FREESPACE KIT Quick Start Tutorial

Quick Start Tutorial

Descent Manager FREESPACE KIT is a quite complete package of tools to view, extract and partially modify data from the games Conflict, Descent: FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2. The set of tools work closely together and are all automatically called when they are needed. The portal of most actions is the Descent Manager VPVIEW32, which you can start under "Start|Programs|Descent Manager" (or by double-clicking a .VP file). From this all actions are handled: you open one of the .VP files in your FreeSpace directories, which contain all game-related data. You will see the content of the .VP file as a list of files like in Explorer's Detail View mode. Double-clicking a file opens the correct module automatically, if it is a file covered by FREESPACE KIT's tools. If it is a .WAV file (FreeSpace music, voice and effects files), a one-time click is enough to play it from within the VPVIEW32.

Here are some scenarios that you will be able to do using FREESPACE KIT, and how to do them (note that this information assumes that you installed all modules of the FREESPACE KIT package and requires that you have configured your FreeSpace directories in VPVIEW32 via the menu point "File|Options & Configuration"):

Play or extract the FreeSpace music and the sound effects
View the FreeSpace command-briefing animations, extract screenshots of it and convert them to AVI files
View the weapon and ships attributes and compare them
Examine a mission and get a overview how it behaves (events), without having to understand SEXP trees
Extract the interface images to be opened in your painting program
Determine the information how to replace certain data (images, attribute data files, ...) with on customized ones (for so-called MODs)

Note: There is no way anymore to view the FreeSpace cutscenes or take screenshots from them. In earlier times we had a tool called Descent Manager MVEEXTRACT32, which took care of this. However, due to Interplay's request we had to remove it from the web. Our hands are tied :(...

Play or extract the FreeSpace music and the sound effects

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Open FREESPACE.VP (FreeSpace 1), WARBLE_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2 Music) or SPARKY_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2 Sound Effects).
Go to the directory "music" in the left column of the user interface to enable the filter that only the music files are displayed in the list view right. For the sound effects, "8b22k" and "16b11k" are the directories to choose.
Click on a WAV file once to play it. You can even "browse" through the music or the sound effects with the cursor keys then. You can stop the sound at any time with the STOP icon in the toolbar.
Alternatively you can extract the WAV file to be played from outside VPVIEW32. The menu "Action" provides the extraction commands.
Advanced tip: Music is automatically looped at default, sound effects not. You can modify this behaviour in the "File|Options & Configuration" dialog under "Settings". There are three options: Loop all WAV files, Loop music files only (excludes voice and effects WAV files from looping) or Never loop.
Advanced tip: You can also hear and extract the voice recordings. They are in the following directories (for FreeSpace 2 they are in STU_FS2.VP): "briefing", "command_briefings", "debriefing", "personas" and "special".

View the FreeSpace command-briefing animations, extract screenshots of it and convert them to AVI files

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Open one of the following files:
FREESPACE.VP - For FreeSpace 1 command briefing animations
MDISK.VP - For Silent Threat command briefing animations
SMARTY_FS2.VP - For FreeSpace 2 technical database animations
TANGO1_FS2.VP - For FreeSpace 2 Act #1 command briefing animations
TANGO2_FS2.VP - For FreeSpace 2 Act #2 command briefing animations
TANGO3_FS2.VP - For FreeSpace 2 Act #3 command briefing animations
The available animations are in various directories, which you can select in the left list: "cbanims" contain FreeSpace 2's command briefing animations, "Interface" FreeSpace 1's techroom animations, "HUD" the video communication heads when messages are displayed within the mission, etc. If you select "<All files>" in the directory list on the left and then click on the header "Type" in the list view on the right to sort after type you can easily see what Animations are available in the currently opened file.
When you click on an ANI file once, you can already see some information about the file, like duration, frames per seconds, number of frames, etc.
By double-clicking an ANI animation file, Descent Manager ANIVIEW32 is opened with that file and plays it directly from the .VP file, without having to extract it first. Within ANIVIEW32 you can convert the file to an AVI file and make screenshots of the frames.

