help getting xustom map packages working

[wolfgang953]

how do i get these map packages working?

I finally was able to replace the hdd on this machine and can play this again. I installed 'the first decade' on C:\Games as well as cncnet. I tried dl'ing one of the 1137 map packages and placing them in C:\Games\Command & Conquer Red Alert(tm) II\RA2\Maps\Custom  but i dont rly see anything new when i go in. I do see 16 maps in 'standard' that might be new, i dont recall. But they have no map preview so i cant see what they are. I did notice that some of the files are map, mpr, yrm and 13 are yro.  Not sure if that matters. Im guessing changing that number of files to .map isnt whats needed manually.. thats quite a lot.

Just like to get these working and see some new/fun maps.

 

 

 

[McPwny]

if you are playing them through the client, you need to put them in the custom maps folder, and you have to make sure that the file extension is .map or it wont work. those maps are probably made for play with the legacy game launcher which uses .yrm for YR, .mpr for RA2, .map for campaign missions, and some oddball extensions for who knows why.

those maps that have appeared in your list are probably .map for use as campaign maps, they may very well crash your game if you try and boot them

[wolfgang953]

3 hours ago, McPwny said:

if you are playing them through the client, you need to put them in the custom maps folder

They are in   C:\Games\Command & Conquer Red Alert(tm) II\RA2\Maps\Custom  which is a folder created when i installed 'The first decade'.

The 'cncnet' folder doesnt have anything like that for ra2 to put anything into.

 

3 hours ago, McPwny said:

and you have to make sure that the file extension is .map or it wont work.

that map pack was 1137 maps.. im supposed to go through and change every single one?

[wolfgang953]

i tried changing a few of the maps in C:\Games\Command & Conquer Red Alert(tm) II\RA2\Maps\Custom    over to .map to see.

the .mdr and .yrm that were changed to .map seemed to work normally. So that part is good.

the .yro did not show up however. Not sure whats up with them.

And the ones that are already .map (which are the ones that showed up with a black preview like the pic in the OP) would load up and immediately have an error and shut down.

 

So the majority form the package are .mpr and .yrm   so i guess that means i could get the majorit of them working.... but the first package alone was 1137 maps... is there any way to change them all or change a bunch at once? Changing the extension one by one by one.... would take an eternity.

[McPwny]

indeed the only way to get them to work with the client is to rename the extension to .map. if you are really intent on going through with it, it would be worth it to find something that can batch process file extensions.

i, too, wonder what those .yro maps are.

[wolfgang953]

i do like new and interesting maps. So the map packages seem a good place to start.  ( i would also love to find a very specific map again. I played it  lot as a teen, but i dont recall its name anymore).

Is there any way to change all the extensions at once or at least quicker? There are thousands of maps in those files. cant say i want to go one by one..

im also curious... if they all have to be .map then why wasnt the map packages listed with .map to begin with? Seem odd that every single person would have to change thousands of extensions manually. ?

[McPwny]

there are programs out there that you can download and use to bulk change the extensions.

.map is the extension that cncnet went with for their maps probably for compatibility reasons. .yrm and .mpr were the extensions used by the legacy game, and you can still play them if you put the maps directly in your YR/RA2 folder and then launch the game from the primary executable; though YR and RA2 only read .yrm and .mpr maps respectively, and cncnet launcher is better optimized in most ways.

all of those maps were made in ye olden times before cncnet when most players played offline, and the ones who did play online used the old school westwood servers, XWIS, or some such thing.

[wolfgang953]

4 hours ago, McPwny said:

there are programs out there that you can download and use to bulk change the extensions.

any specific ones good? I havnt rly had a need to change extensions before.

4 hours ago, McPwny said:

all of those maps were made in ye olden times before cncnet when most players played offline, and the ones who did play online used the old school westwood servers, XWIS, or some such thing.

hey, you callin me old!? Just because i played  ra2 on westwood servers.. as a teen.... on dial up... ah shit.... -_-

Edited July 23, 2022 by wolfgang953

[McPwny]

oof

i havent went and tried them all out myself so i cant make any suggestions, but theres a multitude of them out there and im sure it wont be difficult to find one that will do the trick

hope you find that one specific map that you are looking for

[wolfgang953]

ok. I got a bulk file hanger working well enough and i started downloading a lot of those map packages in the other thread. But now i have many questions about that as well.

 

 

^This is from the 'More Unsorted RA2YR Maps' dl. What are these .mmx extensions? And whats with the applications in there as well?

 

Same dl as the fiest pic, inside that 'YRArgentina.com Maps' folder. What are all these files needing winzip? The first dl i did was just all maps. Nothing else. Nice and simple. Im not sure about all these tho. And more .mmx

Continuing question form last pic. Same folder. I assume the files listed in the help window there are whats inside hat specific file/folder. What do i do with these .csf .gif .txt? And way do so many of those folders all have 'all01umd.map' in them?

 

what do i do with all these .png files?

 

i assume the ones that are duplicates jsut in differnet extensions (like peddlers.yrm and peddlers.map) i can jsut copy the .amp and ignore the .yrm? And convert the ones that have only .yrm over to .map    Unsure about the png again tho.

 

 

not even sure what to make of these...?

 

Lotta questions i know. But i didnt see this listed in that sticky thread for all the map dl's.. and id like to get them all working.

