Quick Modding/Hacking Answers Thread

Thanks, that advice got me going in the right direction...

For those of you who have delved into the Cave Story EXE and discovered things about it yourself, what advice can you give me for finding the code for certain things myself? I'm assuming everything we know about the CS EXE wasn't discovered by simply examining the instructions and looking at what parts reference to what strings. What was your procedure? Did you manipulate Ollydbg in some way to trace what instructions were being executed when? I'm a bit confused by some of the tools of Olly that seem to be able to let you do that. Other tutorials that have showcased how to crack a program with Olly have only helped so much. In case it is at all relevant, I'm currently exploring the uncharted territory of the CS+ EXE.

 

honestly nowadays to find any particular thing I just look at the function list and say "Yeah, probably there" and pick a function to start looking at.

Beyond that, intuition about how you expect it to be written, distinctive patterns like lots of variable initialization or switch tables, relating what you don't know to things that have already been discovered, and plain ol' guess-and-test. Memory watches/breakpoints are also pretty useful diagnostic tools as well as the "search command"/"search immediate" things.

fun fact, CS+ is basically just a port of the original CS codebase with some modifications for steam and SDL, so like 90% of the functions map back almost exactly to something in the original game, just mixed up a bit. I've checked.

 

My main problem is not so much not knowing what to do, as it is not knowing how to make Ollydbg do what I want it to do. Were you talking about a function list in the assembly compendium, or some "show function list" feature that Olly has? I'm assuming the latter, but if so then then I can't find it. I also don't know what the memory watch is for. Could you explain those to me?

Sorry, I feel kind of silly asking that. I'm sure I'd be able to figure it out if I did some more poking around, but so far I've had to jump through a lot of hoops to find bits and pieces of what I'm looking for as it is, and I think it would just save a lot of time if you explained it.

 

I need some assistance with assembly.
I'm working on the V2 update of Cave Story X, and I would like to use a full-screen loading image.

Unfortunately, I'm terrible with asm and I was wondering if anyone could assist me with this.
My only requirement is that it doesn't take up any data from the actual game except for the loading portion.

So yeah, here's the basic summary:
-Loading image uses 320x240 resolution
-Game displays said image in said resolution on the loading screen
-Doesn't take up any data other than the loading part

I'd be thankful if anyone could assist me.

 

To make LOADING full screen, you have to do two
things. 00412A45 MOV DWORD PTR SS:[EBP-10C],140
00412A4F MOV DWORD PTR SS:[EBP-108],0F0 and 00412AC4 PUSH 0
00412AC6 PUSH 0
00412AC8 NOP
00412AC9 NOP
00412ACA NOP And make "Loading" image 320x240.

 

...And make "Loading" image 320x240.

Alright, pretty much knew this part
Also, thanks for the code!

 

No problem.
That part remained because it was copied from my other post and I was too lazy to remove it.

 

Before I start off, I will just go ahead and say I'm pretty much a complete noob when it comes to Cave Story modding, but anyway...
When I edit map properties, it updates in CE but not CS itself. I have edited the name of the CS exe, but I doubt that makes a difference.
If anyone has a suggestion/solution, do tell!

 

You have to reopen/run Cave Story again if you want to see the changes made to the map properties.

Also you have to make sure you are saving the map properties in Cave Editor (from the File menu).

 

I have reopened cave story and CE, saved it from the File menu, but still not working.
But when I restart CE the properties aren't even changed there.

 

I think you got the wrong order:

Make changes in CE >>> Save in CE >>> Reopen Cave Story.

 

Does anyone still have the file from this thread?
I'm trying to make a mac port

 

Does anyone still have the file from this thread?
I'm trying to make a mac port

This is just a personal opinion, but as a user of Mac's for 95% of their computer access, If someone on a Macintosh computer wants to play a CS mod, they should just use an emulator/wine/dual-boot, instead of being limited to a specific set of "Mac Compatible Mods" that can't contain anything customized.

 

So I've continued experimenting with translation of some mods, (Jenn's Journey is my main guinea pig for this one) I tested out running the game after translating some of the lines, and loo and behold, they're in gibberish!
This is would't be a problem if my computer was set to English, (in which case the solution is to simply change my computer's primary language) but it's already set to Japanese. And after playing the Japanese version of Cave Story just fine, I'm confused to why the Japanese text is still showing up as garbled symbols. Any ideas?

 

What font are you using?

