StelmackSoft FOF2k7 Utility Suite

[gstelmack]

Version 1.7.0 of my FOF2k7 Utility Suite is out! This consists of:

• • Resource Patcher: There are a variety of pieces of the FOF UI that people would like to change. Various artists out there have created replacement bitmaps for some of these elements. This utility will accept "packages" of these replacement resources and allow you to patch the FOF exe with them in a user-friendly manner (the old method involved manual use of ResHacker). This also makes it easy to re-patch the FOF exe whenever the game gets patched. There are two packages included with work from Icy and Cuervo72 of Front Office Football Central. These can be used as sample packages for those who wish to create their own for use in this utility.
  • Extractor: This utility can interrogate certain windows in the FOF UI and extract data from them that is not otherwise readily available for printing. At the moment, this is just the Staff and Scout lists, plus some draft pool data. More player roster data will come later. To use this utility, you need to:
    • Launch Extractor
    • Launch Front Office Football 2007 and load your game.
    • Open the "View Staff" window.
    • Select the Scout or Staff list.
    • Double-click the first entry in the list to open that Staff Member or Scout's report window that shows all their details.
    • Or Open the Draft Preview and double-click the first entry in the list to open that draftee's player report window.
    • Make sure the Extractor window does not overlap the report window. Make sure nothing else is covering the report window. Rearrange windows as necessary.
    • Click the "Extract" button in Extractor.
    This will take a while, as the utility works by grabbing a screenshot of the report window, analyzing it pixel-by-pixel to determine what's on it, and then clicking the "Next" button to move to the next Scout or Staff Member. So be patient and make sure you don't cover up the report window while you wait.
  • Draft Analyzer: Once you have run Extractor on a draft class, this utility is used to view and manipulate the results. At the moment it is just displaying the draft class and adding in combine score coloring to show good or bad combine scores. Light green means a combine score is 1.5 standard deviations above the average for that position group or higher, dark green is 1 standard deviation better, dark blue is 1 standard deviation lower, and light blue is 1.5 standard deviations lower. More functionality is coming.
  • Interrogator: This is a utility for exploring the FOF2k7 game databases. This is a work in progress, with more tables to be added later. So far you can view:
    • Base Game Data: current year, salary cap, etc
    • Global City Data: names, locations, etc. Game updates not available yet.
    • Injury Names
    • Teams: nicknames, city, cap loss info, etc.
    • Draft Order: current year draft order, plus traded picks in future years.
    • Transactions: raw data, still needs some interpretation based on transaction type, and may not be grabbing all transactions available just yet.
    In addition to viewing this data, you may export it all to CSV files in a location of your choosing. Eventually I hope to directly export to an Access database as well.
  • City Editor:Used to edit the list of cities used for a game. Note that this data is global to FOF, so if you want to use different lists for different games, you need to set up batch files to copy the customized citydata.fdt to the game install directory and frfoot.fcy to the universe directory. Citydata.fdt is only important when first starting a game (as it gets copied into the save file and updated as needed), while frfoot.fcy is where the city names and abbreviations will come from for the game. Note that the utility includes a button that lets you make ".org" backups of these files. This is intended to be used the first time you run the City Editor to make clean copies of the default game files that you can restore if you mess something up. The utility will also always back up the existing files to ".bak" extensions whenever you save your changes, but if you've made edits before, you are backing up the edited versions.
    USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! This type of editing is not supported by Solecismic. If you just want to change city names, use the editor built in to the game. This utility is considered advanced usage and is primarily targeted at multiplayer league commissioners who want a customized universe. Don't send in a support request to Solecismic if you have crashing issues or problems with your cities after running this utility. If you don't know what you are doing, you can hose your game and force a reinstall.
  • Maddenator:This will take an FOF roster exported through Extractor and update a custom Madden Roster with players on appropriate teams. To run this:
    • Create the teams you are interested in in Madden. The city name from FOF must be used for the location, and the nickname from FOF must be used for the nickname / team name.
    • Save that Madden roster.
    • Run Extractor on your league. Open the roster window, but don't open any players, to get Extractor to grab all teams. Make sure you do not have the "Process Free Agents" button checked in Extractor, because you don't need them.
    • Run Maddenator. Tell it which Madden Roster to use, and which Extractor file to use. It will replace players on the Madden Roster with players from Extractor for that team. It works in descending order of overall by position, so if you have 70 guys on an FOF roster only the top 53 or 55 or whatever Madden created guys will end up in Madden.
    • You may need to adjust the depth chart in Madden.
    This has had limited testing so far, and only on Madden 07, so consider this beta. I'm also not completely happy with the skill mappings, but then I probably never will be. This is mostly for screenshots for multiplayer leagues, although the occasional scrimmage is a lot of fun. Note that this will write a log file to \StelmackSoft\UtilitySuite, which lists players it had trouble with. This may be useful for trouble-shooting teams that don't have any players making the transition, as it will let you know what the team name looked like in Extractor which may prompt edits in Madden.
• Extender:This utility is essentially a GUI reporting tool for FOF which includes reports not in the actual game. Reports will continually be added to this utility as useful ones are discovered.

