SporeMaster

SporeMaster is an experimental Spore modding tool by void. It aims to provide an integrated environment for exploring the Spore .package files and creating mods.

SporeMaster is unfinished, beta software. It is provided without support and utterly without warranty. If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces.

== Availability ==

You can always find the latest version of SporeMaster at Google Code. The source code is also available from Subversion there.

You will probably need the latest version of the .NET framework from Microsoft.

== Key Features ==


 * Unpacking and packing of .package files, with automatic conversion of .prop files to and from .xml. files.xml is no longer necessary.


 * NEW: Packing of .rw4 (RenderWare 4) model and texture files (from OGRE3D XML format and DDS format respectively) with packages, making part creation possible for the first time. Unpacking of these files is currently very limited. Part animations are not yet supported.


 * XML property files are more user-friendly than in previous mod tools, using names instead of hashes where possible. NEW:XML files are order-independent.


 * Full text indexing of .xml and .locale files in the unpacked package, to permit very fast incremental search. NEW:Search for keywords separated by spaces or "literal phrases".


 * Side-by-side comparison of file tree in Spore and the mod under development. One-click execution of WinMerge to see and edit changes in an individual file.


 * Built in syntax highlighting editor.


 * NEW: Image and model viewers.


 * Tools for guessing the original names for hashes and for creating friendly aliases for hashes that can't be guessed (or that were randomly generated by EA). The "Hash Guesser" tries more than 250 billion possible names for a given hash, providing you with a list of possible original names to choose from. When a new name is found the unpacked files are automatically updated.

==   Acknowledgements ==

SporeMaster builds heavily on the work of a number of other people:
 * Rick developed the original code for reading and writing .package and .prop files, and much of its database of hashed values. Rick's blog is at http://spore.vg.


 * The integrated text editor is SharpDevelop 3.0 beta.


 * The full text indexing function uses the prefix array construction algorithm of Kärkkäinen and Sanders 2003.


 * The directory "tree view" uses a slightly modified version of Paul Dickinson's VTreeView (available from www.codeproject.com).


 * Kittani of www.sporemods.org created a new SporeMaster icon (not in v2.0)


 * I used icons from VistaICO.com.


 * The external program WinMerge is by its authors, and can be found at SourceForge.net.


 * The lines in the model viewer are drawn with the 3DTools for WPF package released by the Microsoft WPF team.

If there is anyone I have forgotten to credit, I humbly apologize. I am grateful to all these people and you should be, too. None of them are in any way responsible for any problems you have with SporeMaster!

Spore is a product and a registered trademark of Electronic Arts. This program is not approved or authorized in any way by EA. ==   Getting Started ==


 * Download and install the .NET framework if you don't have the latest version
 * Download SporeMaster and unzip it to a new directory. I don't recommend installing over a previous version.
 * Known bug: if you are running a non-English version of Windows that has a different number format, you will get errors packing mods. I am told that changing the language to English in the Control Panel will work around the problem.


 * Double click SporeMaster.exe
 * Go to the Spore Packages tab, click Spore_Game.package, click Change, find this package in your Spore\Data folder, click OK
 * Click Text.package, find this package in your Spore\Data\Locale\en-us\ folder, click OK
 * Click Unpack at the bottom and wait a long time for SporeMaster to unpack and index these files. They go in a "spore.unpacked" folder under your SporeMaster folder, if you are curious. I recommend opening or creating a mod directly in your Spore\Data folder, so you can see changes in Spore as soon as you click Pack.


 * Go to the Files tab, which should now be enabled.
 * Be aware of the setting of "show only modded files" on the Files tab: if you created a new mod, clicking this checkbox will hide all your files.


 * Be aware of the "Explore Left" and "Explore Right" buttons, which allow you to quickly access the unmodified Spore files and the files in your mod, respectively, using Windows Explorer. SporeMaster has a lot of editing functionality built in, but you can also use other tools to work on your unpacked mod.