How To Work Out File Formats?

[scruffyduck]

OK this is just a question from me to all you guys who have slaved over the file format in FS.

I wonder what method you use to go about it. I must admit that looking at a jumble of Hex codes leaves me quite bemused and not knowing really how to start. I feel I should be better at it so I would appreciate you thoughts :)

Thanks in Advance

[arno]

Hi Jon,

For my explorations of the MDL format it is basically staring at the hex stuff :). And then comparing it with the ASM (Fs2004 gamepack) or XML (XtoMDL) source to see if I can find the logic in the hex values.

After a while it usually starts to make sense to me, how it is stored in the binary format. But I think the most important is to have some sort of information on what should be stored in the file (like a source file or another description).

[lmoelleb]

Same here. It also helps if you have a compiler going from for example XML to the binary format. Then you can change a single value and see what happens.

[arno]

Yes, of course I forgot that one. Unfortunately there is no such compiler for the new MDL format (yet). So it will become changing stuff in GMax in that case.