More to come.


Note that Resource Patcher is set up to allow others to provide packages for it (a package consists of a resource DLL and an XML file describing the available patches in it), so please feel free to create and distribute these as you wish.

Extractor won't work on Player cards yet, that needs a bunch of work, but it's my next stop.

And like before, I'm using the RSS feed (http://www.gstelmack.com/rss.xml) to help distribute news of updates. I'll try and post here as well, but this thread can get crowded, so the RSS feed is the best way to keep up-to-date with new releases.

NOTE: All output goes to ( My Documents ) \ StelmackSoft \ UtilitySuite

[MJ4H]

groovy. i appreciate this

[Sweed]

Wow, thanks for this great utility. Very easy to use and makes the game look so much better.

[Icy]

Awesome stuff as always Greg, really appreciated.

[yabanci]

Haven't tried it yet, but it's certainly much appreciated. Looking forward to the rest. Thanks.

[famatu]

Could someone use this to make me a "color blind" version of the game? When you look at the eekly scores, the game your team is involved in is in red. I can't see it It used to be in blue a few versions ago and it was great. Does anyone know how to make this change?

[FBPro]

I'm using it and my very first DE still has the old color but all other's have Icy's position update.

[Subby]

I had ben putting off doing the in-game updates, but this makes it so easy that it's almost comical.

Thanks Greg!

[wade moore]

Awesome!

I no longer have to fear change!

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by famatu

Could someone use this to make me a "color blind" version of the game? When you look at the eekly scores, the game your team is involved in is in red. I can't see it It used to be in blue a few versions ago and it was great. Does anyone know how to make this change?

Those colors are set through code, not through the resources, so no. Jim would have to make these colors an option somewhere for you to customize them (which might not be a bad idea, since he has lots of other color options). I'd drop him a line; it's easy for game developers to forget red/green colorblindness.

[NoMyths]

Great stuff, Greg.

[aran]

Wow! This utility is a must have. Very nice!

[cubboyroy1826]

Okay i installed it now when i open the program it gives me Icy and Cuervo to add. What the heck would i be adding if i check the two boxes?

[Emiliano]

Very nice! Thank you Greg.

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by cubboyroy1826

Okay i installed it now when i open the program it gives me Icy and Cuervo to add. What the heck would i be adding if i check the two boxes?

Cuervo's Misc FOF Stuff
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=53766


Icy's logo sets for FOF2007
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=53712

[Icy]

It worked really well to patch the new exe, took a few seconds to have again the custom graphs in 6.0a.

Thanks a lot for this great work Greg.

[SunDevil]

Icy updated his position icons. Do you have to update the IcyResouces.dll in order for the new changes to take effect?

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...t=53712&page=3

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Icy updated his position icons. Do you have to update the IcyResouces.dll in order for the new changes to take effect?

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...t=53712&page=3

I can update it for my next release (I'm up to my eyeballs getting Extractor going, so it may be a bit). I also missed out on Cuervo's button graphic tweaks, so I need to include those.

[gstelmack]

All right, you talked me into it. That, and the Extractor Scout and Staff pieces required no modifications to work with 2k7 (all the player roster stuff will require significant modification so will be a while). So, I give you v1.1:

• Extractor now available. The Staff and Scout windows are currently the only ones supported; player rosters to come later.
• Updated Cuervo resource package with his new bitmap resources.
• Updated Icy resource package with his fixed Bright Positions bitmap.

[Ben E Lou]

Download spreadsheet updated with v1.1.

[SunDevil]

Thanks

[wade moore]

Greg...

Any chance of getting this piece - http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=54327 from Icy added to this tool?

