[grovespaz]

Does anyone know the EXE hex adresses for the loading bar colors?
Or the hud colors?

[Ben]

Have a geez here, although I don't think they found colours for the HUD. Not sure about the loading bar though - Hammer used artmoney to change the HUD colours in LC I think.

[grovespaz]

I know about that topic, but im talking about hex editing the exe, and saving it.

Im sorry if its offtopic, but the reason i ask is because i want those pretty yellow bars on the X-Box too, and large portions of the exe/xbe are still the same.. (Although they vary on address range, their still close to eachother)

[random_download]

In VC/GTA3 memory address topic there was a guy who changed the boundries of Vice City in an attempt to incorperate two cities. I think he also posted somewhere in there a method of converting from real-time memory addresses to those in the EXE.

[Ben]

That guy wouldn't be Andy80586 would it?

Here's a list of all his posts in the VC/GTA3 memory address topic if you want to have a look (there's about 60-odd). I had a look, but didn't find anything, although me not knowing much about EXE/memory hacking, I probably missed it .

[Craig Kostelecky]

Andy is who random is thinking about. He also helped us in raising the helicopter height limit.

[Ben]

I just had an idea for the launcher - dunno how hard it'd be to implement, but it should be do-able.

Considering that we now have multiple GXTs for the same language - american and american_VC-Radio, german and german_VC-Radio - can an EXE hack be implemented to read either. Tis a little hard to explain, so I'll use an example.

Say someone downloads LC, but doesn't have the GTA3 radio stations, and therefore wishes to restore the VC radio stations - done through Show Config -> Advanced -> Audio, where the path is changed. Well, when this path is changed, would it be possible to have the GXT path also changed - in the case of someone playing in English, have the path either automatically or manually (through the use of a checkbox) changed to read american_VC-Radio.gxt instead of american.gxt?

If it's possible, changing the GXT path may have to be manual, as I don't know how the launcher would tell what language someone wished to use. Perhaps something in the form of a pop-up when the Restore option is executed for the radio stations - "Would you like to change the text to display the correct radio station name?

Then two checkboxes where you can choose either English or German language, followed by the Yes and No buttons.

If Yes is chosen, fronten2_VC-Radio.txd (available in this package) needs to be read by the launcher instead of the default fronten2.txd.

Any thoughts?

EDIT - Package updated .

This post has been edited by Ben on Wednesday, Jan 24 2007, 02:09

[SteaVor]

I think that it should be doable, you could - at the VERY least - swap the file names, if there was no possibility to tweak the path at runtime.
You wouldn't have to choose a language either, because the contents of directory 'TEXT' could be read beforehand and then ALL language files that exist in 2 versions could have their internal path tweaked to point to the alternative file. But I'm not Hammer, so I can't say if all memory adresses etc that are needed to make your idea possible are currently known.

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Sunday, Nov 4 2007, 14:42

[random_download]

If they are not known then it should be pretty simple to find them, so it should be doable. And as SteaVor said, you could of coarse just get the launcher to swap the file names around.

[Ben]

Thanks for the replies guys .

I know Hammer's not active much these days, so if either of you (or anyone else) would like to have a shot at it, then I'd be very grateful.

However, before you start work, you'll have to get the source codes for the latest launcher package off Craig (because the ones in the first post are for earlier versions).

[Craig Kostelecky]

Oh yeah

The source files for the latest launcher. Anybody who's willing and able has Hammer's implicit premission to modify these files.

[random_download]

OK, I found all the addresses. It seems that the gxt file are referenced by two routines. Both use a switch jump to select the right language, so I think the easiest thing to do would be to change the offset where the switch jump takes place to a location inside the asi file. Addresses:

CODE

American: 0x0058525Dh 0x005855C2h French: 0x00585264 0x005855C9 German: 0x0058526B 0x005855D0 Italian: 0x00585272 0x005855D7 Spanish: 0x00585279 0x005855DE

Those addresses point directly to the first byte of a DWORD which contains the address that is pushed to the stack, rather than to the start of the instruction.
These two are for the address referenced in the switch jump, which I think would be better:

CODE

0x00585258 0x005855BD

Write a DWORD to both of those that points to an array of 5 DWORDs, which point to the code:

CODE

push <address where text eg. 'AMERICAN.GXT' is stored> jmp short loc_58527D

And for the 2nd one (0x005855BD):

CODE

push <address where text eg. 'AMERICAN.GXT' is stored> jmp short loc_5855E2

Somewhere in the asi file.

