.cat files in Act.img

[xXxNarumi]

Nope
Amateur means new, noob, low lv, getting started, etc
Pro means good, expert, highly skilled, etc

[Evolution]

Nope
Amateur means new, noob, low lv, getting started, etc
Pro means good, expert, highly skilled, etc

What you said is true, but you can still be an awesome Amateur.

Like 4 example, in Porn there can be an amateur pornstar who is awesome at her job.

[xXxNarumi]

If were gonna bring up porn we can bring that back the
[SICK/18+] RapeLay thread

[MadmaN]

Nope
Amateur means new, noob, low lv, getting started, etc
Pro means good, expert, highly skilled, etc

What you said is true, but you can still be an awesome Amateur.

Like 4 example, in Porn there can be an amateur pornstar who is awesome at her job.

Amateur is usually used as a insult to some people and personally it doesn't bother me.

It simply means that  the person is not formally trained and does not get paid as a professional to do the work. I have seen professionals that actually suck balls at the chosen profession they do ....like graphics professionals that use photoshop for example....I have been told by many people that I would far outstrip most so called professionals with my own skill and knowledge alone with just that program even tho I have NEVER been formally trained in its use...I am entirely all self taught....am self taught in almost everything I do know...including programming. That technically makes ME a amateur and not a professional.

xNarumi......what I would do is reword what you said to say that it is simply a nightmare for those that are not experienced enough...and just leave it that way since it could be taken in the wrong context 

[Scoff]

I found a program on google.It says that he can open .cat files.He is called ''FileViewPro''.I will check it out.

Edit:Forget it.That crap doesn't work.I will look another methods.

[xXxNarumi]

Yea ik i dont call people amateurs at all
when someone a beginner I just simply say new, newjack, freshblood, newbie ,etc

[Red Blaster]

I found a program on google.It says that he can open .cat files.He is called ''FileViewPro''.I will check it out.

Edit:Forget it.That crap doesn't work.I will look another methods.

The .cat files are compiled. There's no decompiler for these things unless we write it ourselves.

[Jordanator599]

Can changing the strafe be done in HxD Hex Editor? I've opened the Locomotion.cat file and found a strafe line, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

[Red Blaster]

Not unless you want to risk fucking up the .cat file.

[Evolution]

^ I'm guessing reinstalling isn't an option to fix it if you were to fuck up on the .cat files?... Or am I wrong?

[MadmaN]

Just to let everyone in here know...Red knows this btw.

The .cat files are actually archives similar to the .img files. Only they use a small layer of encryption and rather then compress the contents...the .cat files act like simple container files.

Their contents are simple:

folders listing, and config files in each folder sharing the same name. The folder and config files are for each move or moves for the fighting style or animations in question. There is also a index file that references all the rest of the files in that .cat archive...loads all of them and also references from a master .cat file. There is a binary file that deals with the strafe animation and maybe one or two more binary files....not fully sure there since I am going off what my contact told me and what I was able to find out by brute forcing the file to see what is really inside.

I was able to partially extract one file but what I got was not usable so I know they can be extracted....but even I am not skilled enough at reverse engineering a file format like this...its a tough one.

One of my modding team-mates asked for help regarding this format over at the xenetax forums but it was ignored totally so.....its gonna be hard finding someone that can really help with cracking this.

[Nixon]

Only they use a small layer of encryption and rather then compress the contents...the .cat files act like simple container files.

What are the possibilities of getting the key from the .exe as it triggers an animation? Using a debugger like Ollydbg

[MadmaN]

I don't know.

The encryption actually is more like a encoding rather then a true cypher....They are just basicly container files but using a debugger like Ollydbg might shed some light on the format of the file in question and give clues to coming up with a extraction method...as well as a method to build new .cat archives. This is the main reason why fighting styles are so limited......once we can figure out how to extract those files....we can customize the fighting styles to a degree that will make it possible to make brand new styles just by combining parts of the already existing styles....including redoing jimmy's style totally....

If enough people posted requests about this over at xenetax forums......I would imagine the coders there will look into it....since they only seem to tackle popular games rather then games hardly anyone plays.

[Nixon]

...

I opened some .cat files in a hex editor and converted the hexadecimal to word sized unsigned numbers. This example is from "Act.img>Ambient.cat", which is one of the larger files in the folder, 50KB, most are about 2KB. I believe that is because it defines alot of generic animations, as you can see at the end of the file, where, as always, there is a list that names the separate animations from the mess above.
I am not sure of the format, but the pattern goes something like this: A, 0, B, 0, 1 or 2, A+n, 0, B+-?,
not sure. Unsigned words may not be the correct format, it could be signed bytes or even signed words. Whatever makes the pattern look most sensible.

At line A470, the pattern goes away as the file turns to text strings.
The number of three consecutive 0's is closely related to the number of names in the file. It either marks the beginning of an animation. X,Y,Z at default. Or acts as a separator between animations, because it does not occur before the first coord or after the last one.

I decided to attach the example as .txt
"numbers.txt" is in unsigned, word sized numbers.
"strings.txt" is in strings.
Both are the same file.

[MadmaN]

Glad to see someone else also helping out with this.

I came to the exact same conclusions myself about a month back but like I just mentioned to Red via xfire....I decided to keep that part very quiet just incase I was completely wrong...but seeing someone else come up with the same conclusions as I have.....that means that we just might be able to crack this since this will really open up a lot of doors for modding bully.

I will check the files you posted and get back to you on some things since we may be onto something here.

btw.....good work!