The install and its files

The folder layout of a Thief: Deadly Shadows install, and what each part of it is for. File formats (packages, block files, textures, ...) are covered in assets.md; this page is about where things live and their role. Paths below are written as <game folder>.

Top level

<game folder>/
├── Content/               game data (below)
├── System/                engine, script packages, executables, config (below)
├── save/                  save games and the Options table (below)
├── user.ini                three engine switches (block-file loading, source control, gamesys updates)
└── installscript.vdf       Steam's installer script; out of scope (see target.md)

System/

System/ holds the engine itself and everything it loads that is not level content:

• T3Main.exe: the game. runme.exe, t3.exe and Ion Launcher.exe are launchers Steam and the engine itself use to start and restart it (see runtime.md); testapp.exe is left over from the retail release. All four are out of scope for this project (see target.md).
• Script packages (*.t3u): AICore, Core, Editor, Engine, Fire, T3AI, T3Game, T3Gamesys and T3Player — nine in total. See objects.md.
• Localised text (*.int): Unreal's convention for English-language string tables, one per package that needs them (Core.int, Engine.int, Window.int, WinDrv.int, D3DDrv.int, Editor.int, UnrealEd.int, Startup.int, T3UIText.int, t3uw.int) — the game's on-screen text.
• INI files: the game's own settings and the UI/HUD layout. See config.md for the full list and what each governs.
• Middleware DLLs: binkw32.dll (Bink video) and eax.dll (EAX audio), both delay-loaded (see target.md).
• Data/: small fallback and lookup resources loaded directly as loose files rather than from a block file — lighting lookup textures (falloff and attenuation gradients, a normalisation cube map) and the _Missing/ _Corrupt placeholders the editor's tools substitute for resources that fail to load, in the editor's own loose formats (see assets.md, section 4).
• mods/: present when T3SDK is installed. Holds mod DLLs, the load order and the content-overlay bookkeeping described in mods.md.
• T3SDK's own files when installed: dinput8.dll (the loader, see sdk.md), T3SDK.ini and T3SDK.log.

Content/T3/

Game content proper:

Folder	Holds
Maps/	Every level's .gmp + .ibt pair, plus the shared Kernel_*ALL.ibt and MainMenu_*ALL.ibt bundles. See levels.md.
UTX/	Legacy Unreal texture packages (particles, the sky cube, HUD art), spanning several old engine versions.
PCTextures/, Bitmaps/	Loose textures: menu and loading-screen art, fonts.
MatLib/	categories.txt, the surface-category table materials index into for footstep and physics sounds (see assets.md); the materials themselves are baked into each level's .ibt.
Sounds/	Ion Storm's own sound metafiles (SchemaMetafile_*.csc), five in total, holding both the sound schema database and the embedded audio.
VideoTextures/	The game's videos (.bik, Bink), 23 in total: intro logos and cutscenes.
Books/, Conversations/, LipsincData/, TagDatabase/, Flags/	Readables, conversation trees, lip-sync data, motion tags and quest-flag data. None of these carry geometry.

DynamicallyLoaded subfolders under PCTextures and MatLib are where Sneaky Upgrade-style overlays and T3SDK content mods place loose replacement textures and materials (see assets.md and mods.md).

save/

save/
├── SaveGames/
│   ├── Current Save/        metadata.ion, TravelData, AsParams, and their Restart_ variants
│   ├── SaveIndex.ion         the save list
│   └── User Options/
│       └── options.ini       the Options table (see config.md)
└── dummy.txt

Current Save is the game's in-progress state: which level and travel destination to resume, separately from a named save slot. options.ini here, not in System/, is where the player's audio/video settings (resolution, volume, brightness, and the rest of the Options table in config.md) actually live.

Outside the install

The level-change launcher (Ion Launcher.exe, see runtime.md) writes its own log, separately from the game, to the current user's Documents\Thief - Deadly Shadows\Launcher.log. It is the only game-related file this project has found outside the install folder itself.