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Heroes Community > Heroes 4 - Lands of Axeoth > Thread: How can i open campaigns maps?
Thread: How can i open campaigns maps? This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT»
AlfWithCake
AlfWithCake


Known Hero
posted September 24, 2021 09:28 PM

NimoStar said:

Every campaign since I have made remastered versions of all original and expansions.


Did you really remaster each campaign? In your greatest mod you only made copy, I noticed no changes. Still was fun to test some campaigns

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NimoStar
NimoStar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
posted September 24, 2021 10:03 PM
Edited by NimoStar at 22:03, 24 Sep 2021.

There were changes. If you play the Might campaign of Winds of War, for example, you will get Devils instead of Frenzied Gnasher (since Gnashers have been degraded). And there are a lot of things like that. Besides, landscaping.

The Ultimate campaigns have been further upgraded with difficulty enhancements, better bopss fights in some cases, much more landscaping detail, and some activated/added events and fixes.

I could post screenshots, but those are better on my mod page rather than here.
____________
Never changing = never improving

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted September 25, 2021 02:34 AM

NimoStar said:
No, it's not the "original unmodded table" (that one is easy), it's the table used in Greatest Mod whose original (unpacked) file I lost.

To continue modding, I need to be able to edit it but that is no longer possible as the only remaining version is packed in an h4r made with resedit2 (unopenable)


Which h4r file? Is it in the download for the greatest mod on moddb??

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted April 17, 2022 08:49 PM

HOMM4 .h4r and .h4c

Maybe this question was asked billion times.
But I wasted 3 hours looking for an answer.

Question is>

Is there a tool that can>
Extract .h4r (ANY .h4r package)
- In order to edit .h4c campaign maps
Then those edited .h4c maps back inside original .h4r package.

SPECIFICALLY HOMM4.
Many recommended tools such as
H4 Resource Editor--- Unfortunately for whatever reason I do not know if this tool can pack stuff inside. Extract, yes. Import? No.
Perhaps Im doing something wrong. Help would be lovely.

mh4--- Again only good for extracting.

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted April 17, 2022 10:04 PM

BlackVuk said:
Maybe this question was asked billion times.
But I wasted 3 hours looking for an answer.

Question is>

Is there a tool that can>
Extract .h4r (ANY .h4r package)
- In order to edit .h4c campaign maps
Then those edited .h4c maps back inside original .h4r package.

SPECIFICALLY HOMM4.
Many recommended tools such as
H4 Resource Editor--- Unfortunately for whatever reason I do not know if this tool can pack stuff inside. Extract, yes. Import? No.
Perhaps Im doing something wrong. Help would be lovely.

mh4--- Again only good for extracting.



The H4 resource editor can pack h4r files. It's generally best practice to create a new.h4r or new_mod.h4r so as to not mess with the actual game files and override what you want, but the resource editor can add to existing h4r files.. as long as the file doesn't already exist in the h4r container.

I haven't gotten around to removing files from an h4r yet, but I hope to at some point. It's just not as trivial as you would think it is.

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karmakeld
karmakeld


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted April 18, 2022 09:54 AM

BlackVuk said:
Maybe this question was asked billion times.
But I wasted 3 hours looking for an answer.

Question is>

Is there a tool that can>
Extract .h4r (ANY .h4r package)
- In order to edit .h4c campaign maps
Then those edited .h4c maps back inside original .h4r package.

SPECIFICALLY HOMM4.
Many recommended tools such as
H4 Resource Editor--- Unfortunately for whatever reason I do not know if this tool can pack stuff inside. Extract, yes. Import? No.
Perhaps Im doing something wrong. Help would be lovely.

mh4--- Again only good for extracting.



I strongly recommend the Resource editor aswell, but the mh4 program can pack h4r files, but it's not stright forward. This is just from memory, but..
You need to create a txt file and name it, what you want the h4r file to be named, e.g new_mod.txt
Then at the top you need to type
[new_mod.h4r]
Type in the number matching the total amount of files you want to add e.g 2

Then list all the file names that is to be packed, like so:
Windmill.obj
Portraits.lay etc.

