Modding discussion for Driver: Parallel Lines.
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By JAY
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#5021
Image Last Update: 7/11

Here you find all known information about the different files and the tools for editing.

1. Anims

There are two files, one for each era. They contain the animation data.

Format: *.an4
Tool: none

2. Characters

Here we will the textures for all the characters in the game.

Format: *.sp
Tool: SL Converter by SparedLife (for Driv3r)

3. Cities

Here we find all the environment textures. One file for 1978, one for 2006. There is also a level.txt which contains informations about the files which are loaded for different mission:
Code: Select all
LEVEL			       : contains the name to display and the filename
BaseLifeEvent		    : which life event should be loaded for this level.
Map			        : which file to use for the overhead map
Mood			       : file for the mood settings
Vehicles		       : vehicle filename
GlobalVehicleTextures	: file that contains the global vehicle textures
CharacterModels	          : file that contains the character models
Animations		     : animation file to use
StartPosition		      : Co-ordinates to start the level at
OldLevel 		       : Will tell the game that the city is a D3 city.
ForceStart 	               : Forces the level to start on boot up - avoiding all menus
Format: *.d4c
Tool: SL Converter by SparedLife (for Driv3r)

4. Detection Tool

This is just a tool which automatically detects you system and if it's compatible with the game.

5. FMV

This folder contains all the prerendered cutscenes played between certain missions, but also the ingame cutscenes. There are also textfiles for the subtitles which can be changed with any text editor.

Format: *.XMV
Tool: RAD Video Tools (you can watch the videos and convert them into other formats)

6. Fonts

There are three fonts.bnk. They contain the fonts for the ingame texts. They can be extracted with SLConverter.

Format: *.bnk
Tool: SLConverter

7. GDU Programs

No informations yet.

8. GUI

Here we find*.MEC files and *.txt files. The *.MEC files contain the graphics for the different menu styles for the tow eras and the *.txt files the different texts. The textures can be extracted with SLConverter.

Dev: Developer Menu (not in the game)
Frontend: Main Menu
VEGarage70s: Garage Menu 1978
VEGarage90s: Garage Menu 2006
Options: Options Menu
Pause70s: Pause Menu 1978
Pause90s Pause Menu 2006

Format: *.MEC
Tool: SLConverter

9. Input

The text files contain definitions for controllers.

Format: *.txt
Tool: Notepad

10. Life Events

Maybe the scripts for the missions and other events.

Format: *.sp
Tool: none

11. Litter

Data for the newspapers which are flying around the streets. The textures for 1978 and 2006 can be extracted with SLConverter.

Format: *.d4l
Tool: SLConverter

12. Moods

The textfiles contains definitions for the lighting. You can turn on the lights of the cars at daytime or define the day-night cycle, for example how long one ingame hour will take in real time. So we can have a 24h real time clock.

Format: *.txt
Tool: Notepad

13. Music

It contains all the ingame music(missions/ingame cutscenes and free ride).

Format: *.XA
Tool: Driv3r Audio Tools/ToWAV

14. Overlays

Here we find the graphics for all overlay-elements: Loading-Screens, Menus, HUD, Radar/Map, Health-Bar, etc.

Format: *.map and *.gfx
Tools: SLConverter

15. Register

A tool which will remind you to register your game.

16. Sfx

It contains all sfx data like particle effects. The textures can be extracted with SLConverter

Format: *.ppx and *.pmu
Tools: SLConverter

17. Skies

Here we find the files for the dynamic sky boxes, one for 1978, one for 2006. The textures can be extracted with SLConverter.

Format: *.pkg
Tool: SLConverter

18. Sounds

This folder contains all the ingame sounds.

Formats: *.DAT, *.VSB, *.GSD, *.SP
Tool: Driv3r Audio Tools (for *.GSD, but it doesn't work correctly)

19. Territory

Here we find sound, texts and so on for the different languages which are supported by the game.

Format: *.txt
Tool: Notepad

20. Text

Here we find also text files. It 's interesting that there is one file with the title "network". Here we have texts for a planned multiplayer mode (for Xbox). Here are descriptions of the planned modes:
Code: Select all
Free roam in the city, no rules, no restrictions; just explore and invent your own fun.

