Hex Edit 101
 

Is anybody interested in some time spent learning some of the ins and outs
of Hex Editing SH3?
I've learned a great deal thanks to so many here and time spent digging around.
But all the info is scattered, makeing it hard to learn for most.
I do not have all the answers, but I think I can teach most anyone how it
all works, how to spot what you want, and what connects what.
What do you think?

yes please!! if could take time to write a tutorial that would be fantastic :rock:

Hello Privateer,

a very good idea to share your knowledge in a wiki, offline document, web page or where ever it suits you. :up:

Cheers!
Mr. Fleck

weve talked about this already
 

Sign me up !

MM

I'm not a good writer, and the languaje barrier makes thing worse, but I'd be happy to contribute where I can.

Ref

I have no idea, and I’d like to learn so I don’t have to bother people asking them for files.

Nice one
Great idea
Count me in

Ok, 1st we'll make sure we have some tools and such.

Pack3d all versions and some Guide info I've collected from various threads
are on my Filefront page.

http://hosted.filefront.com/priater

Next is a Hex Editor. You may have a version you like but I'll recommend
you get the same one I use to make following along easier.

It's free and does not install into Windows so if you want to get rid of it
all you need do is delete it.

http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delph...vi32/xvi32.htm

Once you have the files, create a folder that we will use to work in.
Go into the Library folder and copy the NavalMine.dat and Navalmine.zon
files to your work folder.

These are nice small files we will start with to learn our way around and
what a byte, dword, and other scary terms mean. :lol:

Sweet
My current Hex just expired
Rather liked it too
:damn:

I take it we are getting 2.51 ?

Is this an online tutorial
:rotfl:
Hope there is no homework :nope:

Yes yes YES!! :yep: :yep: :yep:

Yes, it will be online.
I'll just save the lessons as a reference anyone can grab at any time.

Oh, and yes, the newest version is 2.51
I've used it for years now and have never had any troubles
what so ever.

Hi
 

Hi,

What uses in order to modify the boxes in .zon file? Work in hex?

BEST REGARDS
UBOAT234

right now I'm doing it in Hex,
I have got a program I'm working on that will let us do it in a 3d enviroment.

Open the Hex Editor, select Tools and put a check on data inspecter.
Open Tools again and select Options, then appearance.
set columns to 25
I work with text on the left but select the way that suits you.
select Data inspecter, I have the 1st 6 boxes on the left checked.
Select OK.
Now open the NavalMine.dat and you should see something like this image.


http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n.../Lesson_1a.jpg

Notice I have Ref's dat file format info. This is our main guide.
The 4 bytes in BLUE are important!
You are going to see this alot so make sure you understand this part.
The data Inspecter tells us the info to come is 51 bytes long.
Count the GREEN area and it's 51 bytes.
If you delete Kashmir in the left window, you need to lower
the count in blue to match the new length.
Click on the 33, open tools and select Encode number,
and set it up like below
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n.../Lesson_1c.jpg


Click OK and you should see that the 33 00 00 00
is now 2C 00 00 00

:up:

Make sure you save the file then open version 5 of Pack3d and open the file.

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n.../Lesson_1d.jpg

click on the left window and find address 80 as marked in yellow.
This is the start of this block of data.
select the numbers marked in blue and notice the data inspecter

We're looking at chunks now.

All chunks are like this:
01 00 00 00 = 1 ChunkType 4 bytes
65 00 00 00 = 100 Chunk Subtype/Version 4 bytes
CB 28 00 00 = 10443 chunk_size long (4 bytes) = Data (chunk_sizebytes)

The data chunk size is the same type info we changed in the header,
just telling us how big this block of data is.

RED is the ID the game engine uses to work with this block
which, in this case, is the actual 3d object of the mine.

All ID's are 8 bytes long.