DISCOVERY: File Formats, The Unknown Formats (EDIR,AB,AE etc.)

[Karybdis 34]

The character table for INFO.

INFO files seem to use a non-standard maxis created character format, so you can't simply decode, you have to switch one bit of hex for another

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Character Table

--Numbers 0-9
4b,4a,49,48,4f,4e,4d,4c,43,42

--Characters A-Z (capitals)
3a,39,38,3f,3e,3d,3c,33,32,31,30,37,36,35,34,2b,2a,29,28,2f,2e,2d,2c,23,22,21

--Characters a-z (lowercase)
1a,19,18,1f,1e,1d,1c,13,12,11,10,17,16,15,14,0b,0a,09,08,0f,0e,0d,0c,03,02,01

--Special Chars (table)
(space),- ,~ ,. , { ,} ,| ,` ,[ ,_ ,^ ,] ,\ ,@ ,; ,: ,? ,> ,= ,5b ,56,05,55,04,06,07,1b,20,24,25,26,27,3b,40,41,44,45,46,47
----------------------------
+ ,' ,) ,( ,/ ,, ,# , ,! ,* ,& ,% ,$
50,51,52,53,54,57,58,59,5a,5c,5d,5e,5f

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Karybdis 34]

INFO format completed after many hours of stupidly boring work . Spec below ---

------------------------

INFO

The info format is basically a storage for all the data in the picture albums. The description of the picture is kept in a text file, but all the rest of the data, including city name, mayor and other data is stored inside this format to save room.

There appear to be two types of info files. City pictures and region pictures which have different structures. Each info file is comprised of sections identified by a 1 byte section header.

A note on the Picture/INFO type section seen below. This was deduced in the following way. No known settings ingame of any sort (night, underground etc) change this. It is the same for all cities in all regions. It is confirmed to be the same on other people's copies of the game. It doesnt change anything with the display. The picture/INFO type is all that's left. It might describe the next section ingame, but since maxis doesnt display the next section ingame anyways, that's unconfirmable, and it would still be picture/INFO type even if it did.

---------------- City

11 BYTES - SanityCheck (failed apparently ;-) )
BYTE - 71 (Start Username)
X BYTES - User name from your config-log in the simcity4 apps dir
BYTE - 71 (Start City name)
X BYTES - City name one byte per letter including spaces
BYTE - 71 (Start Mayor Name)
X BYTES - Mayor Name, One byte per letter
BYTE - 71 (Start Date of picture)
X BYTES - Date of picture
BYTE - 71 (Start Population)
X BYTES - Population
BYTE - 71 (Start Funds)
X BYTES - City Funds
BYTE - 71 (Start Picture/Info Type)
X BYTES - Picture/INFO type (should be 27)
BYTE - 71 (Start picture info)
X BYTES - Picture info (Zoom,Rotation,X position,Z position)
BYTE - 71 (End File)

--------------- Region (Picture file name as data stored)

X BYTES - Region name
BYTE - 56 (-)
10 BYTES - Timestamp for Time picture was taken
BYTE - 55 (.)
3 BYTES - PNG

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Character Table

--Numbers 0-9
4b,4a,49,48,4f,4e,4d,4c,43,42

--Characters A-Z (capitals)
3a,39,38,3f,3e,3d,3c,33,32,31,30,37,36,35,34,2b,2a,29,28,2f,2e,2d,2c,23,22,21

--Characters a-z (lowercase)
1a,19,18,1f,1e,1d,1c,13,12,11,10,17,16,15,14,0b,0a,09,08,0f,0e,0d,0c,03,02,01

--Special Chars (table)
(space),- ,~ ,. , { ,} ,| ,` ,[ ,_ ,^ ,] ,\ ,@ ,; ,: ,? ,> ,= ,5b ,56,05,55,04,06,07,1b,20,24,25,26,27,3b,40,41,44,45,46,47
----------------------------
+ ,' ,) ,( ,/ ,, ,# , ,! ,* ,& ,% ,$
50,51,52,53,54,57,58,59,5a,5c,5d,5e,5f

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Karybdis 34]

Well, after chatting with Ardecila, he managed to talk me into working on the AE filetype, so here's a complete structural breakdown of it

 

--Header (8 bytes)
WORD
WORD
WORD
WORD - Size of the Index

--Index
WORD - Section 1 Count
WORD - Section 2 Count
WORD - Section 3 Count
WORD - Section 4 (Table) Count
DWORD - Section 1 Offset
DWORD - Section 2 Offset
DWORD - Section 3 Offset
DWORD - Section 4 Offset

--Section 1 (24 bytes each) (Repeating)
DWORD
DWORD
WORD
WORD
DWORD
WORD
WORD
WORD
WORD

--Section 2 (16 bytes each) (Repeating)
WORD
WORD
DWORD
WORD
WORD
WORD
WORD

--Section 3 (32 bytes Each) (Repeating)
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD
DWORD

--Section 4 (Tables - first 2 are 1024 bytes, Third is 484) (Repeating)
DWORD x 256 (for first 2)
or
DWORD x 121 (for the third)

--Section 4 (Aftertables) (Section 4 repeat times)
DWORD
DWORD (I Count++)

--Section 4 (I Counts) (Add up the value of all I Counts from the aftertables to get the count of DWORDS here)
DWORD x ICount

-----------------------------------------------------

 

We still dont know exactly what it does, but that's the way it stores its info.