Be the first across the finish line to win. Be careful though, you are locked in your vehicle. Use ‘Respawn’ if you get wrecked or stuck.

Grab a bag of ‘Swag’ and get it to your ‘Home Base’ to score. Steal ‘Swag’ by ramming other players. You are locked in your vehicle: Use ‘Respawn’ if you get wrecked or stuck.

Race to the checkpoints and be first at the finish line to win. Shoot the other players to slow them and look out for extra weapons.

Kill the other players to score points. You start with some weapons but look out for extra ammunition.

Cops: ram or kill the Robbers to turn them into Cops. Robbers: Evade the Cops for as long as possible. Look out for extra weapons.
Format: *.txt
Tool: Notepad

21. Vehicles

Here we find the textures for all the cars and textfiles (a list with all the vehicle names and definition data for the different tuning stages).

Format: *.sp
Tool: SL Converter

Note: This list isn't final yet. If you have new informations, feel free to post them. Then me or Madness can update the list.
Last edited by JAY on Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:20 pm, edited 8 times in total.
User avatar
By madness
#5031
This post contains useful information, so I'm going to sticky it :P
There are a few edits I'll make to the list in a few moments. I'm just going to double check a few things and then I'll edit your post with them unless you want to edit it in yourself that's fine by me.
User avatar
By JAY
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#5032
No, it's ok. If you have found out some interesting things, edit this post. So we will have a good overview for the other members interested in this stuff. :)

I played a little with the file level.txt. Currently I'm in 2006, but I could load all the textures and the HUD from 1978 into the 2006 era. I think there are many other possible options in this file. I'll check them soon.
User avatar
By madness
#5033
Ok, I'll make a few changes now...
I was taking a look at the loading file in the overlays folder and I corrupted it on purpose and I was able to watch the game load without the loading screen displaying. It was quite interesting.

At the start of the game
The city loads first in rays garage and then displays the FMV which is quite strange because then they game has to load times square. But I guess these things don't take that long to load when the main parts of the game have been loaded.

I also tried porting the .xa files to driv3r, however I think there a totally different formats masked with the same extension.

I'll try to update everyone with more information soon... With a few screenshots and videos.
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By JAY
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#5034
You mentioned the map files. I also didn't found any model files, for example for the cars. I wanted to load the 1978 cars into 2006 era, but in the level.txt file there is just an options for the car textures. And there is just one texture archive in the vehicles folder with all the textures from both eras. I have no idea where these files could be. It would be great to have completely new cars in this game. That would make it a little bit more popular.

Here is another interesting file (GUI > dev.TXT). It seems that there is a ingame developer menu for editing the levels:
Code: Select all
<PLATFORM>PC</PLATFORM>

<ID>00000</ID><TEXT>Level Name:</TEXT>
<ID>00001</ID><TEXT>Level Name</TEXT>
<ID>00002</ID><TEXT>No. of levels:</TEXT>
<ID>00003</ID><TEXT>%d</TEXT>
<ID>00004</ID><TEXT>Start Point:</TEXT>
<ID>00005</ID><TEXT>%d -</TEXT>
<ID>00006</ID><TEXT>Start Game</TEXT>
<ID>00007</ID><TEXT>Development Menu</TEXT>
<ID>00008</ID><TEXT>Level Select</TEXT>
<ID>00009</ID><TEXT>Startpoint name</TEXT>
<ID>00010</ID><TEXT>Debug Options</TEXT>
<ID>00011</ID><TEXT>Renderer</TEXT>
<ID>00012</ID><TEXT>Game</TEXT>
<ID>00013</ID><TEXT>Vehicle:</TEXT>
<ID>00014</ID><TEXT>Vehicle name</TEXT>
<ID>00015</ID><TEXT>Character:</TEXT>
<ID>00016</ID><TEXT>FMV Preview</TEXT>
<ID>00017</ID><TEXT>Filename:</TEXT>
<ID>00018</ID><TEXT>Quit dev menu</TEXT>
<ID>00019</ID><TEXT>%s</TEXT>
<ID>00020</ID><TEXT>Batterie geht zur Neige.</TEXT>
<ID>00021</ID><TEXT>Weiter mit #Menu_Select</TEXT>
User avatar
By madness
#5035
Throughout trying to mod both driv3r and driver: parallel lines I've never been one hundred percent sure where the collisions (the basic models without textures) are if we could find this it would make it possible to map mod the games.

