TeraIDE for UDK

[DaisyParachute]

Everything is working Thanks a lot, however, I won't be able to develop on it right now because it's an online game and I need to be able to launch multiple client and a server quickly on a map, which Sublime Text does. But as soon as TeraIDE is able to do that, I'll give it a try.
(I could create a batch file just doing that, but I'll lose the ability to change the map quickly). Anyway great job man I hope I helped you a bit I'll check every new update !

[TeraBit]

Cool. Thanks for the help. It's a tricky thing to make this stuff work for everyone.

I'm not sure about the launching multiple clients. I think this is very doable, not sure how the debugger would take to that though, as I've never tried running more than one of it at once.

Speaking of the debugger, you should have a file UDKDebugger(1).dll in the UDK\Binaries\Win32\ directory which may need to be renamed back to UDKDebugger.dll
(the one currently with that name is my one, so you will need to remove it to put it back to the way it was before).

[DaisyParachute]

Nope, only one UDKDebugger.dll in my win32 :/

[TeraBit]

Ah. In which case you haven't used a debugger enabled editor yet. You should be able to simply delete the UDKDebugger.dll.

[TeraBit]

Introducing Beta Version 0.82, now with Asset Scanning Intellisense

Press F8 in the editor to access the asset list.

[zinggi57]

That looks incredible helpful! Well done!

Guess who just got an awesome idea to make my plugin better?
Unfortunately I don't have much time at the moment...

[TeraBit]

That looks incredible helpful! Well done!

Guess who just got an awesome idea to make my plugin better?
Unfortunately I don't have much time at the moment...

Cool! I'm looking into doing the launch multiple clients and Server thing also, so should even them up a bit. Good ideas are meant to be shared.

[zinggi57]

It's open source, here's the code if that is helpful, but I guess you just had no time yet to implement it.

EDIT:
Question for you, how do you get a full asset list?
Just found this file: "GameAssetDatabase.checkpoint". It looks promising. Is it from there?

[TeraBit]

It's open source, here's the code if that is helpful, but I guess you just had no time yet to implement it.

EDIT:
Question for you, how do you get a full asset list?
Just found this file: "GameAssetDatabase.checkpoint". It looks promising. Is it from there?

Thanks for the link, but you're right, it's simply a matter of time to implement things and the fact that the debugger interface is based around one client, so will take a bit of jigging to sort out.

My approach is brute force, I launch a thread from a thread pool for each .UPK file and read the table of contents (Names, Imports, Exports) and reconstruct the Class entries from this information. There are a few open source programs that read UPK files and they can be used as a guide to reverse engineer the format sufficiently to read this stuff. Not so hard if you don't have to actually extract the resources.

[zinggi57]

Yeah, I luckily didn't had to worry about the debugger since it's a standalone application.

You might also want to check out this file, it's located under "\UDK\UDKGame\Content\GameAssetDatabase.checkpoint ". It seems to contain a full list of all assets. Might speed up the brute force approach, if speed was an issue.

[TeraBit]

Yeah, I luckily didn't had to worry about the debugger since it's a standalone application.

You might also want to check out this file, it's located under "\UDK\UDKGame\Content\GameAssetDatabase.checkpoint ". It seems to contain a full list of all assets. Might speed up the brute force approach, if speed was an issue.

It takes about 180ms to interrogate all the UPK files, so speed is ok, but will take longer if there is a big project in there I expect.

I'll take a look and see if I can use it the checkpoint. The only problem is that it only updates after a checkpoint (UDK automaticlly asks after a week or so I think).
So if you import or shuffle stuff regularly you may find your reference isn't in there yet.

Should have looked first I guess.

[ryanjon2040]

Awesome TeraBit. I also had this feature planned in Unreal X-Editor v4.0 but in a different way.

The only problem is that it only updates after a checkpoint (UDK automaticlly asks after a week or so I think).
So if you import or shuffle stuff regularly you may find your reference isn't in there yet.

You can forcefully update the GameAssetDatabase when the user clicks UDK Editor button. That is in UDKEditorUserSettings.ini change the ForceJournalUpdate to true under section [GameAssetDatabase] which will update the Database forcefully (ie without that Check Now messagebox) next time the user launches UDK. If you want to show that messagebox then change the JournalAlarmTime to something like 1/1/2000.

[TeraBit]

Awesome TeraBit. I also had this feature planned in Unreal X-Editor v4.0 but in a different way.

Thanks. X-Editor and the Sublime text plugin are keeping me on my toes.

You can forcefully update the GameAssetDatabase when the user clicks UDK Editor button. That is in UDKEditorUserSettings.ini change the ForceJournalUpdate to true under section [GameAssetDatabase] which will update the Database forcefully (ie without that Check Now messagebox) next time the user launches UDK. If you want to show that messagebox then change the JournalAlarmTime to something like 1/1/2000.

True, however after testing it seems to take much longer to generate a checkpoint than it does to scan the assets (3872ms vs 180ms) so for now I'll stick to the scan method. I may use the database to show thumbnails of the content as you traverse the list though, as these can be a little more hit and miss. Something for the TODO list

[Crusha K. Rool]

Instead of changing the JournalAlarmTime in the ini, which will only prompt the update dialog to show up on the next run, you can just make it update from the console with this command
Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe CheckpointGameAssetDatabase


Another useful command to have is
Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe FixUpRedirects
which will go through all maps and packages in order to find the instances where an asset has been moved or renamed. When moving or renaming it, a redirect note is left in the old place that tells where the asset can be found now, so old references don't break. But that slows things down and can cause inconsistencies. So this replaces any link to a redirect note with a link to the actual new asset location.

[TeraBit]

Instead of changing the JournalAlarmTime in the ini, which will only prompt the update dialog to show up on the next run, you can just make it update from the console with this command
Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe CheckpointGameAssetDatabase

Seems like a more manageable way to trigger the update to the database, I expect the time it takes will still be the same though. I think it is slower because it is re-doing the thumbnails etc, whereas I'm only scanning the textual references as yet. I'll keep an eye on this one to see if I need to change it over time.

Another useful command to have is
Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe FixUpRedirects
which will go through all maps and packages in order to find the instances where an asset has been moved or renamed. When moving or renaming it, a redirect note is left in the old place that tells where the asset can be found now, so old references don't break. But that slows things down and can cause inconsistencies. So this replaces any link to a redirect note with a link to the actual new asset location.

Handy to know, thanks.