Unwanted Fog (PSP Modding)

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 1:29 am

I want to get rid of the fog from the SWBF2 PSP game, but I'm not sure how. The fog doesn't save memory, it just hides the clipping and "pretties it up". Fog is always grey or black, so it gives everything a dull, ugly color, and dramatically decreases vision range, moreso than the clipping itself.
I had been playing Mustafar on Galactic Conquest, and I noticed that I was somehow able to see MUCH further than usual. Then I realized that the fog, for some reason, didn't load.
I left Galactic Conquest and went to Instant Action, testing Mustafar on both gametypes and eras, and in all of them, it had no fog. However, when I fully reset the game, the fog was back, so I can't imagine what happened.
I think the fog is contained in the .LVL files of the levels themselves or something. Utapau is the only working PSP level that contains no fog and no clipping.
Not having fog for that short while on Mustafar was really nice, so now I want to get rid of it on every level.

However, I'm not at all sure how to get rid of the fog, and I'm hoping someone here will have a good idea.

Here are three PSP levels: Kashyyyk and Mustafar, which both have fog and clipping, and Utapau, which has no fog or clipping. Don't try to play them on your PC version, as it won't work.
http://ul49l3.rapidshare.com/cgi-bin/up ... 686522079#

EGG_GUTS · Post by **EGG_GUTS** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:54 pm

You should try posting this in the PSP and XBOX modding

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:56 pm

That forum isn't about help with modding, and really, who ever looks in there, anyway?

EGG_GUTS · Post by **EGG_GUTS** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:01 pm

You were really right with that last post

Ontopic: I can't really help you sorry

Post by **Teancum** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:25 pm

The fog is stored in the .sky file in /data_###/Worlds/###/World1. You'd have to be able to actually munge the PSP files unfortunately.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 7:30 pm

Oh... Well, does that mean, by some chance, that I could hex edit a level to use the Utapau sky instead of its own sky?

Post by **Teancum** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 9:04 pm

Nope. The sky data is stored in it's own lvl.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 9:59 pm

Oh. You're clearly right, as I replaced every occurence of tan1_sky (in Tantive IV) with uta1_sky but got no results whatsoever. I didn't even break anything! I guess I'll never know how, on that one occasion on Mustafar, there was no fog at all.
This is pretty disappointing. I'd been hoping that I could add clipping to Utapau, because Utapau, having no clipping, runs slow when there's lots of AI.

How'd you figure out that the fog is stored in a level's sky file thing?

Rikino · Post by **Rikino** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:55 am

I don't really know anything about PSP editing, so I might be coming off as redundant:

Broadus wrote:Oh. You're clearly right, as I replaced every occurence of tan1_sky (in Tantive IV) with uta1_sky but got no results whatsoever. I didn't even break anything!

How did you see the sky in Tantive IV from inside (I'm assuming you replaced the sky in the Tantive level)? If you looked out the front window, that isn't the sky. All those stars and stuff are an actual object. I'm not saying it did work, but you might have gotten a false reading.
...Rereading the posts, I realize that this prolly won't help, as there was still fog, right?

You adjust the fog levels on PC maps in 'XXX.sky' before munging, so it kind of stands to reason that that is where all that stuff is set for PSP, I guess?

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:41 am

Yes, I know that the space outside of the front of the ship is just an animating object, not the sky. I was talking about the fog. Utapau has no fog (it was never completed and put all the way into the game), but Tantive IV has a hefty level of fog (for no reason whatsoever since clipping is useless in such close quarters).
I see what you guys mean, now. There's "FogRange" and "FogColor", which explains everything. Like, on the PC, Geonosis has no fog, but Dagobah does. On the PC, fog is used for ambience, but on the PSP, it's used in excess to hide clipping.
Anyway... So there's no way to hex edit anything to change the fog?

I've never munged a level myself, so I'm not sure how to test this, but...
Let's say you take a level with no fog, like Geonosis, and munge it. Now you take Geonosis, and the ONLY things you change are the zeroes of FogColor and FogRange to different variables so that you'll get fog, and you munge the Geonosis with fog.
If you open the munged .LVLs (via hex editor) of Geonosis without fog and Geonosis with fog, will there be any difference between the two?

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:38 pm

Nothing? Really?

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:57 pm

Hey, Mustafar suddenly had no fog again! I didn't have to play it on Galactic Conquest this time, the fog went away the first time I played it on conquest.