UCC Tutorial: The Basics

Welcome to the Ultimate Conversion Compressor (UCC) Tutorial.

Introduction
Ultimate Conversion Compressor (UCC) is an advanced, mostly automated script program for compressing game conversions in order to fit the games on cheaper/smaller media, for example, converting a game from a single Blu-ray media to five (5) 4.5GB DVD discs or converting a game from a single DVD Dual Layer disc to 1 or 2 normal 4.5GB DVD discs.

UCC is compiled as an executable (exe) file, you cannot edit the script directly, nor should you, if for some reason you want to have a look at the script please contact me via one of the methods described on the wiki main page.

Anyway, UCC takes most of it's variables and settings from the multiple .ini files that it is supplied with, the main one being the [Settings.ini] file.

More on the [Settings.ini] file in later part of the tutorial.

The Basics
When you first download and extract UCC you'll notice there isn't much there, on first glance you'll see this:



Tutorial.pdf - This is an adobe pdf document containing a portable tutorial for UCC

Changelog.txt - This is the version history of UCC

Readme.txt - This is a simple readme from me to you, a general thank you and credits document

Converter.exe - This is the UCC Main executable file, it's what you and the end user will use to make the conversion

[Common] Folder - This folder contains all the UCC files and folders, important and optional alike

[Compressors] Folder - This OPTIONAL folder allows you to add/update/change the compressors in UCC v4.1.3.2 Update 2.0

Let us take a close look at the [Common] folder...

When you first enter the [Common] folder you'll find two (2) folders as shown in figure 2 below:

First, let's take a look at the [Files] folder...

Enter the [Files] folder to find the following folders:

On first use, these folders will be empty, let me explain in short what each folder is used for.... Now let's browse up a level and go back to the [Common] folder, then enter the [Settings] folder...
 * 1) [Commands] - This OPTIONAL folder is used to allow the usage of external commands with the Pre/Post commands feature introduced in UCC V4.1.3.2 Update 2.0.
 * 2) [Lists] - This folder is OPTIONAL, it is used for text files that include a list of files to exclude/include in the conversion, it is only used if the option UseListFile is active in at least one (1) Data#.ini file, more on that later on in the Tutorial.
 * 3) [Misc] - This folder is also OPTIONAL, you can put any files and/or folders you like in here and UCC will copy it to the last disc of the conversion, a few good examples for it's uses are Game Updates & Patches, Cheats, Help Files and Cracks.
 * 4) [Redist] - This is also OPTIONAL, it is used by UCC if the option MoveRedist is active in Settings.ini (more on that later on), this is where UCC move the redist to from the game folder (DirectX, DotNet, etc.)
 * 5) [Setup] - This is the most important one here, this is where you need to put the Setup.exe & Setup.ico files, if these files are not in this folder they will not be copied to the conversion folder.

As you can see, by default there are 4 files, Data1.ini, Data2.ini, Data3.ini and of course Settings.ini.

The Data#.ini files are used to tell UCC what files to compress and how to compress these files, each Data#.ini file responsible for the creation of one (1) single archived data file, the name of this file is determined by two (2) of the options in the Settings.ini file.

There is no limit to how many Data#.ini files you can have, just copy one (1) of them with a different number and edit it as you need.

The Settings.ini file is without a doubt the most important here, it is the main settings file for UCC, it is where you set all the options that defines how UCC will look, behave and feel and all the options regarding your conversion and it's details.

I'll go into much more details about all these .ini files in further parts of this tutorial.

Thank you for reading.

Continue To Next Part: UCC Tutorial: Settings.ini Usage