Now I don't have access to the game with me at the moment since I'm on quite a slow laptop however I'll take a good look in the level.txt file when I get home.

It would be really amazing to have the ability to put entirely new cars in the game and it would be nice if someone could provide tools on how this was possible. UBISOFT media relations was happy to contact me about the future or the series but refuses to talk about modding which is quite annoying, so our only change of doing this a lot faster would be direct contact with reflections.

Hopefully "Driver: Parallel Lines" on PC will remain popular and hopefully this may increase the size of the modding community which will help us effectively mod the game.

On the topic of the "Developers Menu" I noticed the exact same thing in DRIV3R, I edited something which displayed the Developers Menu, then it contained two submenu items which didn't do anything, I took screenshots so hopefully I'll be able to find them, then I should be able to post them.

I'm not sure why they leave all these files in the game when they are really no use, maybe there is a particular reason, unless it's just a easter egg that reflections put there to arise interest.
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By JAY
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#5036
Do not expect any help from developers or even publishers. They accept modding communities, but most of them aren't very happy about the fact that there are people who try to get into the code of their game to change it. Look at GTA. Rockstar didn't support the community with hints or even tools. So we have to do that by ourselves. :)
User avatar
By madness
#5037
One of the most unfortunate things, developers or publishers should take a shoot at making even a few tools, the main two things I like about PC games is that one, you have the ability to modify their content and checkout how it was developed and two, you can archive better levels of quality in the graphics especially with everything on High in Driver: Parallel Lines.

and I noticed that another few games published by ubi contain SDK's (Standard Development Kits) I think the main game I noticed with this was "Far Cry". If only there were something like this for driver but I guess it was the developer which released that SDK and Reflections Interactive probably arn't all that interested in the modding community at least they accept us by not super encrypting their files with 256bit encryption or something like that.
User avatar
By JAY
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#5038
I think I know where the models are. They must be in the *.SP files. I compared the size of the archive in the "cities" folder with the size of the extracted textures. The textures have a size of 530 MB and the nyc_now_pc.4dc a size of 878 MB. So the Tool by SparedLife just can't read and extract the model files because it don't know the format.

So we would have:

- character models in "characters"
- models for houses and other environment objects in "cities"
- models of all the cars in "vehicles"

What we need is a tool which can extract all the files from these archives. Then we would know which formats were used for the car models, and so on.
User avatar
By madness
#5039
These tools do exist but I've tried them all on driv3r and driver: parallel lines is set up in a very similar way.

From your thoughts on where the models are located, I guess that the positions of those models would be included in the same file. Meaning we would only need one file to make a map, which seems like a much smarter way when designing a game and that would make it easier to map mod than gta games I think, but we don't have the tools nor do we have anyone with the knowledge of creating such programs.
User avatar
By Lseven7
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#5040
JAY wrote:...
3. Cities

Here we find all the environment textures. One file for 1978, one for 2006. There is also a level.txt which contains informations about the files which are loaded for different mission:
Code: Select all
LEVEL			       : contains the name to display and the filename
BaseLifeEvent		    : which life event should be loaded for this level.
Map			        : which file to use for the overhead map
Mood			       : file for the mood settings
Vehicles		       : vehicle filename
GlobalVehicleTextures	: file that contains the global vehicle textures
CharacterModels	          : file that contains the character models
Animations		     : animation file to use
StartPosition		      : Co-ordinates to start the level at
OldLevel 		       : Will tell the game that the city is a D3 city.
ForceStart 	               : Forces the level to start on boot up - avoiding all menus
Format: *.d4c
Tool: SL Converter by SparedLife (for Driv3r)
I notice it says "oldlevel: wil tell the game that the city is a d3 city... does that mean you can put d3 cities into dpl? I know madness has already said it is unlikely it will be possible to put new york in d3, butif there is something in dpls programming to use d3 cities with it, that would be awesome.
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By JAY
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#5041
The tool by SparedLife just have to read and extract also the model files in these archives. Then we would know if we could open them with Zmodeler or other popular 3D programs. So SparedLife seems to be our man. :D
User avatar
By madness
#5042
I've tried keeping up with regular contact with "SparedLife" about these things but his real focus is on extraction of .dds files.

