Gearbox Software's community manager snagged a few minutes with Level Designer, QA Lead, and BIA:SDK lead - Ben Nitschke - and asked a few questions. Read on for all the dirt on the Brothers in Arms SDK.

Question 1

Zaskoda: What is the BiA: SDK?

Ben: The Brothers in Arms: Software Development Kit (BIA: SDK) is a collection of Tools, Code and Help Documentation to allow you to modify BiA. With it you will be able to do everything from minor modifications such as simple weapon setting adjustments, to make your own custom single & multiplayer maps, to even go so far as to fully convert BiA with new art and code that alters game play.

The primary focus of the BiA SDK is to allow customers of Brothers in Arms the power and freedom to add new content and modify the game or to give customers the capability to play new content and modifications created by other users. There are a lot of talented people who spend time on the Gearbox forums and play the games Gearbox has created. Some of these talented people have been mod authors for previous games Gearbox has developed. This has in no small part motivated us to give these guys the support they need to keep building cool stuff with our games! Many Gearbox developers started out doing the same thing these guys are doing and we are delighted to give more tools to play with and learn from. Another benefit of the BiA: SDK is all the user created content. Even the fans that don't have any desire to create anything will be able to find new content to play with for years to come because of this SDK. 

Question 2

Zaskoda: What tools are available in the BiA: SDK and what will users be able to modify with them?

Ben: Unreal Editor: Brothers in Arms EditionThis tool will allow you to edit & create levels, modify textures and sounds, import & add Static Meshes and animations. You will also be able to modify and write Unreal Script with this tool. Everyone familiar with UnrealEd for editors from the Unreal Tournament series of games will find much about this editor familiar.

The Complete Library of Unreal Script files for BiAWe include all the .uc files used in the creation of BiA. This is a very powerful feature as it allows mod creators a lot of flexibility when modifying the core BiA gameplay.

Map Information Generator (MIG)This tool is for Level Designers to create Information files which they distribute with their maps when released. These files are needed to get custom maps to load in BiA.

Uber Texure Creator (UberTex)This programmer gathers all the UVW data from a series of models (Static Meshes) and creates a single (uber) texture out of them, which can then be applied to said models instead of using multiple textures. This helps performance with video cards as there's a finite number of textures that can be loaded into memory at any given time, despite how large or small they are.

Question 3

Zaskoda: What kind of things have the SDK beta testers created using the BiA: SDK?

Ben:The external testers have been able to accomplish remarkable things with the BiA: SDK even in the short time we've been testing it publicly. In the first week, one of the SDK testers had already created a new weapon and was able to use it in the game. In another case two guys from The Lost Battalion mod (a programmer & level designer) worked together to create a really cool video of a player controlled mortar team. This video was so amazing that it eventually got out and everyone was talking about it. We didn't need any more justification after that to convince us the BiA: SDK would go over well with the other BiA fans!

We've seen countless new custom map screen shots popping up as well as lots of new mod groups forming together. We've had people going crazy writing tutorials and working together to build really great early community sites geared towards BiA: SDK content. The web master of the Halo Maps site has already started a really great BiA Maps and Mods Resource site that looks to be very promising. We've found the level of enthusiasm the SDK testers have had for this project really impressive. One can't help but be blown away to see how much people want to help others learn to create content!

Question 4

Zaskoda: What changes have been made to BiA to accommodate the SDK?

Ben:We decided a really good mechanism for mod-creators to quickly implement custom modifications was the Unreal concept of "Mutators". To facilitate BiA Mutators, we've added GUI-support for this. These updates will allow any user to download a mutator and easily activate it to modify both their single & multi-player BiA experience. To make the process as painless as possible, guests to multiplayer matches will only have to join a game and the active mutators will auto-initialize for everyone. This means there is no need for all parties in multiplayer to download and set up mutators for it to work. We've also added a way for users to view the current active mutators before a match begins.

We have also updated BiA to support loading custom single and multiplayer maps. For the most part, we have kept cosmetic changes to BiA at a minimum. The idea is to give our customers the power and freedom to add new content and modify BiA while also allowing others to easily play new content and modifications created by other users. Judging from what we've seen so far, we can tell there are some really talented people working with us in the BiA community. We expect to see a lot more cool stuff from these guys and can't wait to work with them more in the future!

Question 5

Zaskoda: When do you expect the SDK to be ready for public release?

Ben:The BiA: SDK itself is nearing completion, however there is still the task of testing the updates to BiA itself. This process is very extensive as we require a full QA pass to ensure the updates are of expected level of quality to our customers. Provided everything goes smoothly, we should see the BiA: SDK being ready for the public within a month.

-BenN