.pk3 Protection

[hleV]

Can custom .pk3 files be protected for JA and its mods without modifying the game itself? If so, how?

[mrwonko]

Protect how? From reading them? The game has to read them so how would that work? If that's what you want then rest assured that it is completely impossible even with changing the game if you still want them to be of any use.

 

Afraid of thiefs?

[eezstreet]

No. JA uses minizip to read PK3 contents. As luck would have it, nearly every archive program in existence (with the exception of WinRAR, I think it uses an emulator for it) uses the same library. If JA can load it, so can archive programs.

[Szico VII]

How did JKG do it then?

[Stoiss]

engine hooks 

[Raz0r]

And with the source released under GPLv2, if you were to add it to the engine source, you'd have to release that code, so you may as-well not bother.

You're welcome to do it the JKG method, if you plan on only supporting jamp.exe and going through many hours of hell to write it.

[eezstreet]

How did JKG do it then?

haaaaax

 

Our method was done prior to opensourcing. It's irrelevant now to even try it. But we keep compatibility with old PK3s. I really wouldn't do it unless you have a completely different format in mind.

[mrwonko]

Whatever you do, in the end the machine instructions to open the file have to be in the game so it can be reverse engineered.