Ask the Experts / Hack Like a 'WinHacker'

So, you want to hack like a 'WinHacker'? Well you've come to the right place. In all seriousness, the myth of WinHack and hex editing is one that has always been funny to me considering everyone thinks you can do all of these mysteriously great things with it, when in all seriousness, you can't. It is only good for a few tricks that I use it for that won't be included in these tutorials, because they are intended to help you play the game better without all the confusion.

Some of the things hex editing is needed for:

*Fixing corrupt land-tiles
*Raising or lowing items on the map that 8cars cannot do, because of an error in the code I assume. (Station tiles of tracked rides/ride exit huts)
*Working duel station using Levis' method. See Lenox Mall's Nebulocity.
*Cloning things, such as entrance huts.
Examples:
-Giant Dipper's entrance hut in Belmont Shores is further from the actual station, and 5ft higher.


Notice how the entrance hut is located totally away from the station? Relocating an entrance hut is simple in WinHack, and I might explain the process later.


Notice here how the entrance/exit huts are 5ft higher than the station? This was done because the height the people stand on in relation to the trains is more realistic than how the game originally builds huts. If you see through rides when people load, they take a step up to the station platform when entering through a hut.

-Lenox Mall Multiple entrance huts so the guests wait for the trams like a real tram:

You can see there are entrance huts along the entire station line and one exit where the guests exit.



----------------------------

Tutorial 1 - Making anything invisible

Tools needed:
* 8cars version 1.32 (the one that says "-- Version" in the toolbar)
* Invisible support blocker (not required)

This is quite possibly the single hack that will propel the RCT community and improve everyone's parkmaking skills.

But first, a little background about how the game works. Basically, for this hack, you need to understand how the game's memory works. It's called the FF method. In the game's memory, it is ordered as such:

--underground data--
-data
-data
-data
-data
--land tile & its properties--
--start above ground data--
-data
-data
-data
-data

If you delete a -data by right clicking, the object is 'deleted' and moved to the end of the memory so it would be something like:

--underground data--
-data
-data
-data
-data
--land tile & its properties--
--start above ground data--
-data
-data
-data
-data *DELETED*
-data *DELETED*
-data *DELETED*

What the FF method does, is change a -data so the game thinks it is deleted, so everything that comes AFTER it is made invisible. So the goal is to get everything you want to be invisible after the block that is to be manually "deleted" (so it's not moved to the end of the memory like the game would normally do) like so:

--underground data--
-data
-data
-data
-data
--land tile & its properties--
--start above ground data--
-data *DELETED* (Everything after will be invisible)
-data (track or hut you want invisible)

What Levis figured out a long time ago was, data can be placed underground and appear to be above ground. For example, if you build a block underground, then manually lower the land down with hex or map object manipulation. The game thinks the block is underground, but it appears in the game as if it were above ground. The drawback to this is the land, once lowered can't be manipulated with the land tool anymore so one should be very careful with the hack I'm about to explain.

This little trick is what enables scenery to appear above something that is made invisible, because it is really before the 'deleted' object in the game's memory by being underground, since that data comes before above ground data on a land tile.

Normally this would mean to theme the entire tile, then use Levis' bury method to move all the scenery you want above something that is invisible (a entrance/exit hut for example). This has been proven to work, but once the object is made invisible, dragging an object above that object will make the game error trap. Also the bury method doesn't always move all the scenery underground like we want it to.

My method will teach you so you can make something invisible and build on it as your heart desires for as long as you have your park going.

Now that we understand what we're trying to accomplish and how it works a little, let's get to work:

Let's start off with a simple flat ride.


Give yourself enough room to work under it as we need to build things under what we want to be invisible, in this case, entrance and exit huts. Also, note the different colored land tiles under them.

Next we build a dummy track:


This track will eventually be deleted so make sure you can find it from the ride edit menu to use the trash can delete button.

Next we build the scenery object to be 'deleted' manually. This must be built under the dummy track and the thing you want invisible. It doesn't have to be a full tile block, it can be any sized scenery, quarter tile, small height, high height, it's up to you. I would avoid using Multi-tile scenery even if it is 1x1 in size. I'm not positive, but I have had some issues with it and haven't tested it fully to be sure it doesn't work.



Next, tab to 8cars:

Misc->Map Object Manipulation or press F11


Check Raise/Lower. Enter 125 for the height. Check Land, and the Land Type you used under your items and Apply the settings.

Back in game, we get this:



But why 125 for the height? Because for some reason, this is the highest value 8cars will allow to work in this screen. You could technically do it however high or low you want.

This step right here is VERY important. The height you raise the land to is the height you will be able to build UP to once your huts are invisible. Anything built higher than the point you raised the land to will be invisible.

Remember when I said earlier that the invisible support blocker is not required, but comes in handy? This is it:



Find the tops of the land you raised, and hold SHIFT and drag the support blocker under the land so it builds the object underground. You can use ANY object on this step that can be dragged underground and built, but I prefer the invisible support blocker because it will make everything much cleaner and easier to work with. More on this later..