[McPwny]

if i remember right, the mmx files were small mixes that would hold a map file and some other file used by the older, now obsolete WWoL and XWIS multiplay hosts. so for the MMX ones you could open it with XCC, grab the map file, and rename the extension on it to make it work.

the files using winzip must be compressed with winzip. back in the day people actually cared about compressing their 1MB map files when sharing on the internet, and .zip folders werent as popular. occasionally i still come across people using 7zip for file compression.... the applications i dont know about but that may very well also be some old, primitive compression technique

.csf file is the compressed string file and is basically where all of the text for the game sits; people need to modify this to get text working properly in their fan mission files, which would be all the all01umds you are seeing. those are custom allied campaign maps (for yr). text files are probably a readme, the pngs are probably all map previews.

copys of maps with .map/.yrm extensions was probably as a service for ppl that play on cncnet or vanilla respectively.

the last ones im not sure, it might have been that these are directly from a multiplay hosting server that renamed the map files when ppl uploaded them via the service, much like cncnet still does today; though cncnet now packs the map preview into the map itself

[wolfgang953]

5 hours ago, McPwny said:

the pngs are probably all map previews.

the png (at least some) do look like mp previews. Do i still add these png files to the custom maps folder? Or do i copy the .map file over and thats it?

 

5 hours ago, McPwny said:

.csf file is the compressed string file and is basically where all of the text for the game sits; people need to modify this to get text working properly in their fan mission files, which would be all the all01umds you are seeing. those are custom allied campaign maps (for yr). text files are probably a readme, the pngs are probably all map previews.

So how do i add these to the game? Can all the files jsut be thrown into the custom maps folder? Or does each one need a sub folder with its respective fiels in it for that map/mission?

For example; I just unziped one of the files. 'dryheatsoviet' which gave me arosovsu.yrm and ra2md.csf

would they be thrown in the customs maps folder separately and the game can figure it out. Or should those two be in a single folder and that folder put in the custom maps fo.lder?

[McPwny]

the png files are thoroughly obsolete, map previews can be generated and injected into maps automatically using the map renderer.

cncnet cant handle campaign maps as it has no campaign map menu. the vanilla exe can run the campaign maps, if the map filename architecture is right (all01umd all02umd etc) and if you go over 7 maps the ini files for listing them needs to be rewritten and to make matters worse the game only reads 1 .csf at a time. even if a person were to mod the client to list campaign maps in some ordered list, reconciling the .csf files would be a huge ordeal.

the custom map folder takes only multiplayer map files converted to .map extension. campaign .map files in there will crash on map launch and other file types will be ignored. i did once mention to the devs that it would be cool to have an .mmx type map-in-mix file architecture for packing game assets (including .csf) into maps for use on cncnet, but as of yet there arent any plans to do anything like that

[wolfgang953]

ok.. i transferred a lot more maps.

These are the ones i didnt transfer over to the custom maps folder. (.map files) I wasnt sure if it was a good idea for not. A lot of random-multi character named files, and some i thought might be from some kind of campaign or something? I wasnt sure, so i didnt move them. Figured id ask about them first.

 

and this little bit form another dl.

 

 

[wolfgang953]

first pic came up quite small.. not sure if these will be better

 

[McPwny]

the ones with random names are, like i mentioned, probably pulled from some hosting server itself inside of whatever client ran the maps, and will be normal maps but with a nonsense file name. theres maps prefixed with reborn and mo which may or may not be maps made for some mod; it would be best to open them in fa2 one time and see if thats the case or not.

the maps prefixed with allxx or sovxx are indeed campaign map files. trnxx probably being the prefix for training missions

[wolfgang953]

looks like the mo and reborn ones were already in the custom folder. I didnt even notice. Easy to lose track with so many files.

I placed one of those random character named files in the maps folder, as well as a xmp. But neither showed up in the list of available maps when i loaded up the client. So i didnt bother putting the others of the same kind in. (edit: or it shows up in the map list as something completely different as i cant tell.)

 

So now i jsut got .par .yro .mmx, application files, and those winzip ones left.

Its gettin there'

Edited September 14, 2022 by wolfgang953

[wolfgang953]

all the maps that show up in the list in game are in a completely random order it looks like. Is there any way to sort how they show up? Even if its just alphabetical order..

[McPwny]

it might have to do with the file name in alphanumerical order, but im not sure how the client sorts the map list

[bbglas007]

On 7/23/2022 at 5:58 AM, wolfgang953 said:

i do like new and interesting maps. So the map packages seem a good place to start.  ( i would also love to find a very specific map again. I played it  lot as a teen, but i dont recall its name anymore).

Is there any way to change all the extensions at once or at least quicker? There are thousands of maps in those files. cant say i want to go one by one..

im also curious... if they all have to be .map then why wasnt the map packages listed with .map to begin with? Seem odd that every single person would have to change thousands of extensions manually. ?

For future reference, use CMD and type "cd your/map/folder/path" (change directory to whatever the folder location is)

Then type ren *.mpr *.map   - this will change all files that have the extension of ".mpr" to ".map"

You can also do it for ".yrm" files

so it would be: " ren *.yrm *.map"

I don't trust random software on the internet, so I thought I would add to this thread