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About this mod
An excel spreadsheet showing the asset differences between Fo3 and FNV
- Permissions and credits
Description:
This is an Analysis done to compare the differences and similarities between game assets found in Fallout3 and in Fallout: New Vegas. The goal is to establish a list of assets found in both games that can be used as a template for mod transfer from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas for those of us hoping this is possilbe. The data are tabulated and calculated in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet that shows the differences at the File Level between assets in the Fallout3 and Fallout: New Vegas games. You may need a viewer to see the file if you don't have a modern-enough version of Excel, the total asset list is almost 300,000 lines long between both games.
Source:
To gather this information I decompressed the BSA archives from both games into separate sub directories on my hard disk. I then transferred this disk to my Linux system where I could execute unix-level commands on the files, and ran several commands to extract the total list of files and parse differences between them:
> find . -type f >> ../FNV_file_list
> find . -type f >> ../FO3_file_list
> vi FNV_file_list (and used this command to remove leading periods: :.,$s/^\.//g
> vi FO3_file_list (and used this command to remove leading periods: :.,$s/^\.//g
> comm FNV_file_list FO3_file_list >> FNdiff.txt
This produced a tab-delimited file with three columns showing me which files are in just FNV, which are in just FO3 and which are in both games. I then loaded this into Excel 2007 and broke the data out across 7 different tabs with a SummaryAnalysis tab showing the results. After an initial analysis I concluded that the majority of all assets in the BSA (~80%-85%) are Voice files and LOD files, neither of which are of any concern in transferring mods as both are very specific to their given platform. LOD files for Fallout3 have no application in the New Vegas world, and voice/lip files are extremely unique and easy for all to identify. If Moira or Harkness starts talking in a New Vegas mod, it would be instantly identified and called out by everyone as in violation. :) Thus for this analysis of assets I did not include the LOD or Voice files, which reduces the total volume of assets under analysis from ~300,000 down ~55,000 across both games.
Thus for this analysis I am considering all Meshes, Textures, Sounds and Menu files - with the exception of the LOD textures and Voice files. I will called this "Adjusted Assets" for purposes of clarity in rest of this review. I believe the Adjusted Assets encompasses > 99% of all content that would be under consideration for use in both games or would be found in mods for either game. There may be rare cases in which mods use Voice files from Fallout3, and we can say categorically without any doubt that these files Cannot be used in New Vegas mods, and leave it at that regarding voice files. Lastly, this is analysis was done at the File Level, not the FormID level inside the GECK. This means that they may have/did preserved FormIDs for allot of the assets they kept in both games - a breakdown on that is for a later analysis.
Outcome:
Good News overall, out of the total combined Adjusted Asset count of 54,930 files, 18,008 are common to both games (common meaning they share the same file path, file name and file size). Said another way, 32.78% (roughly 1/3) of all Adjusted Assets in Fallout3 were transferred to Fallout: New Vegas, and are thus common in both games. The breakdown from the summary analysis tab of the spreadsheet is shown below:
Summary Analysis:
Total Adjusted Assets in Fo3:35,496
Adjusted Assets found ONLY in Fo3:14,325
Total Adjusted Assets in FNV:43,269
Adjusted Assets found ONLY in FNV:22,597
Total Assets for both Fo3 and FNV:54,930
Adjusted Assets found in BOTH games:18,008
% of Adjusted Assets Shared in both games:32.78%
This bodes very well for our ability to transfer cells from Fo3 to F:NV, though in many cases it means that we will have to replace assets that didn't make the transfter with similar ones from Fallout: New Vegas. The critical list of shared assets that are eligable for use in mods transferring from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas is the "SharedAssets" tab. If there is a way to programmatically remove any record from a transferring Fallout3 mod that isn't on this list, the resulting mod file would be valid and legal for use in Fallout: New Vegas as it would only contain records found in the FalloutNV.esm master. Perhaps not an easy task to be sure, but in the hopes that a solution can be found, the "SharedAssets" list (included in the below spoiler line) can be used as an "Allowable Asset List for Mod Transfer from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas" (by any other name).
Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments, I welcome all feedback (especially if/where I screwed up).