Place alle the files and the txt file in the same folder as the txt file. Then you can pack a new h4r file.
And you may wanna back up your txt file if you wish to add futher, as that one get turned into the h4r file, so you need to make a new one if you want to add more at a later point.
____________

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted April 26, 2022 08:38 PM
Edited by BlackVuk at 21:26, 26 Apr 2022.

Thank you kindly for the helpings. I'll certainly try again.

My most irk is with barbarian(might) campaign on champion difficulty. Just want to add some form of healing without cheating. As I find absolute time waste to play a map for 24months -ingame in order to proceed.

EDIT-
I see where I made a mistake. I tried to add edited map back into the container and it broke the whole package.

So it is best practice to extract everything out of the container?
And then edit maps to my preference and then all those extracted+edited maps back in the new container (name file doesn't matter, we certainly have to rename like OG and keep OG container somewhere safe).

Again thanks for help. I am in the middle of doing just that. I'll edit post later to inform you of my success.

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted April 26, 2022 09:16 PM

BlackVuk said:
Thank you kindly for the helpings. I'll certainly try again.

My most irk is with barbarian(might) campaign on champion difficulty. Just want to add some form of healing without cheating. As I find absolute time waste to play a map for 24months -ingame in order to proceed.

EDIT-
I see where I made a mistake. I tried to add edited map back into the container and it broke the whole package.

So it is best practice to extract everything out of the container?
And then edit maps to my preference and then all those extracted+edited maps back in the new container (name file doesn't matter, we certainly have to rename like OG and keep OG container somewhere safe).

Again thanks for help. I am in the middle of doing just that. I'll edit post later to inform you of my success.


Yeah best practice is to extract the maps, edit them, and then add them into a completely new h4r container.

The name does matter. For WoW you should name your h4r container "new.h4r", and for Equilibris it should be "new_mod.h4r"

Once you drop the h4r container in the Data folder, the h4c map files you have edited and packed into the container will override the ones in the other game h4r files.

If you want to test it, simply add a display message on the first day of the first map to see that this works

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted April 26, 2022 09:31 PM
Edited by BlackVuk at 21:52, 26 Apr 2022.

iliveinabox05 said:

Yeah best practice is to extract the maps, edit them, and then add them into a completely new h4r container.

The name does matter. For WoW you should name your h4r container "new.h4r", and for Equilibris it should be "new_mod.h4r"

Once you drop the h4r container in the Data folder, the h4c map files you have edited and packed into the container will override the ones in the other game h4r files.

If you want to test it, simply add a display message on the first day of the first map to see that this works

------
I made a bit of a stump.
So inside .h4r container for campaign there is another container .h4d

Naturally the tool  extract directly from .h4r container the elusive maps .h4c

How do I create .h4d container?
When I go to File -> New. I only have options for container .h4r and action object and actor sequence.

Is it the same compression ratio between .h4r and .h4d?
Like creating false .h4r and just rename to proper .h4d?

Nevermind the tool does it for me. It puts in the correct path order. I think. It looks like it. Bit odd but convenient.

I can directly add .h4c in the resourceEditor, yes?

UGH this will take FOREVER. But tnx again.

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted April 26, 2022 11:50 PM
Edited by iliveinabox05 at 23:52, 26 Apr 2022.

BlackVuk said:

I made a bit of a stump.
So inside .h4r container for campaign there is another container .h4d

Naturally the tool  extract directly from .h4r container the elusive maps .h4c

How do I create .h4d container?
When I go to File -> New. I only have options for container .h4r and action object and actor sequence.

Is it the same compression ratio between .h4r and .h4d?
Like creating false .h4r and just rename to proper .h4d?

Nevermind the tool does it for me. It puts in the correct path order. I think. It looks like it. Bit odd but convenient.

