The resource compiler is able to batch process all of the asset files for a specific platform in one go, using batch processing.
To do this, you invoke the resource compiler with the /job switch, where you specify a path to a Job XML file
For example, to build the main part of the SDK assets we ship, we use:
Bin64\RC\rc.exe /p=PC /job=Bin64\RC\RCJob_Build_SDK.xmlFor more example Job XML files, you can look in the Bin64\RC folder of the SDK package.
The job XML format is specified using an XML file, which you can edit in any text editor you like.
The RC will execute the file in a top-down manner, parsing and executing (where appropriate) the content of the batch script.
The root tag of a Job XML file is <RCJobs>:
<RCJobs>
<!-- contents of the file -->
</RCJobs>It's important to understand that a Job XML is a template for a build, which is specialized using parameters passed on the command line. Generally speaking, the most important is the 'p' parameter (platform)
During the batch execution, each command-line parameter is converted to a property, just like every other RC property.
Property values can be accessed inside the Job XML script using the '${propertyname}' construct, which can be used to set other properties, or to conditionally execute parts of the batch.
Depending on the complexity of a batch script, the number of properties used may become significant, and typing values on the command line may become a nuisance.
Therefore, you can specify default values for properties at the start of the job XML file. For this, use a <DefaultProperties> XML block.
In the SDK build we specify default folder names (amongst others) for the assets using default properties:
<DefaultProperties game="GameSDK" engine="Engine" loc="Localization" />Default properties can be used to initialize values before the rest of the batch script executes to reasonable defaults.
You may wish to dynamically compute properties depending on the values of other properties.
It's possible to pass in a "feature flag" and adjust conversion-properties accordingly (ie, a property that controls other properties). For this, use a <Properties> XML block
In the SDK, we can pass a 'streaming' property, or if it's not specified, we set it according to the platform-property 'p'.
We dynamically deduce the property 'do_streaming' which we use to control texture streaming later.
<DefaultProperties streaming="auto" />
<if streaming="auto">
<if p="PC">
<Properties do_streaming="0" />
</if>
<if p="X360">
<Properties do_streaming="1" />
</if>
</if>
<ifnot streaming="auto">
<Properties do_streaming="${streaming}" />
</ifnot> Unlike default properties, properties defined through a <Properties> block are not conditional, the property value will be updated regardless of any command-line parameters with the same name.
Sometimes, it makes sense to only execute a certain processing step for a specific platform, or alternate processing of specific assets depending on some property.
For this, use an <if> XML block:
<if propertyname='compare'>
<!-- only evaluated if the value of property 'propertyname' is equal to 'compare' -->
</if>
<ifnot propertyname='compare'>
<!-- only evaluated if the value of property 'propertyname' is not equal to 'compare' -->
</ifnot>
<!-- it's also possible to compare to another property value -->
<if propertyname='${anotherproperty}' />Properties in a RC script have a certain scope. In general, the XML is evaluated sequentially, and property values are persistent.
However, the following tags will introduce a new scope for properties:
Using these constructs, you can write a "subroutine" inside the XML that can be called multiple times with different variables (where the variable values are stored in named properties)
For example:
<MySubRoutine>
<!-- Takes parameters "what" and "destination" -->
<Job Input="${What}" Zip="${Destination}/MySubRoutine.pak" />
</MySubRoutine>
<MainRoutine>
<!-- Call subroutine for packing *.foo into C:/Some/Path/MySubRoutine.pak -->
<Run Job="MySubRoutine" What="*.foo" Destination="C:/Some/Path" />
</MainRoutine>In this example, suppose MainRoutine was executed (either using command-line /jobtarget=MainRoutine or a <Run Job="MainRoutine"/> as a child of the root XML for example)
The <Run> tag will be used to "call" the sub-routine "MySubRoutine" by name. The attributes What and Destination are specified inline in the example, and will be visible inside MySubRoutine.
Once the MySubRoutine "call" has "returned" to the MainRoutine, the value of What and Destination will go back to their previous value (if any).
Any property values currently visible can be used and modified in the MySubRoutine, however any modification or new property values introduced will not survive the "return".
For reasons of readability or re-use, you can also use <Properties> or <DefaultProperties> tags when using subroutines.
