Datamining Thread

[queenie]

[POEME_ELECTRONIQUE]:
strange that this has not been a more heavily discussed topic for such a fascinating little simulation. well, just so that it is public knowledge, raster files can be observed and modified through the use of a hex editor. there are no specialized tools necessary if you know what you are doing.

you should be warned though, raster files are a little... unique. i have not seen anything like them before. they have this quirk that even when their simulation is off, their file appears to be constantly updating itself and ever-changing. i believe this to be the reason why hosting a raster on your system can cause such immense slowdowns. raster files may not be particularly large in size, but they deceptively take up a lot of processing power.

i have attached an image. if you see the numbers oscillate like this, that seems to be the normal state...



a raster's simulated sentience seems to be made up of several parameters acting simultaneously, to sell the illusion of life. in hex view, it is all numbers. deciphering what this all may mean is a tedious, but certainly not impossible task -- i have not been able to sink that much time into it yet, but there's a few sections i'm pretty certain on thus far... this likely is not the place to give a concise run-down of what affects what so i will spare the details, but the bits of the file that are static and unmoving are what seems to determine the way they act. that is what you would be looking for to reverse-engineer and document how this simulation works, i think.
modifying the rest is quite futile anyway, considering these areas of the file are constantly updating. but when adjusting the static parameter bytes, their behaviour appears to change accordingly. i was able to change a raster programs demeanor when talking, and smaller aspects like their favourite room. of course you should note down what these values were before, so you can be able to change them back... creating back-up files does not seem to be an option, as raster files have some sort of copy protection on them. they are really quite odd.