I can directly add .h4c in the resourceEditor, yes?

UGH this will take FOREVER. But tnx again.


Here is what you want to do, step by step:

1) Extract h4c files. As you said, the resource editor will extract the game maps as .h4c files.
2) Edit the h4c files.
3) Start up the resource editor and select File->New, h4r container (now you are working with a blank h4r container)
4) Select File->Add, and add the h4c files one at a time. If you have all of your h4c files in a single directory (with no other h4d files), you can File->Add All and select the directory where the h4c files live.
5) File->Save As and name it either new.h4r or new_mod.h4r (WoW or Equi)
6) Copy your h4r container to the Data folder
7) Start game and profit

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NimoStar
NimoStar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
posted April 28, 2022 01:12 PM

except the program still added the unnecessary and wrong bytes thus the campaigns are unplayable after repacking, last I checked. When fix? Can we haz fix'?
____________
Never changing = never improving

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted April 28, 2022 05:00 PM

NimoStar said:
except the program still added the unnecessary and wrong bytes thus the campaigns are unplayable after repacking, last I checked. When fix? Can we haz fix'?


It's been working for me without fail every time for quite a while now. I guess it's possible I somehow didn't upload that update forever ago, so I'll check after work.

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2022 09:54 PM

Yeah I have to agree. Program simply do not repack the extracted stuff back in the container correctly.

Thus the difference in the package size.

Other than that, I also gave up notion of editing the campaigns simply for practical reasons. Too much time and too much things that can go horribly wrong.

I mean, I don't want to cheat, just make the game a little more practical in champion mode. And all that nonce I need 4-8 hours hoping I didn't mess the file order in the package. Just to be greeted with fail.
Quite disheartening. But!
Thanks ya'll for helpings. The thought counts for sure.

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted May 04, 2022 10:44 PM
Edited by iliveinabox05 at 22:44, 04 May 2022.

BlackVuk said:
Yeah I have to agree. Program simply do not repack the extracted stuff back in the container correctly.

Thus the difference in the package size.

Other than that, I also gave up notion of editing the campaigns simply for practical reasons. Too much time and too much things that can go horribly wrong.

I mean, I don't want to cheat, just make the game a little more practical in champion mode. And all that nonce I need 4-8 hours hoping I didn't mess the file order in the package. Just to be greeted with fail.
Quite disheartening. But!
Thanks ya'll for helpings. The thought counts for sure.


Hmm, I've had zero issues with it, so not sure what's going on.

From your quote above it sounds like you're still trying to pack it back into heroes4.h4r or one of the other game files, which will not work. Also not sure about what you mean when you say the difference in package size.

I'll take a few minutes when I get home tonight to test out the currently available resource editor to see if I just for some reason didn't upload a version with this working.

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted May 04, 2022 11:19 PM
Edited by BlackVuk at 23:19, 04 May 2022.

[spoiler]
iliveinabox05 said:
BlackVuk said:
Yeah I have to agree. Program simply do not repack the extracted stuff back in the container correctly.

Thus the difference in the package size.

Other than that, I also gave up notion of editing the campaigns simply for practical reasons. Too much time and too much things that can go horribly wrong.

I mean, I don't want to cheat, just make the game a little more practical in champion mode. And all that nonce I need 4-8 hours hoping I didn't mess the file order in the package. Just to be greeted with fail.
Quite disheartening. But!
Thanks ya'll for helpings. The thought counts for sure.


Hmm, I've had zero issues with it, so not sure what's going on.

From your quote above it sounds like you're still trying to pack it back into heroes4.h4r or one of the other game files, which will not work. Also not sure about what you mean when you say the difference in package size.

I'll take a few minutes when I get home tonight to test out the currently available resource editor to see if I just for some reason didn't upload a version with this working.
[/spoiler]

Well, first things first.
There are two ways to extract stuff.
-Keep directory structure
--Single directory

If I take first option, its beyond unpractical, or I do something wrong, because program outright refuse to add extracted content from anything other than final folder container.
And Im not gonna repeat that thing 1000 times from all the folders that are extracted because I wanted to change single mission/s adding hero with regeneration or something stupid like that.

