Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Ben75
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Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby Ben75 » Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:48 am

http://www.footballidiot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3808&p=17172&hilit=stock+playbook#p17172

I came across this old thread which discusses how you can retrieve a stock playbook from memory after a crash. Has anybody successfully done this? I'd like to try but I'm not clear on exactly what to do.

This would be very helpful in figuring out what the PBAI values stand for....

Thanks

Uncompressed, stock playbook?

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mike9472
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby mike9472 » Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:46 am

I get the part about putting the playbook into the uniforms.dat, you'd use dat file replacer to do that. Would've been nice if stingray mentioned what program to use to get it out of memory.

Ben75
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby Ben75 » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:39 pm

I feel silly, now. Actually, the file itself is a .db file that can be opened in the db editor. I assumed it was a .dat file.

Anyway, it still won't open in Pacfan's playbook editor. For some reason there are way more fields in the ARTL table than are in a standard custom playbook, and when you swap in that table, the playbook editor is unable to open it.

I'm sifting through the tables to find out what plays have which AIGR tags, and will construct the exact same playbook and set the PBAI tags to what they are in the stock playbook. I'll post it then and perhaps we can learn something about these defensive AI tags. I've already learned a little bit from experimenting on my own. As with the offensive tags, some of them are mislabeled in Pacfan's editor. Hopefully, we can correct those.

It would be nice if someone knew how to get an stock offensive playbook using the same method described in the link. I searched the web for a program that would extract data from ram but didn't find anything, really.

mike9472
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby mike9472 » Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:56 am

I was able to open it with Packfan0820's older Defensive Playbook Editor 1.0 but the Madden Playbook Editor 1.2 crashes right away.

I re-read Stingrays post, he mentions putting the compressed playbook into the uniforms.dat. I checked out Madden Uniform Editor and Ripper 1.5 and it has a rip memory feature in the tools menu. I have no clue how to use the feature, it asks for a start and end address (hex)????

It'd be awesome if someone could figure it out.

JDHalfrack
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby JDHalfrack » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:32 am

mike9472 wrote:I get the part about putting the playbook into the uniforms.dat, you'd use dat file replacer to do that. Would've been nice if stingray mentioned what program to use to get it out of memory.


In his defense, he didn't know the program used. I did it, not Stingray. I used an unreleased version of the MUER (an old program I wrote if you guys don;t remember). Anyway, I had created a function to pull memory chunks out of Madden regardless of what the memory was. I never realized it's true potential until I was farting around one day with a crashed Madden.

I have really meant to just pull ALL of the playbooks UNCOMPRESSED out of the Gamedata.dat, but it's time consuming and I really just assumed that Madden '08 and earlier was dead.

Someday I may get around to doing it again... but having a kid slowed me down. Having two has completely stopped me.

JD

JDHalfrack
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby JDHalfrack » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:40 am

mike9472 wrote:I re-read Stingrays post, he mentions putting the compressed playbook into the uniforms.dat. I checked out Madden Uniform Editor and Ripper 1.5 and it has a rip memory feature in the tools menu. I have no clue how to use the feature, it asks for a start and end address (hex)????

It'd be awesome if someone could figure it out.



Okay, wait, maybe you guys can do it. I should have read the entire post before I made my last comment.

Anyway, the way I THINK I did it (it was like a year ago) was to do the following:

- Use the Dat File Replacer (DFR) to pull out what ever playbook you want from the GameData.dat file.

- Now, use the DFR and replace EVERY uniform file in the UNIFORMS.dat file with the pulled out playbook from the GameData.dat file.

- Load Madden and wait for the crash.

- When the Message Box pops up saying that Madden has crashed would you like to Debug or Cancel (or whatever it says) DO NOTHING!

- Load up the MUER, and go to Uniform File --> Rip Uniforms From Madden '08 --> Rip Home Team Jersey

- Save it as whatever name and file extension you would like, but it will actually be an uncompressed DEFAULT playbook (which is a loadable, editable DB file)

- After verifying that it did in fact work, close Madden down

Try that and see if it works.

Good Luck! And Happy Editing!

JD

mike9472
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby mike9472 » Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:01 am

Awesome! Thanks for the info JD. Any idea why Packfan0820's Madden Playbook Editor 1.2 crashes when trying to open the playbook? It works with the older Defensive Playbook Editor 1.0 but the 1.2 is easier to work with. Especially when editing the playbook A.I. I compared the ripped bears defensive playbook with a custom playbook from within a hex editor. I noticed a couple small differences at the beginning of the file, but I really have no clue what I'm doing. Thought maybe it would be like editing a PS2 franchise, you have to delete the first 4 characters with a hex editor before you can load the franchise into db editor.

JDHalfrack
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby JDHalfrack » Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:12 am

Honestly, I am not sure. It could be a number of things, honestly. I was not aware it was an issue with his editor. But I may have the older version. Truthfully, I would just say experiment with some things.


Hmmm.... actually.... I wonder if using the "Rip Home Jersey" option actually works.... or if you DO have to manually rip it using the Rip Memory option.... Geez... I have no idea it's been so long. That may be the problem. In fact... I think that using the Rip Home Jersey thing is actually the WRONG way to do it... It will try to make adjustments to the file that don't need to be made. Dangit.

Unfortunately, I need to get to bed. Otherwise, I would knock out a program here to help. But, I can't right now. Sorry :(

I'm just afraid that if I don't do it this weekend, I may not get back to it again for another 6 months...

JD

Ben75
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby Ben75 » Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:46 am

I noticed that the ARTL table has way more fields in the stock playbook than a custom playbook generated in-game, for some reason. Perhaps this is the reason why.

Thanks for the info, JD. I'm gonna give your method a shot.

I'm trying to find PSAL values for the QB foot plant animation after a drop back. When you pull plays using the in-game editor, the animation is omitted, for some reason. This has always bugged me. Looking at a stock offensive playbook might help.

EDIT: Just noticed that when you insert a custom playbook into GAMEDATA.dat, the foot plant animation shows up. Funny, it won't appear when using it as a custom playbook, though.

JDHalfrack
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Re: Uncompressed, stock playbook?

Postby JDHalfrack » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:43 am

Okay, try this program. It includes instructions on how to rip a playbook and a button that will rip it after following the instructions.

Behind the scenes, I can tell it's actually not ripping the playbooks 100% correctly, but that's actually Madden's fault. It adds a random string of bytes of 00's at the end of the playbook file, but it also accounts for that in the file size section in the playbook's header. However, because the Playbook Ripper is using Madden's engines to decompress the file, the playbooks appear to be working within Madden after being decompressed.

Anyway, mess around with it and see if you can get it to work. And, yes, I believe you are right. There is extra information in the stock playbooks that was unknown when PackFan made his awesome playbook editor. While being able to pull any compressed file out of Madden is pretty sweet (although time consuming), by biggest regret is that I failed to realize I could do it until after Football-Freaks shut down and the excitement of modding Madden died down :(

Imagine what we could have accomplished if we would have known that we could have done that back then!

Well, enjoy, and keep me informed! I am free this weekend to check in and stuff, but once Monday hits, I'm probably going to disappear for another 4 months...

JD
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Playbook Ripper.zip
Use this file to rip playbooks from Madden. Use the on screen instructions!
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