Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-20T14:25:03+02:00

The Mak wrote:
I had wanted to try Hex-Rays Decompiler but it is about 4,000 USD. I was hoping to find a company or someone with this tool and see if they would try the FA executable to see what came out, but was not able to find someone

pm me

Statistics: Posted by ABSTRACT — 20 Jan 2015, 14:25

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-20T04:06:32+02:00

well I checked out your source code The Mak... holy shit how does anyone do this?

line 554994 is where is the starting point - that's where the strings appear. but what is it doing there? just getting references to the params? or setting them? or what?

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 20 Jan 2015, 04:06

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-20T03:57:23+02:00

rootbeer23 wrote:
you can try and piggyback the value you need in the fractional part.

well that is a creative idea and i'll keep it in mind, but still requires the hard bits: finding water level value and modifying the c++ code to pass it in

but if creating a new hlsl param turns out to be hard then we should consider your idea

or you can generate one shader file for each map and put the water level in as a constant

well i'm not sure but that doesn't sound like a very good idea to me

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 20 Jan 2015, 03:57

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-20T03:17:41+02:00

If you want to take a stab at decompiling, there are a number of free tools online. There was one that worked for the FA executable in my searches, REC Studio 4. If you use this tool it generates a text file that is about 35 MB and just under 1 million lines of code: FAF v3639 (right-click and save the link as it will just open a very long text file)

I had wanted to try Hex-Rays Decompiler but it is about 4,000 USD. I was hoping to find a company or someone with this tool and see if they would try the FA executable to see what came out, but was not able to find someone

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 20 Jan 2015, 03:17

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-19T14:53:10+02:00

there are many float values passed to the shader.
you can try and piggyback the value you need in the fractional part.
if you can modify one of the existing arguments:
arg = arg + 0.0001 * water_level
in the shader you do the reverse.

or you can generate one shader file for each map and put the water level in as a constant.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 19 Jan 2015, 14:53

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-19T15:04:56+02:00

visionik wrote:
On the questioned "legality":

decompilation - is legal in any country where it's important for the purposes of interoperability with new software (ie, improved minimap software) or bug fixing (one could argue the minimap should work right in the first place). We are easily covered by both cases.

distribution: we will be distributing patches to .EXE's, not EXE's themselves. Also fine.

In short, no problems.

-Visionik

Ok its my fault, in the german version of THQ Inc. PC Software License Agreement has been no exception for the case of decompilation.

Ohne vorherige schriftliche Einwilligung von THQ und/oder ihrer Lizenzgeber dürfen deren Produkte weder vervielfältigt noch abgeändert, übersetzt, zurückentwickelt, dekompiliert, dem 'reverse engineering' unterzogen oder deassembliert werden, noch abgeleitete Werke davon erstellt werden.

But the english version is a bit different regarding the legal framework.

[...] except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.

Btw, why not ask the right owner to give FAForever the source code and/or the autorisation to modify the game. That would make many things easier. This sworn community is the only reason why the game is still played and purchased

Statistics: Posted by ABSTRACT — 19 Jan 2015, 14:44

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-19T04:54:10+02:00

I can try my best and give it a shot. I don't have a ton of time, but I'll try.

Statistics: Posted by pilot538 — 19 Jan 2015, 04:54

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-18T07:34:17+02:00

On the questioned "legality":

decompilation - is legal in any country where it's important for the purposes of interoperability with new software (ie, improved minimap software) or bug fixing (one could argue the minimap should work right in the first place). We are easily covered by both cases.

distribution: we will be distributing patches to .EXE's, not EXE's themselves. Also fine.

In short, no problems.

-Visionik

Statistics: Posted by visionik — 18 Jan 2015, 07:34

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-18T07:21:02+02:00

edited the original post with good strings to look for to find where the shader is filled in by c++.

however, we also need to get the right data out of the map file. unfortunately there aren't any known strings to find the right bit of code easily. I know the map file format well and I know what the values are for certain maps. Is it possible to decompile the exe and then run it again and step through it? If someone could get me stepping through C functions around the right place (where it loads map), I could pinpoint the correct bit of data.

i'll get back to you on legality.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 18 Jan 2015, 07:21

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-17T16:39:00+02:00

make available a tutorial how shaders are used in supcom and list the parameters which you can give currently.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 17 Jan 2015, 16:39

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-17T17:34:40+02:00

partytime wrote:
thanks for letting me know you have no intention of helping me

I said: " If i would have more time". I will have more time but not now.
We are talking about decompiling this exe or parts of it to C (!), understand the global structure, and find the corresponding funtions/modify them, and then compile it, and distribute the exe to the community. We are talking about work that is several orders of magnitude higher than this cartographic view. Nevertheless ur work looks very nice, yes, but u should keep that in mind.
Decompiling and distributing a modified exe is illegal btw.

Statistics: Posted by ABSTRACT — 17 Jan 2015, 14:40

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-17T13:42:24+02:00

my apologies abstract and aurion. i was trying to be jokeful, not offensive. my apologies if i caused any trouble for anyone.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 17 Jan 2015, 13:42

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-17T13:34:00+02:00

partytime wrote:
thanks for letting me know you have no intention of helping me

Being bitchy about something generally doesn't help much as he's saying he wants to but can't. You should be nice against those people, because maybe he'll eventually get time to do it.

Statistics: Posted by Aurion — 17 Jan 2015, 13:34

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-17T04:50:46+02:00

thanks for letting me know you have no intention of helping me

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 17 Jan 2015, 04:50

Re: Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

2015-01-16T21:54:46+02:00

If i would have more time, i would try to decompile something, but that is a gigantic work

Statistics: Posted by ABSTRACT — 16 Jan 2015, 21:54