[ardecila 125]

Date: 7/24/2005 12:43:59 AM
Author: Karybdis

We still dont know exactly what it does, but that's the way it stores its info.

quote>

Shush - that's my job. Now I gotta divide, cross-reference, and otherwise analyze the hell out of this thing.

[Karybdis 34]

<P>Spec Info and updates are now available at the Database wiki for SC4 modding at</P>

<DIV> http://www1.modthesims2.com/wiki/Simcity4modding </DIV>

<DIV>

[Ramona Brie 121]

I, Tracker, would like to proudly say that the complete formats of this list are going to FILExt, the file extension database! I submitted MXF already (given some original stuff off the site).

The formats going to FILExt:

.info
.del (.de-l or .del?)
.id

Tracker

[Karybdis 34]

whoa. why didnt this move to the top of the page...

actually delocalizers are only inside Dat's, so they arent really an extension.

[the_OUTCAST 4]

So what about MXF files? How to open it? =\

[mightygoose 92]

dude.... threadomancy.... 4 and a half years, please do not revive old threads.... unless you have a significant contributon to make...

[PeterSweet 5]

How to get a work about Effect Dir Script, so please help me how to do it with LUA file to eff.file works then?

I am learning difficult about the scripts how to do it to get a working on the scripting with Effect Dir file on ilive reader.

[simonpat 7]

On 1/17/2010 at 6:24 AM, mightygoose said:

dude.... threadomancy.... 4 and a half years, please do not revive old threads.... unless you have a significant contributon to make...

I'll necro this thread... with a significant contribution: I have decoded MXF files. As it turns out, MXF files are really simple, and I even was able to convert https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico to a working MXF (picture attached).

I created https://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=MXF with the details, but I will copy the definition here:

CHAR[4]
 Magic Identifier. Always "MXFN"
DWORD
 Unknown Bytes. Always "02 62 5A 00" in SimCity 4
BYTE
 Mask Byte. Always 0x9D in SimCity 4

Following this, the remainder of the data is an enciphered font blob, padded out to the next multiple of (decimal) 10000 bytes with random data. This isn't checked by the game, and is apparently only an anti-reverse enginering feature, so modded fonts can leave this padding off.

The enciphered font blob is a standard font (PFB or TTF) that has been xor'd with the mask byte.

 

See the wiki for the python script I used to convert pacifico to mxf for the attached screenshot.

 

[deezedgod 177]

On 11/27/2022 at 12:49 PM, simonpat said:

I'll necro this thread... with a significant contribution: I have decoded MXF files. As it turns out, MXF files are really simple, and I even was able to convert https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico to a working MXF (picture attached).

What a discovery! Who's going to be the first to make SimCity 4: Comic Sans edition?

[mightygoose 92]

On 27/11/2022 at 5:49 AM, simonpat said:

I'll necro this thread... with a significant contribution: I have decoded MXF files. As it turns out, MXF files are really simple, and I even was able to convert https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico to a working MXF (picture attached).

I created https://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=MXF with the details, but I will copy the definition here:

CHAR[4]
 Magic Identifier. Always "MXFN"
DWORD
 Unknown Bytes. Always "02 62 5A 00" in SimCity 4
BYTE
 Mask Byte. Always 0x9D in SimCity 4

Following this, the remainder of the data is an enciphered font blob, padded out to the next multiple of (decimal) 10000 bytes with random data. This isn't checked by the game, and is apparently only an anti-reverse enginering feature, so modded fonts can leave this padding off.

The enciphered font blob is a standard font (PFB or TTF) that has been xor'd with the mask byte.

 

See the wiki for the python script I used to convert pacifico to mxf for the attached screenshot.

 

This is the way!

[Shadow Assassin 336]

On 11/28/2022 at 4:56 PM, deezedgod said:

What a discovery! Who's going to be the first to make SimCity 4: Comic Sans edition?

 

 

Also - this is relevant to the discussion, but a lot of work has been done over at SC4D's Discord by a few of us deciphering the SC4 save game file structure.

-SA

[Propfam 2,305]

On 11/27/2022 at 12:49 PM, simonpat said:

MXF files

Off topic but MXF is another format used in the cinematography world, right?

[Null 45 3,114]

2 hours ago, Jidan said:

Off topic but MXF is another format used in the cinematography world, right?

They are probably different formats. The MXF format used in SC4 is an enciphered font format, MXF is probably short for MaXis Font.