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I've been trying to find a tutorial on the internet for hexing. My friend who has Mac says its a lot easier and faster once you get the hang of it, but since hexidecimal coding is differen't on Mac then it is on PC, I was wondering if anyone knew and would make a tutorial?
(I know what some of you might be thinking, but its not for unprotecting maps, I want to do triggers with it)

Hope your in for a long ride.

It's faster than when you first try sure, but it's not faster than using a good editor.

Thanks man, thats a lot of help
Read the little note at the top, "To those giving help:".
lol

I tried a little hexing. I doubt it can be explained by none other than Clokr_ himself, because we're all map makers

Thanx Yoshi, that helps (thats what I call assistance )

All I can tell you, is this:

Our current number system is decimal, which has 10 numbers that goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Hexing is 16 numbers, which goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F.

I might be wrong about the exact numbers up there, because its been a while since I learned it

Well I know that much but your kinda right
Its like this:

01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,0A,0B,0C,0D,0E,0F

(that much im sure of, although I am wrong a lot of the time)

Then I think it goes

11,12,13,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,1A,1B,1C,1D,1E,1F

Well yeah, and 0x20 in hex (refer to as 0x## to indicate hex values is common practice) is equal to 32 in decimal. But I don't know how you're going to work faster using hex editing. You have to find the offset where the triggers are stored, then change the values one by one to create triggers. Most are just multiple switches that indicate which option it uses (eg the player options has 4 bytes, each bit in there sets a different player to be one of the players selected) and then there is a value that indicates a condition, and several values after that, length depending what their value is, some referring to the strings table, then some blank conditions (there are always 16 conditions but some can be blank) and then actions, which have the same thing.

So it seems as though hexing is a waste of time? Or it can be faster? Or should I just not look into it or what?

Spare me the crap please. I can't tell you from experience cause I don't hex edit. But i do know learning to hex edit is a long process. Anything that can be done with a hex editor can be accomplished with our current map editors available to us. So hex editing SC maps is kind of pointless, its not like your going to discover something new where experienced hex editors have failed.

Triggers are hard coded into Starcraft you can't hex edit a map to change triggers to your liking, as in creating new ones.
I know hexadecimal numbers and sort of know how to use a hex editing program but beyond that and extracting the CHK I don't have a clue about the specifics. At least I know how far in over my head I am.

If your interested in learning to hex edit I would suggest this site witch has a lot of chk format stuff on it.
http://www.campaigncreations.org/starcraft...aft/index.shtml

Other than that I think your at the wrong site. Go ahead and talk to SI or Clokr_ here. But I kind of doubt they will be willing to spend all the time to teach you to hex edit. (especially SI)



If you think spending weeks to learn hex editing then possably a hour on every trigger is faster. Then no its not a waist of time.

Wooh man don't need to get so defensive, just a little joke. Thank you for the link and I am in the right place, I just wanna broaden my alternatives to SC-Xtra or SF. I just wanna learn how to hex.

Ok, learning to hex won't make you any better of a mapmaker. As long as you know that go ahead suit yourself.

I just feel you have no idea of the extent of the question your asking. Its like your asking for some one to teach you how to use adobe photoshop with one paragraph of text.

Yo sorry for the comment above, but I do know what I'm getting into. As soon as mp)nuclear told me to open a map I made I saw all the numbers, all the code, and yes I was a little frightned But it would be great to know how to use hexidicimal coding (personly, thats what I think) The link you gave me above is great, thanx a lot, I just need know learn now where the trigger coding is and s t so thanx for the concern but I was just wondering if there was someone who even knew of a turorial.

I told you the possibilities of hex editing triggers, it is make everything harder, using SF you can get everything you can do hex editing, if you still want to learn hex editing I'll help you, I like helping =)

Hey Clokr_ Match made in heaven! .. er... i mean Yeah cause I love learning! i do still wanna learn Please teach?

.. Quoterific , anyway , is hex editing to make triggers or is that what you use to make map editors , cuz i might just have enough time to lose to try that lol

Damn, this is one hell of a quote, but... I'm not sure about making programs with hex (you probably could) but you can definately use it for triggers. You could probably make a whole map with hex (except terrain,doodads,locations,andunit placing...)... ... ok maybe just the triggers.

You could make the whole map with hex including those things. Its not like making it in hex would do anyting other than slow you down ALOT.

lol. then how DO you make editors? I know alot of forms of coding and im good at learning so could someone give me a push in the right direction?

Well the first thing you would probably want to do is find out as much of the file format as possible so you can read it into your program and display it correctly, you would also need to be able to read from Starcraft's MPQs but it's just like writing any other program that displays something.

First, you'll need the program to be able to get the .chk out of the .scm/.scx file.
Then, you'll need to be able to read the data from the .chk and be able to edit/add to it.
You'll probably want the .chk file format specs... and you're in luck because I found them on Campaign Creations awhile ago and I'll attach them here.

Once I learn WinAPI and I make SCMIE2 WINDOW MODE I'll start to program a dll that I'll call ScmLib. I'll give info and support about it so everybody will be able to make an editor with low-medium programming skills. It will handle everything: graphics, mpqs, etc, but I don't know how crappy/buggy it will be

Well, "hexing" is really a broad term. It really means editing anything in hex, so everyone's best guess here is that you're referring to creating StarCraft maps in hex...

In which case, as everyone has said, it really doesn't help you all that much. It's like editing a movie or an image in hex: it can be done, the file format is understood, but it really doesn't accomplish anything that you could do within a map editor. Yes, the .chk map format is understood (except for the isometrics section and some other section, which I believe only SI and maybe Heimdal and Clokr_ fully understand since the specs haven't been publicly written/released).

Probably the only thing you might accomplish by learning how to hex edit StarCraft maps is gaining some knowledge which can be used to code a StarCraft map editor (however, you'll also need to learn a programming language which is significantly harder). Most of the time, hex editing StarCraft maps is only used for "evil" purposes like unprotecting maps, but we're not allowed to talk about that here.

Oh, and there's no such thing as "hexadecimal coding" (as in, coding something with a hex editor) unless you're talking about ASM coding, which is completely different from what you might want to learn (editing StarCraft maps). Besides, there are probably few to none people in the world who can purely do ASM using just a hex editor.

In short, I'm basically agreeing to what (U)Bolt_Head has to say, but with an addition: nobody hex-edits StarCraft maps to be a better map maker (you won't, trust me).

he probably wants to hex to unprotect maps
hexing is hard and it wont help you make better maps. starforge is good enough

it will take a long time to learn how to hex well and fast
so if your not up to it, then you should probably not try