View the weapon and ships attributes and compare them

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Open ROOT.VP (FreeSpace 1) or ROOT_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2).
Go to the directory "tables" in the left column of the user interface to enable the filter that only the table data files are displayed in the list view right.
Double-clicking on any TBL file in the right list opens Descent Manager TBLVIEW32. In this tool you can see the contents of the file as raw text data, as well as listed in tables if the TBL file has data that can be shown in tables (not all do, but e.g. SHIPS.TBL and WEAPONS.TBL do). As soon as you click on any tab in the view other than "<Unparsed contents>", you will see the data in a table, in which you can sort via any attribute (great to see what bomber for example is the strongest and which ship is the fastest) by clicking on its header - just like you would sort in Explorer's Detail view. You can also swap the columns by dragging its header to a different horizontal position to compare e.g. ship speed and shields easily.
Advanced tip: VPVIEW32 automatically decodes FreeSpace 1's encoded TBL files, so you do not need to take care of that. Even if you only extract a TBL file, VPVIEW32 can optionally decode it automatically before the extraction. Whether this is done automatically, via user prompt or never, can be controlled in the "File|Options & Configuration" menu. Changing that behaviour only applies to the extraction functions, not to the viewing functions via TBLVIEW32.

Examine a mission and get a overview how it behaves (events), without having to understand SEXP trees

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Open ROOT.VP (FreeSpace 1) or ROOT_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2).
Go to the directory "missions" in the left column of the user interface to enable the filter that only the mission data files are displayed in the list view right.
Double-click any FSM file (FreeSpace 1) or FS2 file (FreeSpace 2) file to load it into Descent Manager FSMVIEW32. You will be easily able to browse the mission information via cathegory. See what happens if you missed to destroy an enemy wing and more.
Advanced tip: VPVIEW32 automatically decodes FreeSpace 1's encoded FSM files, so you do not need to take care of that. Even if you only extract a FSM file, VPVIEW32 can optionally decode it automatically before the extraction. Whether this is done automatically, via user prompt or never, can be controlled in the "File|Options & Configuration" menu. Changing that behaviour only applies to the extraction functions, not to the viewing functions via FSMVIEW32.

Extract the interface images to be opened in your painting program

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Open FREESPACE.VP (FreeSpace 1), SPARKY_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2 640x480) or SPARKY_HI_FS2.VP (FreeSpace 2 1024x768).
The directory "hud" contains the interface art for the HUD (gauges etc.), while "interface" contains the actual menu user interface graphics.
When you click on a PCX file once, you can already see some information about the file, like the resolution.
Double-click on any PCX file to open the image tool that you associated with PCX files with the file. (You need to have an image tool installed of couse. The most commonly used are Corel PhotoPaint, Paint Shop Pro, ACDSee and Adobe PhotoShop.)
- OR -
Extract the PCX file(s) by selecting it/them in the right view and then select the extract command to the directory you want to save them. Open them then in the painting program of your choice.

Determine the information how to replace certain data (images, attribute data files, ...) with on customized ones (for so-called MODs)

Start Descent Manager VPVIEW32.
Find out which file contains the data you want to change (override) and look in which directory it is (under the column "Directory" in the right list view).
Use the menu item "Action|Extract to FreeSpace DATA-Dir" to extract it to DATA directory.
The file is now available at the path <FreeSpace directory>\DATA\<Name of directory for the file>, e.g. if you extract SHIPS.TBL from the TABLES directory and your FreeSpace is located at C:\PROGRAM FILES\FREESPACE, then the file will be at C:\PROGRAM FILES\FREESPACE\DATA\TABLES\SHIPS.TBL.
Modify the file from there or overwrite it with the file you want to use. Be sure you use the EXACT same file name in the EXACT same directory, otherwise FreeSpace will ignore it. If you did everything right, FreeSpace will use your file instead of the original one from the VP files for ALL missions until you remove it from that directory again.
Be aware that with invalid information you might crash FreeSpace, it might even refuse to run at all. If that happens and don't know which file is causing the crash, move all the files from your DATA directory to a different temporary directory, and copy them back one after the other to find out which file is causing the crash.
HAPPY MODING! :)