Maps in which all Brush actors were deleted, ways to recover information?

[スマイル・ドラゴン]

Is it conceivable if one could parse the Model data in a map, could it be possible to reconstruct the Brush actors that were deleted from the level?

I don't understand why map authors do BS like this, if there's BSP errors in the map it becomes impossible to fix because they decided it's a good idea to delete the very actors UnrealEd relies on for rebuilding the map proper.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

I opened unrealed, created a cube, built it. then issued the command:

Code: Select all

obj list class=model
Log: Objects:
Log: 
Log:  
Log: Object                                                                           NumBytes   MaxBytes
Log: Model MyLevel.Model1                                                                 4032       6362  
Log: Model MyLevel.Brush                                                                  1800       1800  
Log: Model Transient.Model0                                                               1800       1800  
Log: Model MyLevel.Model2                                                                 1800       1800  
Log:  
Log:                                                       Object   NumBytes   MaxBytes
Log:                                         Model MyLevel.Model1       4032       6362
Log:                                          Model MyLevel.Brush       1800       1800
Log:                                       Model Transient.Model0       1800       1800
Log:                                         Model MyLevel.Model2       1800       1800
Log: 
Log: Class                           Count  NumKBytes  MaxKBytes
Log: Model                               4          9         11
Log:  
Log: 4 Objects (0.009M / 0.011M)
Log: 0 Deleted Objects
>

And then I closed and reopened it, it's the same.

So I deleted the cube, saved again, reopened. Issued the same command, and its the same still, even after using obj garbage on it. So I guess it's still there, somehow.

I'll do something more fancy

[gopostal]

You should message Higor over at UT99.org. He went deep down this rabbit hole, extracting the brush information specifically to use it for a rebuild. He's a really nice fellow and very, VERY smart. I wish he posted over here too but I don't think his interests extend much outside of UT and Siege mod.

[スマイル・ドラゴン]

Not sure if my ut99.org account still exists but I'll try to message him directly if it wont bother the person.

I still welcome more replies here from others with any ideas, especially Casey.

[gopostal]

IIRC Higor posted a short tutorial on how to recover and copy the brush information from a map and put it into a text file. If you could get that then that'll get you almost home. You'd just need to merge the brush data with the map and rebuild it all.

I wish I had paid better attention but I honestly skimmed the thread and went on. I shy away from breaking someone else's encryption attempts, though I certainly see your point in doing it. It's all too old now to really care. For posterity as much should be recovered as possible.

Don't worry about bother Higor. He's a real hidden gem in the UT community: super knowledgeable about a ton of things and really doesn't mind to explain things. He's helped me a bunch of times.

[スマイル・ドラゴン]

I sent him a PM, could you link me to this tutorial he posted in the mean time?

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Looks like it's this simple, lol.

Code: Select all

E:\UnrealGold\227jSystem>ucc batchexport whatever3 model t3d .\test

[スマイル・ドラゴン]

Could you run that off a J. Martin map like DM-RealCity or DM-UnrealCity?

I'd do it myself but I haven't gotten around to updating my 227J.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

That command will dump every single brush in the entire level, and not the just missing ones. Obviously, it won't make your life any easier reconstructing the whole map, but hey... it's something. If it's just a piece of the map that's gone this will do the job.

It is also possible for me to whip up a native mod that can help you figure out which Models are unreferenced.

FYI, that also dumps the entire built level as a single model, I think.

So, you could use that to uh..


I guess...

ghetto reconstruct?

edit:horribad typo :|

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Could you run that off a J. Martin map like DM-RealCity or DM-UnrealCity?

I'd do it myself but I haven't gotten around to updating my 227J.

It also works on gold.

Code: Select all

E:\UnrealGold\GoldSystem>ucc editor.batchexport whatever3 model t3d .\test
IniReadOnly
Loading package whatever3...
Exported Model whatever3.Model3 to .\test\Model3.t3d
Exported Model whatever3.Brush to .\test\Brush.t3d
Exported Model whatever3.Model1 to .\test\Model1.t3d
Exported Model whatever3.Model2 to .\test\Model2.t3d
Success - 0 error(s), 0 warnings

[スマイル・ドラゴン]

Didn't know UnrealGold had batch export. I thought that was a UT99 and 227 thing?

Thanks for the information though.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Yeah it's there, you just have to explicitly call out "editor.batchexport". Don't know why.

And no, the UT99 dll extracting exploit doesn't work on gold if you were curious. Gold just GPFs, which is good because otherwise... un fun things would be possible.

[Hellkeeper]

FYI, that also dumps the entire built level as a single model, I think.

Then what's the difference with intersecting the entire level's BSP ?

[.:..:]

Technically editor keeps references to all brush models because it needs to keep them in sync for when you edit UV-mapping/textures of world BSP vs brush actor models.
I guess the hardest part will be trying to recover the Brush actors themselves since we no longer have their transformation (location/rotation/sheering) information.
In theory it would be possible to recover their transformation by comparing the model data themselves by how they are built in the final level BSP. But that takes some time as you'd have to reverse lookup the coordinates of the models, and that involves some MATHS.


On a second thought, it might be that even the Brush actors themselves are still there, but just marked as "deleted". Have you tried if OBJ LIST CLASS=Brush yelds any results in those maps? If it does, then all you need to do is to re-add them to actorlist with a C++ code.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

FYI, that also dumps the entire built level as a single model, I think.

Then what's the difference with intersecting the entire level's BSP ?

probably nothing at all.

[han]

So what exactly was stripped? Just the Brush Actors? or the Models of the certain brushes too? Are the UPolys still in?

Some sample maps would help though.

If just the Brush Actors got deleted, one should try an approach to find Brushes inside the level package which are not referenced over Actor->Brush and create new Brush actors for them. Maybe a few lines for some initial Rotation/Location, etc. but should be rather straight forward.