Mix format questions

Josh Is 25% Larger · Vehicle Drone **Joined**: 17 Apr 2013

The tutorials on the xcc page is poorly written imo. Dont really get it.

Anyway, could someone give me a hint, or just a quote from Olafs page that explain how to extract a file from the mix without reading anything from the header?

PillBox20 · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:27 pm Post subject:

Open the XCC Mixer, find the file you want and right click on it, then extract....

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Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

I'm sure he means programming wise, not with a tool like XCC Mixer.

@the 25% bigger Josh:
do you read this?
If you're a programmer, then i think it is understandable.

Or check out the XCC source code

Josh Is 25% Larger wrote:

how to extract a file from the mix without reading anything from the header?

What do you mean? The header is telling you where you can find the file. How do you want to extract one if you don't know where it is?
So reading the header is obviously necessary.

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Blade · Cyborg Commando **Joined**: 23 Dec 2003

I'm guessing he means from a "protected" mix file where the body size is corrupt. Basically you read the number of files in the mix (5th and 6th byte in the file as a uint16) and based on that can work out the header index size and read until you find the index for the file you want. Then knowing the size of the header (10 + (12 * number of files) bytes) you add that to the file offset the index entry for the file you are interested in and read the number of bytes that the size in the index entry tells you. A malformed mix could cause you to over read, but then it would probably crash the game too.

Josh Is 25% Larger · Vehicle Drone **Joined**: 17 Apr 2013

AFAIK, the Mix format is the following:

Code:

[Header]
  A bunch of data...
[/Header]
[Body]
   [Cell]
   File Size
   File Data
   [/Cell]
   [Cell]
   File Size
   File Data
   [/Cell]
[/Body]

Correct me if I am wrong.

Further more, Blade is right. The reason I dont want to touch the header is because people corrupt to protect their mixes.

AFAIK, the game(ra2/yr/ts) dont care about the header when reading a mix, which is why people can corrupt it and still work fine when playing.

Blade · Cyborg Commando **Joined**: 23 Dec 2003

No, its not formatted like that, you have mis-understood something. Why do you need to know this anyway? Am I to assume you are trying to extract assets that are in a protected mix rather than trying to write a mix handling application?
If so, there are already tools that will do that, but people protected the mixes for a reason and they have copyright over the contents of those mixes so whether you like it or not you need permission to use them. While EA hasn't given explicit permission, they haven't bothered to persue people using the assets and derived works from the original files, but that doesn't make any files held in a mix free game to use as you will.
I am of the opinion that people should be more open with the work they make, expecially since none of this is done for profit, but its their choice and I respect that even if I don't agree.

RP · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:43 pm Post subject:

The game does care about the header, how would it find and read files if it doesn't know where they are?
If you don't even get this, then I wish you all the best of luck trying to crack a mix.

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/ppm/'s stupidity

Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

I was informed that Josh doesn't care about "exclusive" assets and it seems he wouldn't mind ripping/stealing assets too.

TI and DTA mix files aren't protected and without my permission I would not want anybody to take assets that I've created for these Mods to use in their own public mod. I don't care about private mods as long as they stay private.

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X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

Tools
Image Shaper______TMP Shop______C&C Executable Modifier