Cooked Content

[Lacy Tortelli]

iask for help because i am not able to run a multi machine set up with cooked content (content for ue4), i can only run the project if is setted via the Live Sync method and this causes a lot of load on the machines because i have to run the scene in ue4 and on top even aximmetry and i don't want that. Basically i create a new compound and in it i add the uproject, then if i set it to cooked method the project runs on the master pc smoothly but the pc dependent tells me via the command line of aximmetry that cannot load the cooked version and that i have to try to cooking it with the ue4 for aximmetry, the problem is that i have already cooked it and i use the same project, and this happends even if i set the path file equal to the one used by the "master" pc, (cause i have shared that folder between pc's). So if there is someone that could help me it would be great thanks

Thanks for the quick reply, it turns out that i had to copy the project directly locally in the controlled machine, and then cook it, after that i opened a copy of the project in aximmetry and set the project to cooked this way i was able to run it on the controlled machine (stand alone), after that i had to close the project and launch the aximmetry launcher and in this way i managed to get the multi machine work, really thanks again, but now i have another problem on another machine, insted of the previews windows i only have Mouse pad 1(2/3) and now i could not find anymore the preview tab, so i cannot see anymore my output and as soon as i try to select via the pivot selector (on top of the screen the "edit scene") for example preview 1 the program crash, any ideas?

Look, squid isn't weird anymore. When a would-be challenge food like squid becomes a ubiquitous menu item at chain restaurants like Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory (fried calamari, anyone?), it's safe to say that it's swam its way into the category of "Normalized American Foodstuffs." The only thing that's weird is that, if you're reading this, chances are you don't cook squid at home.

But you should. Why? Because it's cheap. Because it's low in fat and high in protein. Because it's deliciously versatile, and really easy to cook. Because, at a time of much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the viability of seafood populations worldwide, squid stands out as one of the most sustainable options available. (It's abundant on both coasts, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch classifies domestic squid as a "Good Alternative," about as good as it gets these days.) Here's everything you need to know to make squid your new chicken.

Grilling It

Squid loves the grill. It's best to leave your tubes whole if possible to prevent them from falling between grates, or use a grill pan if your tubes came pre-sliced. Whether you're working with charcoal or gas, crank your heat as high as possible, season your squid with salt and pepper, and grill for two or three minutes until charred and just-cooked. Stuff it inside a tortilla, wrap up in lettuce and kimchi for a Korean-style ssam wrap (pictured above), or eat as-is.

Searing It

A screaming hot pan is by far the quickest way to get squid to the table. Slice the tubes or leave them whole, season with salt and pepper, sear the squid over the highest possible heat for two or three minutes, and you've got the perfect blank-slate weeknight protein. Toss it with pasta, throw it on top of a rice bowl with some simply cooked vegetables, or use it to top a simple green salad.

Boiling It

Dry-cooking isn't the only way to cook squid. Blanch sliced tubes and tentacles in boiling water for a minute, shock them in an ice bath, and toss the cold squid with thinly sliced vegetables (think fennel, celery, and shallot) and a lemon-y vinaigrette for a fresh, picnic-ready seafood salad. Squid is also great in soups--just add sliced tubes and tentacles during the last few minutes of cooking and serve immediately.

Braising It

If you've got (just a little) more time on your hands, a simple braise is a great way of cooking squid. Whether you're braising in garlic, herbs, and white wine, a simple marinara sauce, or your favorite curry, allow the squid to simmer for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour, or until very tender.

As an Associate Food Editor, Bridget Hallinan primarily focuses on home cooking content for Food & Wine.com. She writes and edits recipe content, interviews chefs for helpful tips and tricks, and works on franchises such as our cookbook roundups and taste tests.

Summary: Speed up content cooking with the ResavePackages commandlet (51% faster cooking for us!) and speed up the ResavePackages commandlet itself with a small code change (nearly a 7x speedup in our tests!).

Cooking content is how content is converted and massaged into the format that supports consoles (currently Xbox 360 and PS3). PCs, as well, can now use cooked data, which will result in much faster loading speed. For the most part it is pretty straightforward, but there are a few things at least one person on your team will need to know.

The cooker itself is an Unreal commandlet. Generally, you will use the Unreal Frontend tool which will call out to the commandlet, passing in any configured options. However, you can also cook your content by directly using the commandlet, itself.

The commandlet operates by loading packages, processing them, and then resaving them. The list of packages that are loaded is determined by the commandline and .ini settings. Cooked packages are saved to a cooked directory, with the format XXXGame\CookedYYY, where XXX is the name of your game and YYY is the platform name. The cooked package files have a .xxx extension on consoles, and the original extension on PC. By default only packages that have a newer date than the cooked package's date will be recooked, unless overridden by commandline options.

One special file, which is Textures.tfc (.tfc for Texture File Cache), contains all the streaming textures. This is the default behavior for consoles, but can be disabled. Without the .tfc file, consoles will store a copy of referenced content packages with only their textures left in them. With the .tfc, the content packages are not needed, so the Cooked directory will only contain the seekfree packages and the .tfc file.

If -full or specified, then all cooked packages will be deleted first, so all files will fail the date checking and be cooked. If -recookseekfree, then maps, startup and standlone seekfree packages will be cooked no matter what.

The ouput of the cooker is any of 6 types of files: levels, native script packages, a combined startup package, texture streaming packages, standalone seek-free files, texture file caches, and metadata/helper files.

A native script package is an UnrealScript package that has native classes in it and is always loaded by the game at startup. It will have content referenced by the script code cooked into it, so you need to be careful about how much content is directly referenced by script code. For Gears of War, we have one main native script package, WarfareGame.u, that has native base classes, and WarfareGameContent.u, which has no native classes, but has many subclasses that reference a lot of content that doesn't need to be loaded at all times (monsters, etc.).

The combined startup package is a package that combines all packages needed for bringing up the game, but whose data isn't cooked into the main menu level. This includes objects like the DefaultMaterial. Any object in the startup package will be always loaded.

Standalone seekfree packages are packages that are not maps or script, but pull in all their references into a single package. This is used in Unreal Tournament for custom character piece packages. When constructing a character out of many pieces, we load the standalone seekfree package (asynchronously) to quickly load the meshes and their dependent textures. Because DynamicLoadObject is not supported on consoles, we use full package loading to load objects. When cooked, standalone seekfree packages can have 2 output packages - one with a _SF extension, and one without. The _SF file is the actual seekfree package that contains all objects and their dependencies, and the file without _SF contains the streaming textures (the engine does not stream textures out of seekfree files due to compression differences).

A texture file cache is a single file that contains many packages worth of streaming textures combined into one file. This can be used to reduce the total number of files on disk and also the total number of open files at one time (in case a platform has any restrictions).

Audio streaming packages are not created; however you can stream packages that have audio in them. This approach was favored instead of implementing support for simultanous streaming of arbitrary audio because we wanted to devote as much bandwidth to texture streaming as possible; and having a delay for such fast action games as Unreal Tournament and Gears of War would also be unacceptable, and syncing up the FaceFX anims becomes an additional chore at this point. As an alternative, a special dialog system was created for Gears.

The PC can run with cooked or uncooked data. To run the game with cooked data, use with the -seekfreeloading commandline option (or the Run with Cooked Data checkbox in Unreal Frontend). To run the editor with cooked data use the -cookededitor commandline option.

UT3 PC shipped with cooked data, and allowed for mods. We presented it to the user as "Publishing", which was similar to cooking, but it only cooked their packages in their mod. It is basically cooking in "-usermode" for the PC (ie, no cooking of our native script packages).

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