Notes:Hunting Unlimited 2010

This page contains notes for the game Hunting Unlimited 2010.

Models, Editing and Exporting

Object, weapon, animal, container, vehicle, and even hunter models all have the file extension .pmd. However, the version of the file used in HU2010 and prior is an outdated version, different from the ones found in the newer trucking games such as Eurotruck Simulator. The variant found in the game can actually be imported and edited within Zmodeler 3, and while importing textures can be tricky, it is doable. This goes for every model in the game, they can be converted into most major model formats and can be edited in a program like Blender, or Sketchup for example.

This method has not been tested, however, the result of importing a model for, say, an animal into Zmodeler 3 is far cleaner than in Zmodeler 2 (previously thought to be the best method of exporting game models), as such, it's likely these models will be far more suitable for in-game use. This means that, to at least some extent, now completely custom animals (which don't hinge on already-existing models/meshes) are going to be possible in-game, moreover, the same is true with weapons, and potentially even with vehicles if it works as far as animations go.

It is expected that these models may also be imported into the game from external sources- i.e., you could import Luigi's model from Mario Kart Wii into Hunting Unlimited 2010 by importing it into Zmodeler 3, and exporting it as a .pmd, in theory anyway.

---Maps--- All maps in the game have numerous .pmd, .pma, and .pmc files- it was previously thought that the "landscape.lnd" file which every map had contained the model- it turns out, this is not the case. As the user Garstas put it in a comment on a post in the Hunting Unlimited forums, "It holds information about chunks." Essentially, that file dictates which chunks- pieces of the map- are loaded, and what textures they will be using.

Garstas remarked that since there's already files for terrain data, and that the overall content of the file may be redundant, however it's more likely that this file is more centric on what to load depending on where you are in-game, since it doesn't load the entire map at once.

The individual .pmd models can also be opened in Zmodeler 3, unlike Zmodeler 2, however they seem to not only take quite a while to load, but loading them all in at ONCE can take hours depending on your system, so bare this in mind. In my personal experience, it's best to load them in 5 at a time, in order, then export once you are half way through; then repeat starting from the half way point again. If you load them all into blender, I find it best to downscale it to 10% of its original size, make any edits you wish, then upscale it back to its original size. On paper, that would be the way to do it, however again, this is not well-tested.

It should go without saying, backup your work and try these at your own risk. That said, it's becoming ever clearer that custom content in the game is doable, it just needs to be refined at this point.

Textures

Most in-game textures appear in the .dds format, which can be edited within most graphic editors (namely, GIMP) and while Paint.NET can do it, it's known to cause issues in exporting, and it doesn't render layers, where as GIMP does, so it is realistically your best free options here. The .dds textures are present most places in actual gameplay, for example, animal textures, item textures, the grass/dirt/sand/water textures, and even the normal maps and shaders are all done in the .dds format, making this dimension of the game a fairly simple one to alter.

There is another wide-spread texture format in the game, also pretty well-documented; the .tga format is fairly well known (if not slightly outdated) and these are the format that all of the icons are in. These would constitute the menu icons for the animal tags, items, weapons, and ui elements such as buttons, borders and miscellaneous elements. It's unclear whether there's a "preferred" or recommended application to edit both files, however it'd be best to just trust GIMP if you'll be doing any texture editing. Paint.NET has too many weird quirks and limitations with exporting and Krita may not even be able to open .dds images.