![[V] IdolNinja](/forum/data/avatars/m/0/62.jpg?1394026296){kind=avatar}
[V] IdolNinja
Volition Staff
Enter the Dominatrix Billboards mod by IdolNinja
http://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/index.php?threads/enter-the-dominatrix-billboard-patcher.2255/
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INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
1. Find the following 2 files in the \cache subfolder where you have SRTT installed:
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\packfiles\pc\cache\sr3_city_0.vpp_pc
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\packfiles\pc\cache\sr3_city_1.vpp_pc
2. Copy both sr3_city_0.vpp_pc and sr3_city_1.vpp_pc to this extracted folder where this readme and batch file is for the mod.
3. Run patch_srtt_billboards.bat batch file and go make yourself something to eat. The patching process takes ~20 minutes since it has to extract and work with ~5000 files. You will get a completion splash screen when the batch is finished doing its work.
4. Browse to the MY_CUSTOM_BILLBOARDS folder and you should see 164 new files created. Half of them are str2_pc and the other half are the matching asm_pc files.
5. Move these 164 newly created files to your SRTT install folder with the game exe:
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\
6. Hail Zinyak, your new lord and master!
**********************
UNINSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
To uninstall the mod and revert back to vanilla billboards, simply delete all the str2_pc and asm_pc files that were created by this batch file from the root of your SRTT install. The modded billboard files should be pretty easy to recognize since they all start with 4 numbers and are the range 0714 - 1816.
**********************
HISTORY LESSON (Understanding what the hell these billboards actually are)
For April Fools day 2012, Volition released an "obviously" fake press release about an expansion to SRTT named Enter The Dominatrix (EtD.)
Many people laughed at the joke, but never once believed it might be real (including me.) Fast forward to May, and Volition announced that their April 1 expansion was not a joke and was actually coming out, much to everyone's surprise.
A couple of weeks later, Volition released a patch that changed all of the in-game billboards to advertisements for EtD as a little promo/preview. This patch was only live for a few days before it was pulled. Shortly afterwards, Volition announced that the expansion was cancelled and that the EtD content was going to be wrapped up into a full game sequel; i.e. SR4.
Luckily, I saved all that texture data and have reintegrated it back into the game. It was a much more difficult task than the original patch 5 release, since that patch simply changed the exe to load differently. i.e. the temp patch 5 loaded ONLY the new cvbm/gvbm billboard textures from patch_compressed. After EtD was cancelled and the patch was pulled, the only way to change the billboards in-game was to manually unpack/repack/update about 600 str2_pc files which also contain all the other world textures for every single area in the game.
This was a humongous amount of data and work since almost every single str2_pc world file needed to be touched with multiple copies of each new texture. Since the output of the updated texture files was 900Mb in size, I opted for a batch method that requires the player to use their own local files and thus kept the release small at ~1.5Mb in size.
**********************
MISC STUFF
* The airport terminal and surrounding area have quite a few unique billboards that only appear there.
* If you are far enough away it shows the original vanilla billboard for a second but changes over to the new one when you get slightly nearer. It's probably something with the LOD. It's most noticeable when you're on the hoverbike or VTOL and can see really far. This was exactly how the original patch 5 worked because I distinctly remember thinking it was pretty cool that it seemed that the aliens were altering the billboards in realtime (until I realized that something was actually wrong.)
* There is one billboard named billboard_mbrawl_a_d.cvbm_pc that I absolutely could not find in the game files despite multiple indexed searches. I even combed through all 5 airport streaming files looking for any/all texture files that were close in size to 86kb (the standard billboard size) with no luck. This is obviously the Killbane walking apocalypse one you can see at the airport terminal. I am completely stumped on this one.
* There are a few billboards that were never changed over with EtD. These include:
billboard02_signtemp_d - Blank one with cracked surface
billboard01_signtemp_d - faded joe cola
billboard_stag_1 - Nyte Blade Wants YOU to Join STAG
billboard_stag_2 - Drain the Blood Outta Crime
billboard_stag_3 - Protect Your Community
ATTN OTHER MODDERS: Feel free to use this release as a framework for your own billboard sets. Nothing in the batch or file structure is EtD specific, so it should be extremely simple to adapt without any major changes. All of the changed texture files for EtD are in \textures. Simply edit these files yourself and build again to make your new textures show up in-game. Please feel free to distribute your billboard sets using any or all parts of this mod as long as you link back with credit in the readme. I do plan on releasing an updated billboard toolkit in the near future that modifies the batch to add in the missing textures like Joe Cola and STAG.
