18,700
edits
History of Oni modding: Difference between revisions
→Binary resources: some touch-up
m (→Binary resources: typo) |
(→Binary resources: some touch-up) |
||
| Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
Fans with some expertise in parsing files with hex editors found that the binary data (i.e., the files ending in .dat and .raw, not to be confused with "binary" as a term for an application) held four-letter codes, indicating the start of each resource within that file. Within a week of the street date for Oni, the community had its first resource modding tool. While the author did not yet know how all the data worked, his program could at least parse it, and allow the modder to more easily edit each resource without having to think in hexadecimal. It also supported user-friendly replacement of texture maps and allowed in-line viewing of the game's 3D models. There seems to be little evidence that this knowledge was put to use in modding the game resources beyond simple mods such as texture replacements, no doubt due to the lack of a complete understanding of how Oni's 65 resource types were inter-related. | Fans with some expertise in parsing files with hex editors found that the binary data (i.e., the files ending in .dat and .raw, not to be confused with "binary" as a term for an application) held four-letter codes, indicating the start of each resource within that file. Within a week of the street date for Oni, the community had its first resource modding tool. While the author did not yet know how all the data worked, his program could at least parse it, and allow the modder to more easily edit each resource without having to think in hexadecimal. It also supported user-friendly replacement of texture maps and allowed in-line viewing of the game's 3D models. There seems to be little evidence that this knowledge was put to use in modding the game resources beyond simple mods such as texture replacements, no doubt due to the lack of a complete understanding of how Oni's 65 resource types were inter-related. | ||
This did not stop one intrepid programmer named Pierre from deciding to write his own game engine from scratch, | This did not stop one intrepid programmer named Pierre from deciding to write his own game engine from scratch, using data from Oni to test its abilities. Called [[Konoko Payne]], it is a long-term project which currently takes the form of (1) an underlying engine, and (2) a short scenario for it that resembles a sequel to Oni. In order to extract models and animations from Oni and recreate them precisely in his project, Pierre became one of the early pioneers in "reverse engineering" the game's resources, although his acquired knowledge remained private for some time, as his work predated the community's organized public attempts at gathering this information. | ||
Efforts in "hacking" the binary data began, as far as the modern community is concerned, in the fall of 2004 when [[User_talk:Ssg|Ssg]] started a site on the newly-opened [http://www.oni2.net Oni2.net], a domain run by [[User:Admin|Alloc]] (carrying over and translating information that he had originally placed on another site in his native German). A year later, this pool of knowledge was painstakingly moved by [[User:Geyser|geyser]] and Ssg to its [[OBD|current home]] on the wiki to allow collaboration; at this point, [[User_talk:Neo|Neo]] appeared on the scene, adding his own knowledge that he had been acquiring independently until then, and collaborating on further investigations into the resource formats. Today at least 90% of the binary resource formats are documented byte for byte thanks to their hard work. | |||
Originally, modders had to alter these binary resources manually with hex editors to adapt them to their scripts. [[User:Loser|Loser]] was the first modder to manually edit the game data to go along with his scripting, with a massively reshuffled Warehouse. Loser's Warehouse mod included a global component (modified level0_Final), level-specific binary modifications, and a set of customized scripts that took full advantage of the modified binaries. | Originally, modders had to alter these binary resources manually with hex editors to adapt them to their scripts. [[User:Loser|Loser]] was the first modder to manually edit the game data to go along with his scripting, with a massively reshuffled Warehouse. Loser's Warehouse mod included a global component (modified level0_Final), level-specific binary modifications, and a set of customized scripts that took full advantage of the modified binaries. | ||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
The advent of Neo's [[OniSplit]] in late 2007 marked a radical improvement. A command-line tool for Windows (that can also run on Macs), OniSplit breaks Oni's resources into truly standalone and portable modules. These modules can be edited and recombined to create the level data files that Oni reads, but new modules can also be created easily from scratch; image files can be made into texture resources, 3D models into new character models, etc. | The advent of Neo's [[OniSplit]] in late 2007 marked a radical improvement. A command-line tool for Windows (that can also run on Macs), OniSplit breaks Oni's resources into truly standalone and portable modules. These modules can be edited and recombined to create the level data files that Oni reads, but new modules can also be created easily from scratch; image files can be made into texture resources, 3D models into new character models, etc. | ||
OniSplit has in turn made possible the creation of the comprehensive mod known as the [[Anniversary Edition]]. | |||
<br clear="all" /> | <br clear="all" /> | ||