Back into 8cars we go:



Change our height offset to negative (-) and lower our land back down.

Now in the 8cars Ride Edit menu we make our dummy track invisible.



By checking this box, 8cars finds the tile, and changes the object we built so the game thinks its deleted. Anything built above that back in that step will be invisible, so our huts are gone, the block is 'deleted' and the dummy track is also made invisible.

Go back into RCT and we get this:



Now we can delete our dummy track we used to make our blocks invisible:



And now we can build above our huts up to the invisible support blocker we built. *yeehaw* This works because we built the support blocker so high up underground that anything built under it is placed underground in the game's memory that I explained above.



The ride's entrance/exit huts are still there physically, just we can't see them. So to build where they are, you'll have to use zero clearances.

Now a bit of cleanup in 8cars with our land:



Raising all our land back up in game gives us our finished product:



See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Anybody could have figured this out, no WinHack needed, just a bit of knowledge with how the game operates. Just expand your minds and there is less and less limits this game actually has.

But geewhzz, I messed up somewhere. How do I undo what I did?

Simple,



Remove our 'Null Items' which will delete the object we used for the 'FF' method and we get this:



Back to normal. Now, if you chose not to use an invisible support blocker and an actual block you can see, then once that block is deleted from high above the map, I am fairly sure you won't be able to build on the tile anymore, or the game might error trap, I haven't tested it as I always use the invisible support blocker. But feel free to experiment if you're too stuck up to have a support blocker on your bench.

But gee, what else is this hack good for?

Plenty of things my friend.



Notice how the train appears to come off the end of the track? There is actually track there, just invisible. This hack is good for countless things, including making elements not normally able to be invisible invisible, like diagonal track, vertical track, large s-bend turns. Ever wanted to make no entry signs invisible? How about the ugly queue banners at the front of queue lines?


Look mom! No base!

The list goes on and on and on. And the best part? You can build scenery freely on the tiles.

Enjoy this one guys, and plenty more tips and tricks to come if I get time.

Uhm wow!!! Sorry for stalking you about this Gee, and I'm sure that I speak for the whole community in saying thank you!

Gonna carefully read it now,

SF

This. is. amazing...


I shall attempt these when i can play again.

this is definitely one of the greatest contributions the community has seen. Levis provided the base (which was just as good, not trying to one-up him), and you built on that so much. i'm gonna have to go work on my design now...

Fab work gee for those rct2 players . I feel bad for you guys, while some things in LL may be harder, everything here is really easy thanks to codex.

Wholy Shit Batman, I even understood that one!!!!!!

3 questions:
1. When you lower the support blocker do you lower it to any height you want or do you lower it under the entrance and exit huts?
2. If you make a base invisible why does the ride it self not invisible? I mean, if you raise uop the 9 squares wouldn't that delete the ride itself or am i missing something here?
3. For the no entry signs do you raise the land the the banner is on or the path its blocking?


Thanks for this! No ofeence leo but this is much easier.

1) just make sure it gets built underground...should be pretty self-explanatory when you're in game.
2) you cannot do this. if you use this method on a flat ride base the ride animation will be invisible also. trains can go over track that is invisible because i assume the train dat file has nothing to do with the hardcoded track, while a flat ride is different, but maybe Levis can explain this better.
3) you have to do it on the tile that the banner is on, this will cause the path to become invisible also, so make use of invisible path and pathblocks.

OK but then how did you get the tower on there if its suppose to be invisible?

Got the entrance working too, 2nd try thanks.

The outer ring of that flat ride is invisible. The actual center piece isn't.

Wow, thanks a lot! This is very useful right now (although it would've been useful in Calypso Quay too ).

Thanks geewhzz, really nice & useful!

Very good tutorial

I know a lot of things --> how to do it with winhack, but with 8cars I was not sure ... Saves me a bit of time in the future now Thanks.

Wow this is SO helpful! Thank you!

The outer ring of that flat ride is invisible. The actual center piece isn't.

The topspin in Lenox Mall has an invisible base I believe. How did you do that?

Map object manipulation -1 on ride track to the base. It lowers it underground, but you can tell the ride vehicle is a bit glitched in the ground too. A ground texture is as good as you'll get on that, so it limits your options a bit.

Look underground and you'll see it, it's not invisible. Like I said above if you try and make it invisible, the ride car won't show up.

I'm assuming that the same technique can be used to make restrooms and food stalls invisible? Also, if I were to use two ride entrances would peeps go to both queues normally to make a working fast pass system?

Yes, anything can be made invisible with it. Let your mind run wild and try it.

As for fast pass, It works, although I haven't tried it with queues built off of the huts, but I assume it would work.

Ok, queues off the huts doesn't completely work. It seems like the entry with the queue going to it placed first gets the normal queue. Then the other queue behaves like a normal path leading to the enty. After working on it a bit I got the queues to sort of switch lining up. If anyone figures out how to get them both to line up at the same time please let me know

Yep, I just tested it also, queue lines seem to be very specific. It doesn't seem to work as a queue line, but attaching the huts just to path like I did it in the screen in the first post works fine.