Using Ripent

Using Ripent

Submitted by: DrErty on 13 Aug 2024 10:15
Last updated by: DrErty on 13 Aug 2024 10:15

What is Ripent?

Ripent is a command line tool included with ZHLT and its derivatives (such as VHLT and the SC compile tools).
It is primarily used to export the data from the entity lump of a BSP and output it as a plaintext file that can be edited to either modify the entities and their keyvalues, or even remove or add new entities, before importing the new entity data back into the BSP.

Such edits does not change the BSP version, and so clients are able to connect to a server running a modified BSP without encountering any incompatible BSP version errors. Hence why Ripent is a popular choice for creating entity-only changes for new patch versions of existing maps.

Ripent can be used through its Command Line Interface (CLI), i.e. called through CMD, Powershell, Terminal, etc.
Simply call it by typing out the path to the Ripent executable followed by the path to the BSP file and any of the commands as arguments.

In the examples below, the path to the Ripent executable will be shortened to Ripent.exe, and the path to the BSP will be called my_map.bsp.
If the path to the BSP contains any spaces, you can wrap the path in double quotation marks ("path/to the/map.bsp").

Export/Import

Export the entity data to my_map.ent:

Ripent.exe my_map.bsp -export

Import entity data from my_map.ent into my_map.bsp:

Ripent.exe my_map.bsp -import

Chart

Get a table of map statistics and limits (similar to using -chart argument on compile tools):

Ripent.exe my_map.bsp -chart

Export textures

Use this to export all embedded texture data to a WAD file:

Ripent.exe my_map.bsp -textureexport

Command reference

`mapfile`	The filename of the BSP map to process
`-export`	Export an entity list from a BSP file
`-import`	Import an entity list to a BSP file
`-parse`	Seems to mostly just "pretty print" the entity list when used in conjunction with `-export`
`-textureexport`	Export texture data
`-textureimport`	Import texture data
`-textureparse`	Used in conjunction with `-textureexport` to create a plaintext .tex file listing textures used in the map
`-writeextentfile`	Write an .ext for the map
`-deleteembeddedlightmaps`	Delete lightmaps created by RAD
`-texdata #`	Change the max texture memory limit (in kB, default 4MB)
`-lightdata #`	Change the max lighting memory limit (in kB)
`-chart`	Similar to the compile tools command. Prints a table of map statistics
`-noinfo`	Do not print tool configuration info table at the beginning
`-pause`	Pause the process before exit (prevent the window from closing immediately after finish)