Alert 3 Mod SDK is going to be released this week. To give you a preview of what's to come the Official C&C Site is now featuring an interview with Red Alert 3 Mod SDK Designer, Justin "Mastermind" Moe explaining all the technical details about the SDK and what modders can expect from the latest and greatest modding tool for Red Alert 3. Here's part of the interview.

 

Is it possible to mod Uprising units in to Red Alert 3? You included the Harbinger in the sample mod, but does that mean modders can get all the Uprising units. If not, what would it take for a modder to create an Uprising multiplayer mod?

 

It certainly is possible to mod Uprising units in to Red Alert 3. The Mod SDK makes it quite easy to add new units, and really adding an Uprising unit is just adding a new unit. Unfortunately, the assets are not easily extractable from Uprising. I had the advantage of having access to all of the uncompiled source assets for Uprising, to use to bring in to Red Alert 3. So, an enterprising modder would either need to find some way to extract the assets from Uprising, or recreate them in 3DSMax, export them, and put them in the game. There are of course features present in Uprising which aren't available in Red Alert 3, but some units would work just fine, such as the Archer Maiden, or the Mortar Cycle without the Uprising code. In the near future we will look to release art asset packs of specific Uprising units to better facilitate this modding process.

 

In general, how powerful is the Red Alert 3 Mod SDK?

 

The Red Alert 3 Mod SDK should be just as powerful as the C&C 3 Mod SDK. We're giving users many of the same tools that we use when we're developing the game. Tools like BinaryAssetBuilder are the exact same thing we use when making the game. So, compilation time is something that we deal with all the time when making the game as well. However, I think the overall gains when you’re loading the game are worth it. The biggest advantage of the RA3 Mod SDK is the increase in user friendliness provided by the new Mod SDK GUI.

You can read the full interview right here.

[PurpleGaga27 40]

As this quote's Q&A:

Is it possible to mod Uprising units in to Red Alert 3? You included the Harbinger in the sample mod, but does that mean modders can get all the Uprising units. If not, what would it take for a modder to create an Uprising multiplayer mod?

 

It certainly is possible to mod Uprising units in to Red Alert 3. The Mod SDK makes it quite easy to add new units, and really adding an Uprising unit is just adding a new unit. Unfortunately, the assets are not easily extractable from Uprising. I had the advantage of having access to all of the uncompiled source assets for Uprising, to use to bring in to Red Alert 3. So, an enterprising modder would either need to find some way to extract the assets from Uprising, or recreate them in 3DSMax, export them, and put them in the game. There are of course features present in Uprising which aren't available in Red Alert 3, but some units would work just fine, such as the Archer Maiden, or the Mortar Cycle without the Uprising code. In the near future we will look to release art asset packs of specific Uprising units to better facilitate this modding process.

 

It's a shame that EALA will never give away all source codes and art packs from Uprising, just a partial set from it. This message is what I should have seen for the C&C3 mod sdk. As for the KW mod sdk, it's a shame we'll never have a chance to get those 20+ new and modified units. I wish EALA can release a partial set of KW content to us.

[Malevolence 6]

I never use this SDK before yet, and I don't think I will. It's too time consuming to work on the limited stuff, and finding more time and cracking up with ways to extract things from the game in a difficult manner.

[Crusader1 0]

I would love to download the mod SDK for RA 3 but am not becouse I could not get it to work for Tiberuim war even tho I have installed the mod SDK Application it sill did not work for me so its a no no am sorry to say.