DatGen

DatGen
File:DatGen.jpg
Developer	DarkMatter
Latest Version	0.7.13 Alpha
Release Date	October 3, 2005
O.S.	Windows
Type	Modding Tools
Website	Wayback Machine Web Archive formerly www.datgen.info (shutdown)

DatGen is a complete DBPF archive editor and viewer, applicable to the *.package archives in The Sims 2, and the *.dat archives in The Sims Online and Simcity 4. DatGen has a complete and extensive plugin API, allowing developers to write plugins that extend the completeness of DatGen, such as through adding file readers and interpreters.

DatGen was originally started in the spring of 2003 by DarkMatter (aka Jon Rista), as a modding tool for SimCity 4. It has since been rewritten from the ground up and expanded to support any game that uses the DBPF format. As of today DatGen's core program and libraries were written by DarkMatter, and many of its plugins were written by members of the DatGen Programming Team:

   * DarkMatter: Lead Programmer and Project Founder
   * Karybdis: Lead File Decoder and Programmer
   * Breon: Head Plugin Developer and File Type Handler Developer
   * Kichigai: Plugin Developer
   * Judhudson: Plugin Developer
   * DataFarmer: File Decoder and File Type Handler Developer
   * Atavera: SimAntics translation Guru
   * AdidasSG2: SimAntics translation Guru

Official DatGen Website (shutdown) now at Wayback Machine web archive This is also where documentation and tutorials found.

Please note that the "I agree" link to the actual download on the license page is broken. However if the Featured Download button on the home page is pressed the 0.7.12 version is downloaded.

You can also find the DatGen's tutorials at [1]

It is quite difficult to find the datGen downloads, but as of Aug. 24 2008 two versions could be found.

Download DATGEN from Datgen 0.7.13 0.7.13.rar Alpha Release Datgen 0.7.12 Last Official Release

Various posts state that datGen can be found at www.thesimsresource.com, although I could not find them there. The Sims Resource The Versions available should be: Datgen v0.7.8 + DatGen v0.7.7, DatGen v0.7.6, DatGen v0.7.5, DatGen Development Version, DatGen 0.7.4, DatGen 0.7.3 or the original datGen.

There seems to have been very little activity on DatGen since October 2005. In one forum one forum there a reference by Azureale that darkmatter (aka. Jon Rista) had some hardware problems. darkmatter has apparantly not been heard of in the support forum of modthesims2 since late in 2005. Maybe some data loss caused the stop of development, no info is provided on the site. The website lease has not been renewed in 2007. It remains to be hoped that Jon Rista is well and nothing ontoward has happened to him.

There seem to be some issues de-installing datGen, as several posts refer to missing deinstallation info and request info on how to de-install the program.