And if I go Single directory option, then it's much more manageable, however, the issue i get is... after adding "layers", the program just stops adding last three folders. Does nothing. Can't add, extract, save. I checked memory, it was fine 55%. i thought my RAM run out.

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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted May 04, 2022 11:25 PM
Edited by iliveinabox05 at 23:54, 04 May 2022.

BlackVuk said:
[spoiler]
iliveinabox05 said:
BlackVuk said:
Yeah I have to agree. Program simply do not repack the extracted stuff back in the container correctly.

Thus the difference in the package size.

Other than that, I also gave up notion of editing the campaigns simply for practical reasons. Too much time and too much things that can go horribly wrong.

I mean, I don't want to cheat, just make the game a little more practical in champion mode. And all that nonce I need 4-8 hours hoping I didn't mess the file order in the package. Just to be greeted with fail.
Quite disheartening. But!
Thanks ya'll for helpings. The thought counts for sure.


Hmm, I've had zero issues with it, so not sure what's going on.

From your quote above it sounds like you're still trying to pack it back into heroes4.h4r or one of the other game files, which will not work. Also not sure about what you mean when you say the difference in package size.

I'll take a few minutes when I get home tonight to test out the currently available resource editor to see if I just for some reason didn't upload a version with this working.
[/spoiler]

Well, first things first.
There are two ways to extract stuff.
-Keep directory structure
--Single directory

If I take first option, its beyond unpractical, or I do something wrong, because program outright refuse to add extracted content from anything other than final folder container.
And Im not gonna repeat that thing 1000 times from all the folders that are extracted because I wanted to change single mission/s adding hero with regeneration or something stupid like that.

And if I go Single directory option, then it's much more manageable, however, the issue i get is... after adding "layers", the program just stops adding last three folders. Does nothing. Can't add, extract, save. I checked memory, it was fine 55%. i thought my RAM run out.


I have no idea what you're trying to do. Maybe I have options available that shouldn't be, but the only thing you need to do to extract is navigate to the game maps, then right click each one and select extract..

Are you trying to extract the entire h4r file? Don't do that Simply use the + to expand the list of files and go extract the game maps individually.

Edit. Also I think maybe I only implemented correctly extracting the game maps if they are selected individually and extracted via right click -> extract. I think I would probably also need to look at extracting more than one game file at a time via the multi-h4d extract approach.

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted May 05, 2022 12:41 AM
Edited by BlackVuk at 00:42, 05 May 2022.

iliveinabox05 said:


I have no idea what you're trying to do. Maybe I have options available that shouldn't be, but the only thing you need to do to extract is navigate to the game maps, then right click each one and select extract..

Are you trying to extract the entire h4r file? Don't do that Simply use the + to expand the list of files and go extract the game maps individually.

Edit. Also I think maybe I only implemented correctly extracting the game maps if they are selected individually and extracted via right click -> extract. I think I would probably also need to look at extracting more than one game file at a time via the multi-h4d extract approach.


Then I making something horribly wrong.
Yes. I extract entire package, since ya'll told me I can't add stuff inside already existing package.

And I need to create new package.
My logic was, that I need to extract everything up, edit the maps ONLY, and then add back everything extracted in the new package+ edited maps ofc, in order to pack things up and work.


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iliveinabox05
iliveinabox05


Honorable
Famous Hero
posted May 05, 2022 12:55 AM
Edited by iliveinabox05 at 00:56, 05 May 2022.

BlackVuk said:
iliveinabox05 said:


I have no idea what you're trying to do. Maybe I have options available that shouldn't be, but the only thing you need to do to extract is navigate to the game maps, then right click each one and select extract..