But if he doesn't have the time or anything like that there are many other people out there who focus on the extraction of files from in game achieves. I have spoken to many of this people with driv3r and unfortunately they never have enough time, this is sometime that takes a long time to program and things like that so we really have to find someone dedicated to the driver series who has the knowledge of accomplishing such a thing.
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By JAY
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#5043
Unfortunately I do not have any skills in programming. And the problem is that this game isn't that popular than GTA. For GTA III on PC there were released tools for extracting (like the IMG Tool) just a few days after the game's release. I hope there will be some people who will give it a try.
User avatar
By madness
#5044
One of my biggest goals is to find a way to mod driv3r as much as possible and now I've decided to include Driver: Parallel Lines into my list.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to release the driver 3 modding or driver: parallel lines modding websites due to time and the problem with the menu system I had on the dpl-list site which you can find by clicking here. The menu system is cached so it dosen't use too much server cpu however the menu system is that large it loads really slowly and is hard to navigate, so I got a tree version which works great like a Tree file structuring however it loads all at once like the dpl-list menu and I need to make it so it load the items under a folder instead of having everything loaded at once. But once I get all that handled I should easily be able to fill the site up with content, telling the users each individual files purpose and everything like that, so I don't know when I can release that site but when I finally get time to fix up the problem and then I can start adding the content I can finally release the site, I may plan to submit all the info I have on driver 3 in the forums here if it takes too much longer. So hopefully I can get all this going and hopefully it'll help both Driver 3's and Driver: Parallel Lines modding progress, it is a pretty big project so it'll take a while.

One other big thing about modding is memory hacking, that's basically what trainers do, their programs which run in the background and edit the games memory to change certain things like in game positions and things like that. I'm trying to get into deep contact with a few experts in memory hacks to work on a camera hack to for fill the role of the Film Director in Driver: Parallel Lines as well as a Position editor so we can transport ourselfs anywhere in the game.

I'm happy to know that modifying things gets more out of the game and I certainly hope we all succeed with our dreams and goals in modding the games in the driver series.
Last edited by madness on Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By JAY
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#5045
madness wrote:
One other big thing about modding is memory hacking, that's basically what trailers do, their programs which run in the background and edit the games memory to change certain things like in game positions and things like that. I'm trying to get into deep contact with a few experts in memory hacks to work on a camera hack to for fill the role of the Film Director in Driver: Parallel Lines as well as a Position editor so we can transport ourselfs anywhere in the game.
That would be great. This is the only thing I really miss in this game - the film director and the possibility of making cool replays.
User avatar
By madness
#5046
Yeah, this could also be done by modding the in game files however it would be extremely hard, so the best way to go about it would be memory hacking. Creating a program which runs in the background and edits the memory while the game is running.

In the case of a Film Director it would have to be programmed to extract the cars and the players positions and at the hit of a key it would hack the games memory to go back to when it started recording all the positions and play.

Setting up the camera angles would be the hard part since it's pretty hard to set up a overlapping GUI (Graphics User Interface) so I'm not sure how one would go about doing this but it is possible.

But there is a developer who is good at hacking games memory and he created a utility called the "CamHack" by ToCAEDIT for many different games, that includes all the GTA and most of the more recent NFS games as well as flatout 2 and a few other titles, he hasn't been around much and I've tried contacting him about it but he hasn't even updated his site ever since the start of this year and hasn't replied to any of my emails.

I guess it's another time issue.

But even if it was a simple camera hack we could move the camera anywhere in the game live. But then we would have to control the camera while controlling the player in the game.

But a lot can be done with memory hacking, which could make it an ideal method of modding even though it's more to the side of hacking although it's modifying the memory of the game.
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By JAY
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#5047
Yeah, I know these tools for GTA and NFS. But as you said the cannot record any gameplay, but you have to change camera views while you are playing. But better than nothing. :)
User avatar
By madness
#5048
Yeah, but in the end it is still possible to do this, just requires a lot more work like I said previously which means it'll most likely not happen.