[gstelmack]

As I said in that thread, he added that right after I released this update. When I get a chance, I will add that.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

As I said in that thread, he added that right after I released this update. When I get a chance, I will add that.

Yeah, I didn't mean today or anything ...

[AlexB]

As soon as you could would be cool I simply can't work out which colour is which

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Yeah, I didn't mean today or anything ...

Tough. I did it. 1.1.1 is now up with all 3 of Icy's options for Player Position Experience.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Tough. I did it. 1.1.1 is now up with all 3 of Icy's options for Player Position Experience.

Where is it? I don't see it on your website?

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Tough. I did it. 1.1.1 is now up with all 3 of Icy's options for Player Position Experience.

How dare you go against my wishes!

[Sweed]

gstelmack,

When you upgrade the utility can we install over the old one or do we need to uninstall first?

[SunDevil]

Yep, do not see it on your website, but thanks for the update.

[gstelmack]

Uploaded to wrong folder on web site, sorry. It's in the correct place now.

[AlexB]

Many thanks Greg, I can now play this game

[Antmeister]

Unbelievable tool. Thank you gstelmack for providing this for us.

[Noop]

By mistake i used your tool. How do I go back to my default settings?

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by Noop

By mistake i used your tool. How do I go back to my default settings?

Format C:

[JeffW]

Is this compatible with the newest patch? I tried patching the graphics with Icy's changes unsuccessfully.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Noop

By mistake i used your tool. How do I go back to my default settings?

The "Make ORG backup" button is inteneded for this. Every time you update FOF, you can use this to save off a known good exe to "FrFoot2007.org".

If you didn't use that, the utility automatically makes a copy of "FrFoot2007.exe" as "FrFoot2007.bak". But if you patch the exe with my utility more than once, the bak file will be the prior patched version, not a shipped FOF. In that case, you'll need to reinstall.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by JeffW

Is this compatible with the newest patch? I tried patching the graphics with Icy's changes unsuccessfully.

It worked for me here. Any errors in the status window?

[JeffW]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

It worked for me here. Any errors in the status window?

NM, I figured it out...I'm just autistic sometimes lol.

[cuervo72]

Just now finally using this (finally got the game)...very, very nice GS!

[PSUColonel]

what exactly does this utility do?

[aran]

I'm under the impression that it essentially automates what you'd usually have to do in reshacker.

[gstelmack]

That is true of Resource Patcher (BTW, this is set up for others to create their own packages and distribute aside from my utility).

Extractor's primary use is to dump staff information from the game for easier browsing of potential scouts or coaches to make a better informed decision about who to hire. At the moment, this requires using Excel or something similar (it spits out a CSV file). When I finally finish figuring out the new data file formats, I may be able to bring back the staff views in Extender, but for the moment this is the easiest way to browse all the staff members in the game.

I'm working on a 2k7 version of Interrogator (which takes various parts of the binary files and spits out CSV tables of the game data) and a City Editor.

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I'm working on a 2k7 version of Interrogator (which takes various parts of the binary files and spits out CSV tables of the game data) and a City Editor.

Woot! Thank you so much.

[cuervo72]

I'll second that w00t!

[aran]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I'm working on a 2k7 version of Interrogator (which takes various parts of the binary files and spits out CSV tables of the game data) and a City Editor.

Wow! I can't wait for these to be completed.

[gstelmack]

Added Interrogator utility to view and dump some of the game data tables. Work is under way to figure out more of this data.
Added City Editor utility to edit the frfoot.fcy and citydata.fdt data files to allow a user to customize the list of cities used in the game. This includes everything from the name and abbreviation (the cities.fdt / frfoot.fcy files) to the weather, economic data, and location (the citydata.fdt). USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! And don't bug Solecismic if you have city problems after using this.

[Ben E Lou]

Thanks, Greg!

Note to all: I've updated the download spreadsheet with this version.

[DougWyatt]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

When I finally finish figuring out the new data file formats, I may be able to bring back the staff views in Extender,

This was an awesome addition !! Fingers crossed

[gstelmack]

• City Editor no longer sorts cities if no city names changed.
• Added "Copy Economics" to City Eidtor to allow a commissioner to set up their economics for each city however they'd like and make all cities the same.
• Added a bunch more tables to Interrogator, including some global data such as hometowns and positions, along with some saved-game data such as transactions and some team bits. Work is ongoing in this area. A big thanks to Celeval for major assistance in working out the binary formats.

The Interrogator bits get us through the player names, so it's back to the game logs for now.