Skip to content

KismetAnalyzer.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
90 lines (54 loc) · 5.48 KB

KismetAnalyzer.md

File metadata and controls

90 lines (54 loc) · 5.48 KB

Analyzing Blueprints with kismet-analyzer

kismet-analyzer can be used to analyze .uasset blueprint files and .umap map files, displaying the internal logic in a flowchart-like format.

Required Skills and Resources

Skills

  • C# Development (if you want to generate kismet-analyzer yourself)

Resources

  • .NET 8.0 build and runtime environment
  • Unpacked raw data (.uasset) game assets
  • Game's .usmap map file

Preparing kismet-analyzer

You can download a pre-built kismet-analyzer from the Releases page and proceed directly to step 4. However, you will still need the .NET 8.0 runtime for the program to run properly.

Alternatively, you can start from step 1 to build kismet-analyzer yourself.

Step 1: Clone the kismet-analyzer Repository

  • First, download the kismet-analyzer code, or use any Git client to pull the repository.

Many Git clients will not automatically pull the UAssetAPI project referenced by this project, so you will need to manually download or pull the UAssetAPI repository and place it in the corresponding folder.

Step 2: Configure the Build Environment

  • Open the kismet-analyzer.csproj using Visual Studio or another IDE and try to build the project. Most of the time, this build will fail.

If you get the error NET SDK does not support targeting .NET 8.0. Please target .NET 6.0 or lower, or use a version of the .NET SDK that supports .NET 8.0, please download and install the .NET 8.0 SDK and the .NET 8.0 runtime.

Step 3: Build UAssetAPI and kismet-analyzer

If you try to build kismet-analyzer at this point, you will get an error like Unable to copy file “D:\Extract\kismet-analyzer\UAssetAPI\UAssetAPI\bin\Debug\net8.0\UAssetAPI.dll” because it was not found. Therefore, you need to build UAssetAPI first.

  • Open UAssetAPI\UAssetAPI\UAssetAPI.csproj in your IDE and build the project.
  • Then build kismet-analyzer.

Step 4: Install Graphviz

  • kismet-analyzer depends on Graphviz to generate flowcharts, so you need to install Graphviz.
  • During installation, make sure to add it to the PATH system variable. Otherwise, you will need to manually add it to the PATH variable or modify the kismet-analyzer code.

Using kismet-analyzer to Analyze Game Resources

  • Open the Command Prompt and enter the command in the following format:
"(Directory where kismet-analyzer was built)\kismet-analyzer.exe" cfg "(Path to the .uasset or .umap file to analyze)" -m "(Path to the .usmap map file)" --ue-version VER_UE4_26

Replace (Directory where kismet-analyzer was built), (Path to the .uasset or .umap file to analyze), and (Path to the .usmap map file) with the actual paths.

Example:

"D:\Extract\kismet-analyzer\bin\Debug\net8.0\kismet-analyzer.exe" cfg "E:\Extract\RTypeFinal2\Content\character\Enemy\E000\ABP_E000_POW_01.uasset" -m "D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\R-Type Final 2\RTypeFinal2\Binaries\Win64\Mappings.usmap" --ue-version VER_UE4_26

If successful, it will open the browser and display the flowchart as a webpage.

If you encounter the following error:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (2): An error occurred trying to start process 'dot' with working directory 'D:\Extract\kismet-analyzer\bin\Debug\net8.0'. The system cannot find the file specified.
   at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithCreateProcess(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   at KismetAnalyzer.Program.WriteDotViewer(String dot, String outputPath, String dotPath) in D:\Extract\kismet-analyzer\Program.cs:line 235
   at KismetAnalyzer.Program.Cfg(EngineVersion ueVersion, String mappings, String assetPath, String dotPath) in D:\Extract\kismet-analyzer\Program.cs:line 262
   at System.CommandLine.Handler.<>c__DisplayClass5_04.<SetHandler>b__0(InvocationContext context)
   at System.CommandLine.Invocation.AnonymousCommandHandler.Invoke(InvocationContext context)
   at System.CommandLine.Invocation.InvocationPipeline.<>c__DisplayClass4_0.<<BuildInvocationChain>b__0>d.MoveNext()

Please check if you have correctly added Graphviz to the PATH system variable. Otherwise, try specifying the location of dot.exe from Graphviz or modify the code around Program.cs:line 235 in the error message to hard-code the path to dot.exe in the program.

Epilogue

Since most of the game logic is implemented in C++ code, unfortunately, this method can only analyze a limited portion of the game logic.

However, the logic for the very important game maps is indeed in blueprints, and you can use kismet-analyzer to analyze it. Yes, you will need to recreate the logic of this complex blueprint in order to run custom levels. Fortunately, much of the logic involves unnecessary if branches that don't need to be recreated, and only one person needs to recreate the remaining logic, which I have already done.

In addition, user interfaces, animation blueprints, and blueprint function libraries can also be analyzed in this way, and you will obtain many useful insights.

kismet-analyzer primarily displays the logic of blueprints. To get detailed information about the properties, parameters, and variables of the resources themselves, you will still need to use FModel to convert them to JSON or use UAssetGUI.