Need C++ help to finish fix for cartographic view

[nine2]

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

[ABSTRACT]

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.

[rootbeer23]

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

[nine2]

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.

[visionik]

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

[pilot538]

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

[ABSTRACT]

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

[rootbeer23]

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.

[The Mak]

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

[nine2]

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