Looking for some Technical help.
 

I've discovered S3D Silent 3ditor and I'm picking through the files...

I noticed the following WTF in CaptainRoom.dat

in Node - ID13 (which is the "captains photo" on your desk) the texture listed is "oficer.tga" (yes it's actually misspelled) but the texture displayed in game is "CaptainPicture/picture.tga"

Why?

There is an oficer.tga in the textures directory, but I've never seen it in game.

Also, how does the game know to get a .dds file rather then a .tga (I'm guessing it's in the engine, based on detail settings)

Just look at the folder structure:
Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\CaptainPicture\picture.tga
You can put any picture you like that is this size and it will be on your desk in the office. The game doesn't care if some graphics are tga or dds. Size (file size) could e a factor in the use of dds format.

That much I know.

In fact:

http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6e7bf668.png

That's a picture of my wife and I right there...

No, what I was saying was that while picking through catainroom.dat I was expecting to see "picture.tga" as the texture for that part of the model, but it's not, it's "oficer.tga"

Every other "node" of the model has an associated texture, and that name matches what you see in the game. Only the picture is different, and I was wondering why/how it's done.

My ultimate goal is to have a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the game.

Can't help it, I've been mucking about with game code, mods, and hacks since the days of my Coleco ADAM computer... (Google it)

If you use a Captain's name that is hidden in the SH4.exe the coffee mug gets a different texture.
Use any Hex editor to see the names.
:03:

The simple answer is the code from SH3 was used to save time in making SH4, slightly modified of course to create the Pacific campaign, and the graphics were 'improved'.

One of the first pre-release movies about SH4 proudly displayed the large amount used to achieve a more realistic behaving ocean.

Back to your issue, there are many files that are not used that are still in the file structure.

Yep, Coleco ADAM - just before I had any interest in computers... the end of that decade (80's) I forced myself to buy a computer and learn how to use it.... lol

I get a kick out of having my fiancées photos on my desk in the office ... with her hands tied together ...

I love the pin ups for loading screens that Traveler has in his mods.