See the rest of the thread for more screenshots.
http://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/index.php?threads/enter-the-dominatrix-billboard-patcher.2255/
**********************
INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
1. Find the following 2 files in the \cache subfolder where you have SRTT installed:
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\packfiles\pc\cache\sr3_city_0.vpp_pc
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\packfiles\pc\cache\sr3_city_1.vpp_pc
2. Copy both sr3_city_0.vpp_pc and sr3_city_1.vpp_pc to this extracted folder where this readme and batch file is for the mod.
3. Run patch_srtt_billboards.bat batch file and go make yourself something to eat. The patching process takes ~20 minutes since it has to extract and work with ~5000 files. You will get a completion splash screen when the batch is finished doing its work.
4. Browse to the MY_CUSTOM_BILLBOARDS folder and you should see 164 new files created. Half of them are str2_pc and the other half are the matching asm_pc files.
5. Move these 164 newly created files to your SRTT install folder with the game exe:
..\Steam\steamapps\common\saints row the third\
6. Hail Zinyak, your new lord and master!
**********************
UNINSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
To uninstall the mod and revert back to vanilla billboards, simply delete all the str2_pc and asm_pc files that were created by this batch file from the root of your SRTT install. The modded billboard files should be pretty easy to recognize since they all start with 4 numbers and are the range 0714 - 1816.
**********************
HISTORY LESSON (Understanding what the hell these billboards actually are)
For April Fools day 2012, Volition released an "obviously" fake press release about an expansion to SRTT named Enter The Dominatrix (EtD.)
April Fools Press Release said:
Many people laughed at the joke, but never once believed it might be real (including me.) Fast forward to May, and Volition announced that their April 1 expansion was not a joke and was actually coming out, much to everyone's surprise.
A couple of weeks later, Volition released a patch that changed all of the in-game billboards to advertisements for EtD as a little promo/preview. This patch was only live for a few days before it was pulled. Shortly afterwards, Volition announced that the expansion was cancelled and that the EtD content was going to be wrapped up into a full game sequel; i.e. SR4.
Luckily, I saved all that texture data and have reintegrated it back into the game. It was a much more difficult task than the original patch 5 release, since that patch simply changed the exe to load differently. i.e. the temp patch 5 loaded ONLY the new cvbm/gvbm billboard textures from patch_compressed. After EtD was cancelled and the patch was pulled, the only way to change the billboards in-game was to manually unpack/repack/update about 600 str2_pc files which also contain all the other world textures for every single area in the game.
This was a humongous amount of data and work since almost every single str2_pc world file needed to be touched with multiple copies of each new texture. Since the output of the updated texture files was 900Mb in size, I opted for a batch method that requires the player to use their own local files and thus kept the release small at ~1.5Mb in size.
**********************
MISC STUFF
* The airport terminal and surrounding area have quite a few unique billboards that only appear there.
* If you are far enough away it shows the original vanilla billboard for a second but changes over to the new one when you get slightly nearer. It's probably something with the LOD. It's most noticeable when you're on the hoverbike or VTOL and can see really far. This was exactly how the original patch 5 worked because I distinctly remember thinking it was pretty cool that it seemed that the aliens were altering the billboards in realtime (until I realized that something was actually wrong.)
* There is one billboard named billboard_mbrawl_a_d.cvbm_pc that I absolutely could not find in the game files despite multiple indexed searches. I even combed through all 5 airport streaming files looking for any/all texture files that were close in size to 86kb (the standard billboard size) with no luck. This is obviously the Killbane walking apocalypse one you can see at the airport terminal. I am completely stumped on this one.
* There are a few billboards that were never changed over with EtD. These include:
billboard02_signtemp_d - Blank one with cracked surface
billboard01_signtemp_d - faded joe cola
billboard_stag_1 - Nyte Blade Wants YOU to Join STAG
billboard_stag_2 - Drain the Blood Outta Crime
billboard_stag_3 - Protect Your Community
ATTN OTHER MODDERS: Feel free to use this release as a framework for your own billboard sets. Nothing in the batch or file structure is EtD specific, so it should be extremely simple to adapt without any major changes. All of the changed texture files for EtD are in \textures. Simply edit these files yourself and build again to make your new textures show up in-game. Please feel free to distribute your billboard sets using any or all parts of this mod as long as you link back with credit in the readme. I do plan on releasing an updated billboard toolkit in the near future that modifies the batch to add in the missing textures like Joe Cola and STAG.
See the rest of the thread for more screenshots.