Are you trying to extract the entire h4r file? Don't do that Simply use the + to expand the list of files and go extract the game maps individually.

Edit. Also I think maybe I only implemented correctly extracting the game maps if they are selected individually and extracted via right click -> extract. I think I would probably also need to look at extracting more than one game file at a time via the multi-h4d extract approach.


Then I making something horribly wrong.
Yes. I extract entire package, since ya'll told me I can't add stuff inside already existing package.

And I need to create new package.
My logic was, that I need to extract everything up, edit the maps ONLY, and then add back everything extracted in the new package+ edited maps ofc, in order to pack things up and work.




Ah I see, a misunderstanding!

I'll take some screenshots for you and post them so you can see what I mean.

The gist of it is this:

1) Extract the game maps individually from the game h4r file, such as heroes4.h4r for the base campaigns.
2) Open the maps in the game editor and make your edits
3) Create a new h4r container using the resource editor and add ONLY the edited maps to it.
4) Save the h4r file as new.h4r for WoW or new_mod.h4r for Equilibris.

The extracting and packing should take almost no time at all. The only thing that will take any time is making the edits you want to the maps using the h4 editor.

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BlackVuk
BlackVuk

Tavern Dweller
posted May 05, 2022 01:40 AM

iliveinabox05 said:


Ah I see, a misunderstanding!

I'll take some screenshots for you and post them so you can see what I mean.

The gist of it is this:

1) Extract the game maps individually from the game h4r file, such as heroes4.h4r for the base campaigns.
2) Open the maps in the game editor and make your edits
3) Create a new h4r container using the resource editor and add ONLY the edited maps to it.
4) Save the h4r file as new.h4r for WoW or new_mod.h4r for Equilibris.

The extracting and packing should take almost no time at all. The only thing that will take any time is making the edits you want to the maps using the h4 editor.


Welp that is easy peasy for sure. But how that works?
How will game read those edited maps?
As a mod? as a standalone scenario? This needs tutorial for sure. Too much presumptions even on some things you'd find it logical.

It won't do me as a standalone scenario, or a separate mod, would kill my vibe playing custom stuff. I mean, in case of scenario for example, putting maps back in the container would even be unnecessary, just slap in the scenario folder then.

I am of confusion.

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karmakeld
karmakeld


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted May 05, 2022 08:39 AM

BlackVuk said:
iliveinabox05 said:


Ah I see, a misunderstanding!

I'll take some screenshots for you and post them so you can see what I mean.

The gist of it is this:

1) Extract the game maps individually from the game h4r file, such as heroes4.h4r for the base campaigns.
2) Open the maps in the game editor and make your edits
3) Create a new h4r container using the resource editor and add ONLY the edited maps to it.
4) Save the h4r file as new.h4r for WoW or new_mod.h4r for Equilibris.

The extracting and packing should take almost no time at all. The only thing that will take any time is making the edits you want to the maps using the h4 editor.


Welp that is easy peasy for sure. But how that works?
How will game read those edited maps?
As a mod? as a standalone scenario? This needs tutorial for sure. Too much presumptions even on some things you'd find it logical.

It won't do me as a standalone scenario, or a separate mod, would kill my vibe playing custom stuff. I mean, in case of scenario for example, putting maps back in the container would even be unnecessary, just slap in the scenario folder then.

I am of confusion.


The game is set up to read a serie of pre-named h4r files, like heroes.h4r, storm.h4r and new.h4r
Notice there are several h4r files and also more than just 2 for the expansions. Game is set to read them all, but in an order, meaning you can add new stuff or overwrite certain stuff by adding it to a new filr, which is last in line in reading order.

If you dont rename the campaign maps, but keep their initial file name, they should overwrite the campaign file.
If you extract it, edit it, and remove the campaign name pary, you can place it in your Map Folder, as you say yourself, and read it as stand alone campaign from the map list - all maps included. None of these will act as mods, as you dont create a new exe file. Hope this helps answering some of the confusion.
____________

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