I'm looking for a Far Cry 2 mod that will change the road signs as follows:

* Remove all signs that say "Safe House"
* Disable the "quest colors" on the other road signs (so that all the signs stay "white").

I've looked through the mods thread, moddb, tweakguides, and Dylan's Realism Mod, but don't see anything doing that.

Anyone know of such a mod?

Thanks!

I was thinking about doing something like this myself, in addition to removing the magic map markers and diamond locator. This would make the world more challenging to navigate, a place you can really get lost in.

But I have to tell you: it will not happen anytime soon, and I do not know if it is even possible. FC2 is highly resistant to modding.

I'm looking into it, but it's extremely low on my projects list.

In other words, I want the same as you, but I don't think it exists, and isn't likely to, unless you dig in and figure it out.

Thanks for the reply.

I was afraid that was the situation (that such a mod doesn't already exist). It's bad news that FC2 may be resistant to modding that.

I had previously found the file 'GamerProfile.xml' and in it found the entry UseRoadSignHilight="1" and changed it to UseRoadSignHilight="0" (and started a new game) but that didn't do it.

My modding skills are currently limited to editing xml files or similar. So I probably won't be able to mod it myself. I'll just have to continue 'blocking' those signs from my minds eye. :)

I'm on my 3rd playthru in a row (this time on Infamous) so I'm used to the roads and rivers, and don't really look much at the signs anymore anyways. But it sure would be a lot more immersive of an environment with those changes.

Cheers

Sounds like you might be familiar enough with the game to do this, possibly:

Let's assume for a moment that anything you put into patch.fat, that also matches an asset name, Far Cry 2 will use that thing.

So, if there's a pala_sign.dds in the game texture assets, and that's exactly the name, and you put a pala_sign.dds that you have modded to be blank, or something in another language, or any other darn thing, then Far Cry 2 would use your modded asset, assuming that it is part of the patch.

Using this method, you could affect any texture in the game.

But would the road sign still turn red? Is that a color effect, or just a different texture that turned red?

And that's if this method works at all.

If this works, what I would end up doing is removing the magic diamond blinker, and the magic map arrows that show you exactly where your target is. (which I talk about in my earlier post).

So I dl'd Dylan's Realism Mod (because it has "tools" with it), and I used the tools to extract some of the files; and the following potential files of interest are in the results:

intersectionsigns_d.xbt
intersectionsigns_d_mip0.xbt
safehousesign_d.xbt

Now to figure out if opening .xbt files are within the realm of what I can do... :)

My guess is that you'll convert the XBT to DDS, then find a tool to work with DDS files. Then convert them back. This is unexplored territory for me personally, but I'd guess there's probably a Photoshop or Gimp plugin that could do this for you.

The maker of the tool that Dylan uses is by a fellow named Gibbed. I believe he also created a tool that does the above conversion.

A quick web search also turned up this mod for Far Cry 3: http://www.moddb.com/mods/dead-cry/news/why-is-the-hud-gone

They've done some changes similar to the ends that you and I are looking to do, that is, take some elements (in their case, hud stuff), and make them vanish. Far Cry 3 probably uses a more advanced engine than Far Cry 2, but it would not surprise me if there was quite a bit of overlap. In other words, if they can do this, so could we, possibly.

Thanks for the tips.

I'm going into a busy stretch; but will try to look for XBT to DDS (and back) tools afterwards.

...

Success!

Found this video, which got me going: How to edit FarCry2 in-game graphics

So as a starting proof-of-concept, I replaced the text on the road-intersection signs. Attached is a screenshot (it says 'Food - Gas' where it used to say 'Safe house').

I hope to figure out if I can 'paint' the entire sign transparent, so it won't show up on the signposts at all. But in the interim at least I can change the text to something generic.

Well, it does not look like I can [easily] make the Safe House sign just go away completely.

So for now I'll be happy with having changed the text on the sign. Not a perfect solution, but at road intersections it looks a lot more natural to say 'Food - Gas' than 'Safe House' (and thus easy to ignore as background flavor).

Regarding using transparency to just make the sign disappear; while I can paint transparent areas on the sign, it looks like the 'sign' graphic that I can edit is actually just a 'decal' over the 'roadsign shape object'. Any transparent areas painted just allow the underlying rust-color of the bare signpost-flag to show through.

Thus far I've had no luck finding if the underlying rust-colored bare signpost is available someplace to be toyed-with.

Attached is a better before/after image (caution - large-dimension image).

I hope to next tackle the smaller triangle-shaped signs that mark the small trails that lead to safe houses. Since I cannot (as yet) make them go away, instead I need to edit them to show something other than a 'safe house' icon. I am thinking of a 'buried utility lines - call 1-800-dig-first' type of thing as something that may more naturally blend-in.

That's actually a promising start. Like I said, I'd probably do more crazy stuff like making the magic map markers transparent. Your proof-of-concept shows that it's actually possible.