Firstly, I apologize if I posted this in the wrong forum. I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in Object Creation.

So, basically I decided to download the Unreal Developement Kit yesterday because it includes a free version of SpeedTree. I didn't really expect much to come from it being only an amateur at modding, but I knew my way around Sp3e a little bit so I figured I'd give it a try. After creating a clone of EA's "treeBirch" object, I used S3PE to extract the _SPT and _SPT2 resources. I was disappointed to find that the file's extensions were ".tree" and ".speedtree" respectively, since SpeedTree only accepts .spm and .spt. However, after reading in the wiki that the _SPT resource contains the geometry of the plant, I changed the extension on the ".tree" file to ".spt". I then selected File > Import SPT file...

And it worked! Attached below are screenshots of SpeedTree UDK. The pink mesh surrounding the trunk in the first image is a collision object. I've also included an image with it removed so you can see the tree itself isn't borked or anything. The program did throw some errors trying to import the texture resources. I'm pretty sure those are located in the _SPT2 resource, but SpeedTree crashed when I tried to open that file using the same process.

So, being an amateur and all, this is pretty much where I'm stuck. Getting EA plants into SpeedTree is one thing, but getting them back out into working packages is quite another. Firstly, SpeedTree will no longer save files as ".spt" as the developers have switched to a ".spm" format. This means I probably can't just change a SpeedTree file to have a ".tree" extension and have it work in-game. Additionally, not having an easy way to manipulate the _SPT2 resource is a problem. Based on the little I know of how SpeedTree works, I assume this file contains both the texture and wind data for the object. UDK came with both a "SpeedTree 5.0 Modeler" and a "SpeedTree 5.0 Compiler", and I think this file may have originated from the compiler. I'll test this eventually, but beyond that modders smarter than me will have to crack the rest of this puzzle.

I would like to eventually be able to create plants in SpeedTree UDK and import them fully working into the game. Custom plants would open up entirely new possibilities for our world creators. However, my knowledge of hex editors and script writing is limited. As far as I'm aware, not being a lawyer, this is all completely legal as the various licensing agreements seem to stipulate only that the programs be used for noncommercial use. If any modders would be willing to help me out with this, I'd be grateful.

In any case, I thought I'd share this with the community at least to show that it can be done. Considering that CAW water planes were cracked recently, I no longer think that custom plants are impossible.

I've been down that road, and hit the same dead end. My conclusion was that what's needed is a previous version of the SpeedTree. I believe 5.0 changes the the format once imported and can no longer be used by the game. If you can find the version of UDK with SpeedTree 4.2(or less), that might work.

I don't know much about this at all. Once I tried opening the trees to edit and realised it was an expensive program I threw in the towel and that was nearly three years ago.

I would love this to be cracked as I hate the limited trees we have for creating worlds.

The best I can possibly offer is to help search for solutions, 90% of the time I'd give you absolute rubbish that means nothing but there is always a chance I'll find something rubbish that you can turn into something good.

I did a quick search on converting files from the 5.0 version to 4.2. I came up with the following, which might mean nothing but worth a look anyway, it's the best I can do to help. One thing I did learn is that this is not the only game using speed tree and that others are trying to crack this for other games.

Here's some threads from other places I found

http://community.heroengine.com/for...php?topic=575.0
The above has a tutorial which might have something in it, especially it links the 4.2 library of trees.

http://hewiki.heroengine.com/wiki/SpeedTree

That one shows how to convert the .tga files to .dds.
Both the above are to enable people to export the files to HeroEngine.

a free download for 4.2 is offered here but I don't know if it's legit, never heard of the site before, sorry if it's dodgy
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/speedtree+max+4.2/

http://www.gamefallout.com/speedtree-t60939.html
That one talks about converting the files by opening the .spt files and changing the code

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/86...-in-Unity/page5
don't know if that's any good for you at all.

Here's the google link for what I was searching

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&suge...iw=1280&bih=854