For example:
<RCJobs>
<Foo>
<Properties A="a" />
<!-- Do something with A B and C -->
</Foo>
<Bar>
<DefaultProperties B="b" />
<Properties A="x" />
<Run Job="Foo" C="c" />
<!-- Here, A==x -->
</Bar>
<Run Job="Bar" />
</RCJobs>Suppose you run this example file, the values of A B and C will be 'a', 'b' and 'c' respectively at the commented line.
The value 'x' of A is passed into Foo, but then overwritten. However, once Foo returns, the value 'x' will be restored.
Also, it would be possible to change the value of B by passing the command-line parameter "/B=x" when running the job to modify from the default behavior.
In general, you should always keep the following order of blocks in your Job XML file to keep the behavior of the RC in line with expectations when reading the XML file:
Asset conversion is defined through <Job> XML blocks, that execute serially (although the sub-parts of some jobs can be executed in parallel, see also the RC property 'threads').
Jobs iterate over a set of files in the local file-system, invoking RC processing for each file in the set as if the RC was invoked for that file specifically, while using the properties currently set through the batch script for execution.
In general, conversion of assets is a lossy process, you should always keep the original files separate from the conversion results.
A converted file can usually not be transformed back to the original file.
The RC is designed to take data from one location (specified using 'sourceroot') and write converted data to another location (specified using 'targetroot').
The syntax of a <Job> XML block is like the following:
<Job sourceroot="path to folder inside which to search for files" input="file mask of files to select for processing" targetroot="path to folder in which to store the processed files" conversion_parameter="some value" />In general, it makes sense to only execute a single conversion type inside a single job block, thus 'input' is typically set to a file extension mask, for example: *.tif
Here is an example how to process textures from CryTiff (*.tif) files to platform-specific files (typically *.dds for PC):
<ConvertJob>
<Job sourceroot="${source_game_folder}" input="*.tif" targetroot="${target_game_folder}" imagecompressor="CTsquish" streaming="0" />
</ConvertJob>This job will search for all CryTiff files in the value of the property with name 'source_game_folder' and convert them using CTsquish and not preparing for streaming assets, and store the result in the value of the property with name 'target_game_folder'.
The set of meaningful conversion parameters that can be set depends on the set of file-types that pass the input-set restrictions.
Thus, it's sensible to limit the file-set to a single file-type and only specify conversion parameters for that specific conversion, to keep your Job XML file understandable.
The list of meaningful conversion parameters for a given conversion can be found by calling 'rc.exe /help'
Please note that any job that is run with SourceRoot==TargetRoot will not match any files (and thus do nothing) regardless of actual files.
Since RC has several transformations that do not change the filename of the source or the target, this would cause problems.
Even though there are several transformations that could work, for simplicity this is treated as an error.
Sometimes it makes sense to not do any processing for a given set of file.
In that case, you can set the special conversion parameter 'copyonly' to '1', which will just copy all the files matching the input-set restrictions to that target folder.
<CopyJob>
<Job sourceroot="${source_folder}" input="*.xml" targetroot="${target_folder}" copyonly="1" />
</CopyJob>The input set can be further controlled by the following special properties:
Sometimes, you might want to interpret a specific file with a specific type, even though it doesn't have a matching extension.
In that case, you can use the property overwriteextension to force RC to pick the converter for the overridden extension instead of the convertor it would have picked for the actual extension.
For example, to force a .mtl file to be converted as if they were XML files, you can use
<Job input="*.mtl" overwriteextension="xml" ...rest of the job... />Once you have converted and/or copied all the files that should be provided on the end-user file-system, you can pack them into .pak files.
For this, use the <PakJob> group, and add <Job> blocks with input-sets that should be added to a pak.
Here is an example for generating a Textures.pak file containing all .dds files previously converted from CryTIFF:
<PakJob>
<Job sourceroot="${processed_files_folder}" input="*.dds" zip="${target_folder}\Textures.pak" />
</PakJob>You can optionally specify the 'zip_compression' property, which controls compression.
When set to '0', the pak file will not be compressed, this might be suitable for certain files that frequently require file-seeking at runtime.
Once you have specified all the job groups you need, you can run them using a <Run> block:
<ConvertJob>
<!-- conversion jobs -->
</ConvertJob>
<CopyJob>
<!-- copy jobs -->
</CopyJob>
<PakJob>
<!-- packing jobs -->
</PakJob>
<Run Job="ConvertJob"/>
<Run Job="CopyJob"/>
<Run Job="PakJob"/>