Anyways, I'm trying to get myself more familiar with memory hacking and I'm going to see if I can work out how to change the player position, weapon bullet count and things like that. So I'm trying this now.

My next update is that I'll post some images and videos which show what I've done with the the loader gfx file.

UPDATE/EDIT: I've just added some videos of what I was talking about earlier. Loading the game without the loader masking the actual game loading. It's not what anyone would want to add to their game but I modded it to do what it does. You can download either a high or low quality version depending on your preference high quality or small size.
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By JAY
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#5050
Nice video. I tried to load the mission scripts from 1978 into 2006, but it didn't have the effect I want... :D
User avatar
By madness
#5051
Since were in the porting mood I've decided to port the *78 skies into the *06 skies and you can certainly tell the difference.

I also removed the annoying hud by removing the hud related files in the overlays folder, and now everything looks perfect. It's great if your taking screenshots that you want to distribute and you want everyone to see the game without it's hud.

I also thought that there might be a chance that the black spots on the bottom and the top of the game were overlays but obviously they weren't. Hopefully we can find a way to make this fullscreen.
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By nobodie902
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#5053
To get rid of black lines at top and botton, change aspect ratio to WIDESCREEN. (read about that cause i have a widescreen monitor and had no problems)
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By JAY
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#5054
You need a widescreen if you don't want the black lines otherwise the game will be stretched to full screen. It doesn't look any good.

Nice that you can delete the hud by deleting the files. I thought the game will crash or something. It's good for making screenshots. :)
User avatar
By madness
#5056
Yeah, well in "DRIV3R" their were a wide range of files you could delete without the game crashing, some files you can edit what ever you wanted it could be so random and it wouldn't even crash. It is still the same with dpl and I guess it's better that it doesn't crash.

There should also be a way of playing the game using the full screen without the widescreen display, instead of black it should so the higher and lower parts of the game, there is a chance that this could have been done with modding but since it wasn't an overlay this chance may not be possible, but as we look deeper into the game we may find something which will spark a flare and remove the annoying black lines.
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By JAY
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#5063
Another little modification. Night lighting at daytime.

Image

Image

Image
Last edited by JAY on Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
By daan
Registration Days Posts
#5067
Looks cool :)
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By Sedans
#5079
We should mod new cars...is that possible?
User avatar
By madness
#5086
At the moment we can only skin cars using image editors like photoshop to edit the textures.

Skinning cars takes a lot longer and I guess that's why no one has posted any images yet!

[hr]

I've worked with many of the files in the game and have found out many different things I can do with the game, so I've decided to create a sub forum for modding experiments full of little experiments I've made and some you may even want to try out yourself, especially the experiment were I remove the hud.

Not all experiments will include instructions or samples but my goal is to show the world what can be achieved by modding and experimenting with dpl.

So in a couple of hours I'll start adding content in the experiment forum, note: standard users can't post new topics in this forum, if you got an experiment tell me and I'll post a topic in here for you. All users are free to post any of their comments inside the topics.
User avatar
By JAY
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#5088
Sedans wrote:We should mod new cars...is that possible?
Read this topic. ;)

We can't extract the 3d objects of the game, so we can't replace the car models with our own. So in the moment our goal is to develop a tool which can extract these files. Then we have to look which format is used for the models and if we can open and edit them with Zmodeler, Cinema 4D or any other 3D editing program. If not then we need a filter for these programs. But because of lacking interest in this game this could be a problem. GTA or MAFIA were a lot more popular so tools for editing were released just a couple of weeks after the release of the game. And there were filters for Zmodeler (dff and 4ds). Now you find thousands of custom cars for these two games in the internet. I don't think this can be achieved for DPL...
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By madness
#5089
DPL is becoming a popular game among users with powerful PC's due to it's updated graphics, but after the console versions and driv3r many people have left the game so it's debatable weather or not people will come back to the game so we can mod it in great detail.

Right, know I'm setting up the experiments forum and I'm just about to add my first experiment which I've already talked about here and then I'm going to go through and add some more things I've been working on.
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

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