Cheers,
Miax
This is an Analysis done to compare the differences and similarities between game assets found in Fallout3 and in Fallout: New Vegas. The goal is to establish a list of assets found in both games that can be used as a template for mod transfer from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas for those of us hoping this is possilbe. The data are tabulated and calculated in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet that shows the differences at the File Level between assets in the Fallout3 and Fallout: New Vegas games. You may need a viewer to see the file if you don't have a modern-enough version of Excel, the total asset list is almost 300,000 lines long between both games.
Source:
To gather this information I decompressed the BSA archives from both games into separate sub directories on my hard disk. I then transferred this disk to my Linux system where I could execute unix-level commands on the files, and ran several commands to extract the total list of files and parse differences between them:
> find . -type f >> ../FNV_file_list
> find . -type f >> ../FO3_file_list
> vi FNV_file_list (and used this command to remove leading periods: :.,$s/^\.//g
> vi FO3_file_list (and used this command to remove leading periods: :.,$s/^\.//g
> comm FNV_file_list FO3_file_list >> FNdiff.txt
This produced a tab-delimited file with three columns showing me which files are in just FNV, which are in just FO3 and which are in both games. I then loaded this into Excel 2007 and broke the data out across 7 different tabs with a SummaryAnalysis tab showing the results. After an initial analysis I concluded that the majority of all assets in the BSA (~80%-85%) are Voice files and LOD files, neither of which are of any concern in transferring mods as both are very specific to their given platform. LOD files for Fallout3 have no application in the New Vegas world, and voice/lip files are extremely unique and easy for all to identify. If Moira or Harkness starts talking in a New Vegas mod, it would be instantly identified and called out by everyone as in violation. :) Thus for this analysis of assets I did not include the LOD or Voice files, which reduces the total volume of assets under analysis from ~300,000 down ~55,000 across both games.
Thus for this analysis I am considering all Meshes, Textures, Sounds and Menu files - with the exception of the LOD textures and Voice files. I will called this "Adjusted Assets" for purposes of clarity in rest of this review. I believe the Adjusted Assets encompasses > 99% of all content that would be under consideration for use in both games or would be found in mods for either game. There may be rare cases in which mods use Voice files from Fallout3, and we can say categorically without any doubt that these files Cannot be used in New Vegas mods, and leave it at that regarding voice files. Lastly, this is analysis was done at the File Level, not the FormID level inside the GECK. This means that they may have/did preserved FormIDs for allot of the assets they kept in both games - a breakdown on that is for a later analysis.
Outcome:
Good News overall, out of the total combined Adjusted Asset count of 54,930 files, 18,008 are common to both games (common meaning they share the same file path, file name and file size). Said another way, 32.78% (roughly 1/3) of all Adjusted Assets in Fallout3 were transferred to Fallout: New Vegas, and are thus common in both games. The breakdown from the summary analysis tab of the spreadsheet is shown below:
Summary Analysis:
Total Adjusted Assets in Fo3:35,496
Adjusted Assets found ONLY in Fo3:14,325
Total Adjusted Assets in FNV:43,269
Adjusted Assets found ONLY in FNV:22,597
Total Assets for both Fo3 and FNV:54,930
Adjusted Assets found in BOTH games:18,008
% of Adjusted Assets Shared in both games:32.78%
This bodes very well for our ability to transfer cells from Fo3 to F:NV, though in many cases it means that we will have to replace assets that didn't make the transfter with similar ones from Fallout: New Vegas. The critical list of shared assets that are eligable for use in mods transferring from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas is the "SharedAssets" tab. If there is a way to programmatically remove any record from a transferring Fallout3 mod that isn't on this list, the resulting mod file would be valid and legal for use in Fallout: New Vegas as it would only contain records found in the FalloutNV.esm master. Perhaps not an easy task to be sure, but in the hopes that a solution can be found, the "SharedAssets" list (included in the below spoiler line) can be used as an "Allowable Asset List for Mod Transfer from Fallout3 to Fallout: New Vegas" (by any other name).
Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments, I welcome all feedback (especially if/where I screwed up).
Cheers,
Miax