Lesson 0

This is preliminary setup that everyone needs in order to be able hack shaders.

Objective

We'll download and setup the tools and game we are going to use for the first lessons.
We'll make sure that the HelixMod debugger is running.

Quiz

After it's all setup, we should be able to verify that the HelixMod debugger is running.
We'll make a screen snapshot to prove it's working, and share that here.

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We are going to be using the game The Ball for our first game to examine. The main reason is because it has a free demo that everyone can get from Steam. And, it will help reduce confusion if we are all looking at the same game.

• Game setup and installation
  1. Run Steam.
  2. Go to the Store.
  3. Search the store for "The Ball".
  4. Select "The Ball Demo" from the list.
  5. Click "Download Demo" on right side.
  6. Launch game.
  7. Make sure that 3D Vision turns on.
  8. At the launch screen, note that the 3D is pretty good, but with several very annoying flaws.
  9. Use Alt-F1 to make a 3D snapshot as a 'before' picture.

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We will be using NotePad++ as our text editor. It's OK to use any text editor that you prefer. The reason to use NotePad++ is to make all the lessons and discussions consistent. It's also free and well suited to editing the ASM files.

• Text editor setup and installation
  1. Go to http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/
  2. Choose the green DOWNLOAD button.
  3. Run the installer.
  4. Run NotePad++ and get a feel for it.
  5. optional: Assign .txt files to open automatically in NotePad++

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We will locate the latest version of the HelixMod from the HelixModBlog, download it and install the debugger version into the game directory. In general we will always want to use the newest HelixMod available, but on occasion the latest will not work properly, which is why the older ones are still available.

• HelixMod tool installation
  1. Go to http://helixmod.blogspot.com/
  2. Select the GUIDES from the middle nav bar.
  3. Select the link under Advanced Users Only for [DX9]HELIXMOD DEBUGGER.
  4. You should now be at http://helixmod.wikispot.org/oldvers
  5. In the Debug section choose the newest: https://s3.amazonaws.com/-HeliX-/DLLS/DllsModPack1.zip
  6. Open that Zip archive and navigate to DLLs/DEBUG.
  7. Select d3d9.dll and Extract to your Desktop.
  8. Navigate to The Ball's game directory, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\The Ball\Binaries\Win32\
  9. Copy or move your d3d9.dll file from the Desktop into that game directory.
  10. Run The Ball and look for the red text at the top of the screen.
  11. Take a 3D snapshot with Alt-F1.

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Demonstrate that you have the game and tools working by sharing a 3D screen snapshot to the wiki. This will require creating an account here on the wiki, so that you can upload files.

• Create page on wiki.bo3b.net
  1. Navigate to http://wiki.bo3b.net if not already there.
  2. In the upper right, choose Create Account.
  3. Please use your NVidia forum name as a way to keep us all straight.
  4. In the search box in the upper right, enter your NVidia forum name.
  5. The search results will be empty, but choose Create the page "forum name".
  6. At the empty page,