So I decided to take a look into modding the Xbox version by trying to use PC mods. I swapped out car files and then booted the game fine. Get to car selection and go to pick the car I swapped and it freezes. I kind of expected it to happen but thought maybe I did something wrong. Anyway, mostly just looking into the hypothetical possibility of adding more stuff to the game. A lot of awesome car and track mods are out there for this game, so it would be nice to try porting them over. When I had a look at the actual files they were the same file type and everything. So I guess that brings me to my question, do any of you know if anybody ever tried looking into modding this game over the years? Could anybody try taking a look at it and seeing if they have the same results as I do? I am on a softmodded retail system, no chips, cpu or ram mods.
The file format is probably not the same on PC and Windows. It could be something as trivial as header differences to how the verticies are stored. On top of that the Xbox format could be encrypted and/or compressed. If the file format has been reverse engineered for the PC version then try opening/extracting the Xbox format with whatever tool is out there. You can also try the Xbox file on PC just to see what error you get. In general asset files on console versions and windows versions are not interchangeble, save for a few general purpose engines (Unreal and Unity for example) - but even there you could run into problems. Where you for example have wav/ogg on PC to play a sound effect you would typically have it as an rcf file. In those cases you would have to convert wav to rcf in order to use it on the PS2 build. Even then the engine could expect a different sample rate for example that could lead to a crash.
I was actually thinking the same, but I used low poly mods where I could find them. I only stuck to modding a single car, the F50 Ferrari, with things like F40, and other similar cars. Yeah, this seems like it is a possibility. I mean, normally PC files and console files typically aren't interchangeable at all. Half-Life on Dreamcast is one exception I know to that rule, but it still works better with texture optimizations for Dreamcast PVR format.
You could quickly convert a body mesh and name it the same. Re-Volt can have PC mods on Dreamcast as well. Have to convert textures but that's about it.
It is mostly dependent on the game engine. Hopefully its a 3rd party engine, which often means there are tools out there to use.
Looks like I at least got the traffic cars to swap out with the playable ones. Pretty hilarious seeing a Ford Focus or Chevy Silverado racing with sports cars. I have posted a thread here, so hopefully these guys can help me to see how I can get real new car models into the game, as well as some new tracks. http://www.nfsaddons.com/forums//index.php?topic=1885.0 I will keep you guys posted if I make any more progress. Simply being able to play with new vehicles is already pretty fun.
