AoE2:DE Assets Support

Might as well start an issue for this (I hope that's okay).

Just downloaded it and started looking at the data files, and seems they have changed the graphics format again, now it is .smx files. Haven't gotten very far yet, just diffed a couple with dhex, and it seems like the header is now 53 4d 50 58 02 00, so 'SMPX' followed by 0x2 0x0 (that seems to be constant). Then there's two int32s, it seems, that varies in different graphics for the same unit, so I assume it is frame numbers.

I'm not sure if they did this with AoE:DE, but now they actually have a Tools_Build folder with various tools for modding, including a tool (DEAssetTool.exe) for converting SLPs or PSDs to SM(P)X files, which will probably help a lot. A fun fact is that they also include AGE/genieutils, which I guess indicates that the .dat formats haven't changed (I don't see the source anywhere for it, so I assume they haven't modified it, it being GPL and all). :-)

They also seem to do the terrain blending and hill stuff in shaders (I think they did the same in AoE1:DE), and also the conversion from SMP to RGB.

But now it's getting late, just wanted to get this down somewhere.

List:

• Wwise audio formats for sounds
• SMX/SMP for sprites
• SMX/SMP damage masks
• DDS for terrain files
• Particle effects (JSON config files)
• A bunch of blend masks are now configured by JSON files too

Start by reviewing the issue checklist and the existing SMX/SMP support, then investigate the remaining Wwise, DDS, particle-effect, and blend-mask items. Done would require a decided scope and working support for the selected asset formats, but the issue does not name files or tests to begin with.