You'll only get Japanese characters if the font supports it, so stick to a system font or a font that has Japanese characters.

 

So, I've replaced an unused portion of NpcSym in the hopes of using it as an NPC like the health/ammo restore...box-things. Could anyone help me figure a way to:

A) Find out which NPC to use that part of the image.
B) Have it animate like the normal box-thing does.

Attached is the edited NpcSym.png

Thank you!

 

So, I've replaced an unused portion of NpcSym in the hopes of using it as an NPC like the health/ammo restore...box-things. Could anyone help me figure a way to:

A) Find out which NPC to use that part of the image.
B) Have it animate like the normal box-thing does.

Attached is the edited NpcSym.png

Thank you!

So you need an NPC that uses that area of the spritesheet as an ammo refill?


If that's the case then I can make you an NPC that does that.

 

So you need an NPC that uses that area of the screen as an ammo refill?

If you see near the bottom-left of the image, there is a box similar to the regular restore-thing. I'd like an NPC just like the regular thing, but it uses the blue one at the bottom-left for it's image instead.

 

If you see near the bottom-left of the image, there is a box similar to the regular restore-thing. I'd like an NPC just like the regular thing, but it uses the blue one at the bottom-left for it's image instead.

Gimmie 15 minutes and I'll have a custom NPC ready for you.

done

Spoiler

0x42a0b0

55 89 e5 83 ec 10 c7 45 f0 00 00 00 00 c7 45 f4
00 00 00 00 c7 45 f8 00 00 00 00 c7 45 fc 00 00
00 00 8b 4d 08 83 79 74 01 74 06 83 79 74 02 74
2b 83 79 18 01 74 1c 68 00 03 00 00 6a 20 e8 5d
52 fe ff 83 c4 08 8b 4d 08 89 41 6c c7 41 18 01
00 00 00 ff 49 6c 83 79 6c 00 7f 47 c7 41 18 00
00 00 00 c7 41 74 02 00 00 00 83 79 68 00 74 09
c7 41 68 00 00 00 00 eb 07 c7 41 68 01 00 00 00
68 00 02 00 00 6a 30 e8 14 52 fe ff 83 c4 08 8b
4d 08 ff 41 70 39 41 70 7f 02 75 07 c7 41 74 01
00 00 00 8b 41 68 6b c0 10 05 20 01 00 00 83 79
4c 02 75 03 83 c0 d0 89 41 54 83 c0 10 89 41 5c
b8 00 00 00 00 83 79 4c 02 75 06 81 c0 e0 00 00
00 89 41 58 83 c0 10 89 41 60 89 ec 5d c3

Just make the normal health/ammo thing spawn with direction "2"

(You are familiar with hex codes, right?)

 

Gimmie 15 minutes and I'll have a custom NPC ready for you.

done

Spoiler

0x42a0b055 89 e5 83 ec 10 c7 45 f0 00 00 00 00 c7 45 f400 00 00 00 c7 45 f8 00 00 00 00 c7 45 fc 00 0000 00 8b 4d 08 83 79 74 01 74 06 83 79 74 02 742b 83 79 18 01 74 1c 68 00 03 00 00 6a 20 e8 5d52 fe ff 83 c4 08 8b 4d 08 89 41 6c c7 41 18 0100 00 00 ff 49 6c 83 79 6c 00 7f 47 c7 41 18 0000 00 00 c7 41 74 02 00 00 00 83 79 68 00 74 09c7 41 68 00 00 00 00 eb 07 c7 41 68 01 00 00 0068 00 02 00 00 6a 30 e8 14 52 fe ff 83 c4 08 8b4d 08 ff 41 70 39 41 70 7f 02 75 07 c7 41 74 0100 00 00 8b 41 68 6b c0 10 05 20 01 00 00 83 794c 02 75 03 83 c0 d0 89 41 54 83 c0 10 89 41 5cb8 00 00 00 00 83 79 4c 02 75 06 81 c0 e0 00 0000 89 41 58 83 c0 10 89 41 60 89 ec 5d c3

Just make the normal health/ammo thing spawn with direction "2"

(You are familiar with hex codes, right?)

Unfortunately, no, haha. Sorry, all I work with is Cave Editor. Most else I can to is operate Resource Hacker. (I'm only familiar with the process of replacing songs, however.)

If it's not too much trouble, could you give a quick rundown of how to implement this? I greatly appreciate your time and effort.