File Formats

The following are file formats used by Dawn of War 2:

.SGA files are Relic's proprietary archive format, similar to a .zip or .rar file and contain all of the game's files which must be extracted from the SGA to be modified. There are several different versions of SGA, each corresponding to a different game produced by Relic. SGA v2 is used in Dawn of War 1, v4 in Company of Heroes and v5 in Dawn of War 2.

.RBF (Relic Binary File) files are compiled LUA files that contain game attributes, such as unit stats. These are similar to .RGD files used in Dawn of War 1.

These files contain SCAR scripting used to control game events and actions. They are all text based and there is little difference. By convention, .ai files typically contain AI scripting, .scar typically contain game event scripting and .lua typically contain variables and game data, however this is not a hard rule. These are plain text files and can be opened and edited via Notepad or an equivalent (ie. Notepad++, Textpad, etc.).

.MODULE files are used to provide modular mod support. A module file can be loaded using the -mod command and specific SGA archives and mod data specified. See the default DOW2.module as a guide.

.ABP files define the mesh that should be shown when a model is referenced to in the code (.RBF). These are plain text files and can be opened and edited via Notepad or an equivalent (ie. Notepad++, Textpad, etc.).

.SIMBOX (Simulated Bounding Box?) files define the size of a model and how certain entities interact with it in relation to it's size. These are plain text files and can be opened and edited via Notepad or an equivalent (ie. Notepad++, Textpad, etc.).

.COVERBOX are as of July 7th, 2009 an unknown format to the community. Possibly related to a bounding box with a special use in the cover system. These are plain text files and can be opened and edited via Notepad or an equivalent (ie. Notepad++, Textpad, etc.).

.DDS (DirectDraw Surface) files are standard texture files used by Dawn of War 2 and many other games. The can be edited in Adobe Photoshop with the nVidia Plugin and The GIMP with the DDS Plugin. In Dawn of War 2, every “basic” texture has several individual files, indicated by the file name's suffix. For example, the texture “power_armour_common” has 9 associated files;
“power_armour_common_dif.dds” indicates the texture is the diffusion texture, which holds all the colour and detail seen on the model in game.
“power_armour_common_drt.dds” holds information regarding what areas of the texture should be teamcoloured, and how.
“power_armour_common_nrm.dds” is the texture's normal map which adds a 3D effect to parts of the texture that have not been 3D modelled, see here for more details.
“power_armour_common_ocl.dds” is the occlusion layer, which defines how an object “closer” to the “camera” will occlude an object “further” from the “camera”.
“power_armour_common_spc.dds” defines specularity, which is how “shiny” a texture is and how it reflects light.
“power_armour_common_emi.dds” defines emittance, or the “glow” of an object on the texture.
Finally, “power_armour_common_tem.dds” through to “power_armour_common_tem_4.dds” define how the teamcolouring affects each section of the texture based on the colour in the texture. Red areas are painted with the primary teamcolour, Green areas are painted with the secondary teamcolour, Blue areas are painted with the 3rd teamcolour and Alpha areas are painted with the 4th teamcolour.

.MODEL files contain mesh data for models in Dawn of War 2 and references to art assets used by the model such as .DDS textures. There are currently no community accessible tools to open or edit these files.

.GFX files are decompressed Flash files (FWS) that are used to represent 2d UI assets such as the menus and HUDs in Dawn of War 2. These files are used by the Scaleform GFX library also used by Starcraft 2 and other games.

.HKANIM files contain animation data for models in Dawn of War 2. These files are used by the Havok physics engine and can be opened using the Havoc tools (now publicly available).

.HKX files define the physics applied to a mesh in game. These files are used by the Havok physics engine and can be opened using the Havoc tools (now publicly available).

.MOTIONTREE files define what animations are played by the model when the engine calls for a specific action, such as when the engine calls for the “walk” action to be played, the model plays the “walk” animation. These are somewhat similar to Dawn of War 1's .WHE files. There is currently no way to open or edit these files.

.MARKER files define the location of 3D markers on the mesh, which are used for attaching FX and others. There are currently no community accessible tools to open or edit these files.

.SCENARIO files are the map format used for official Relic maps or “scenarios”. These can be edited using the World Builder if renamed to .WB-SCENARIO.

.WB-SCENARIO files are map/scenario format used by the World Builder.

.FSB files are Dawn of War 2's audio files. They use the FMOD encoder.