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A bit of an aside, but WOW. I am amazed both by the dedication and skill needed to reverse the format and protocol of some undocumented binary files without eve

A bit of an aside, but WOW. I am amazed both by the dedication and skill needed to reverse the format and protocol of some undocumented binary files without even having access to the code that processes it, and on top of that, the dedication of building a UI to help along. I know it's not the main topic of discussion, but sometimes I find it overwhelming and frustrating to analyze things that I have full access to the codebase, and it's really quite humbling to see this level of success and dedication. Really impressive work.

coldpie 10y ago
It's tough, but very fun and rewarding. I dipped my toes into it a while ago and reverse-engineered the data formats for an NES game[1], including their data compression format. You start out knowing nothing, then start slowly putting the pieces together as you figure out what each bit of code does, what this piece of memory holds, how the tile and level map data is stored... Obviously a 6502 hooked up to the NES graphics chip is much simpler than a modern graphically intense video game, but it was a fun and intense experience all the same :) Give it a try sometime. [1] https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c
Jasper_ 10y ago
Not to undermine the work, which is really impressive, but also as someone that's reverse engineered a lot of different proprietary model formats, they all follow a very similar structure. You could do it too if you knew You have your vertex buffer data, your index buffer data telling you how vertices are connected, and a list of commands telling you where in the index buffer to start/stop. It might take you a bit, but after a while you notice the telltale signs of model data (e.g. 0x3F800000 being 1.0 in floating point), and you can usually make a first pass at it pretty quickly. It's definitely a lot of fun if you haven't done it.

coldpie 10y ago

It's tough, but very fun and rewarding. I dipped my toes into it a while ago and reverse-engineered the data formats for an NES game[1], including their data compression format. You start out knowing nothing, then start slowly putting the pieces together as you figure out what each bit of code does, what this piece of memory holds, how the tile and level map data is stored... Obviously a 6502 hooked up to the NES graphics chip is much simpler than a modern graphically intense video game, but it was a fun and intense experience all the same :) Give it a try sometime. [1] https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c

Jasper_ 10y ago

Not to undermine the work, which is really impressive, but also as someone that's reverse engineered a lot of different proprietary model formats, they all follow a very similar structure. You could do it too if you knew You have your vertex buffer data, your index buffer data telling you how vertices are connected, and a list of commands telling you where in the index buffer to start/stop. It might take you a bit, but after a while you notice the telltale signs of model data (e.g. 0x3F800000 being 1.0 in floating point), and you can usually make a first pass at it pretty quickly. It's definitely a lot of fun if you haven't done it.