P.S: All addresses for VC US-v1.0

EDIT: Fixed error.

This post has been edited by random_download on Friday, Jun 9 2006, 23:56

[Ben]

Link in first post updated . I'm assuming that there's been no update to the vcopcode source ?

@random - great work .

[Craig Kostelecky]

Quick launcher update. The police car shotgun now works. Big thanks to AK-73 for finding what we were missing. Also thanks to Hammer for putting it all together. Only the binary has been updated. The source may not be updated for a little while as there's a couple of things in progress (including ModelingMan's stuff). If you don't want to go to the first page, here is the link for the new launcher binary.

[Ben]

Hmmm...

Should I blame Craig or Hammer for the fact the link doesn't work?

I dunno - not that it matters now as I've found the file and fixed the link in the first post .

I'm curious though - how did gta-lc.exe get so much smaller (the size decreased almost half a MB)?

Also, the ini issue is back - I've included instructions in the first post for how to fix it, and now the download just needs to be fixed.

And don't forget the GXT stuff that random found for my suggestion - could that be added soon if it's not too much trouble, please?

Cheers .

[Hammer83]

I'm to blame. It was late yesterday when I moved everything to a new domain. I didn't have the opportunity to notify Craig of the change. Thanks for doing this, Ben.

EDIT by Ben - No probs .

This post has been edited by Ben on Wednesday, Jun 28 2006, 02:40

[Ben]

I've got some goodies for those of you involved in developing the launcher, courtesy of AK-73. I asked him over email about implementing these into the LC launcher, but he's a bit busy with his own mod, so these will have to be done by someone else. But at least he has a lot of specific info for you .

See the following posts:
1
2
3
4
5

They all address a range of EXE-related issues in the checklist, so another BIG thank-you to Alex .

It'd also be great (and a HUGE favour to Alex) if anyone who knows how to alter the world lighting could post some info - that's something he's keen to learn how to mod (and it's also applicable to LC), and I think it's the least we can do to re-pay him for all of the wonderful work he's done for us.

And if any of you come across my post about the SFX whilst looking over Alex's, don't worry - that info is included in the SFX download for the test7 package, courtesy of Modeling Man .

EDIT - It might also be a good idea to check the mem hacking topic regularly for any more updates from AK .

This post has been edited by Ben on Thursday, Jul 13 2006, 05:19

[Y_Less]

I believe world lighting is controlled in timecycle.dat

QUOTE

0x5B94E5 To make ped drivers panick like in GTA3, change from 03 to 02 Explanation: at +0x156 into an entry in the actor list reside the driver behaviour flags as per the opcode 00AF; at 0x155 however are the obstacle flags: 0 - stop before obstacle (possibly drive past after some time has passed), 1 - drive-thru (as per normal gun panic), 2 - drive past (as in GTA3 gun panic). I think the flag 4 exists too but I'm not sure, didn't get to check it out in detail. Seems to be no different from 0 though.

That 0 could be useful for the lift bridge, I've been wondering hoe to make them just stop like in III instead of turning round and things.

This post has been edited by Y_Less on Monday, Jul 17 2006, 10:55

[AK-73]

QUOTE (Y_Less @ Jul 17 2006, 10:50)

I believe world lighting is controlled in timecycle.dat That 0 could be useful for the lift bridge, I've been wondering hoe to make them just stop like in III instead of turning round and things.

Some drivers however tend to get impatient and continue driving after some time, I think. Still it might be useful, especially since the behaviour can be set by opcode.

Alex

[Ben]

Here's something for our resident EXE hackers to look into (another of AK's findings). A bit of research will be required to make it work "perfectly", but it's a big start. Thanks again Alex .

EDIT - As for the world lighting - after talking to ModelingMan about it yesterday, we know where to look, but I'm not sure when we'll get around to fixing it. We'll see what happens .

This post has been edited by Ben on Thursday, Jul 20 2006, 11:12