In Game Messaging

[Don Cullen]

Is there a way to do in-game messaging for Starcraft, like BWCoach does? In the game, it displays messages using SC's text engine- as if someone on bnet had typed a message to you ingame. If you download BWCoach, and try it- you'll see what I mean. You can get it at www.bwchart.com.

I've searched this site's forums, and haven't found anything in reference to this as of yet, so any input would be appreciated.

[QwertyMonster]

Yes you can do it.

COnnect to battle.net, send the correct packets to join the game, and then send more correct packets to send a message, and just have it be displayed.

Try looking on Bnetdocs for all the correct packets and information.

[Don Cullen]

I'm referring to outside of bnet, in single player.

[QwertyMonster]

Oh sorry, you didnt say that.

Sending text to single player, try asking Adron he does that kind of stuff.

[Blaze]

Hes not building a bot that connects to the game, hes building a program that displays messages ingame.  I was working on one last night.

[Don Cullen]

Ah, and did you get it to work, Blaze? Hopefully Adron will read this thread and reply... :-P

[hismajesty]

What's the point?

[Warrior]

You can use DirectDraw and find a pointer to the backbuffer then just blit whatever you need to the screen afaik

[MyndFyre]

You can use DirectDraw and find a pointer to the backbuffer then just blit whatever you need to the screen afaik

But then Starcraft would draw over it, most likely.

Easiest way would be to disassemble and try to find the offset of the function that displays text.

[Blaze]

I did that last night, the only function I saw that looked like it had something to do with drawing was DrawTextA in storm.dll.  Its also in your user32.dll.

Code Select Expand


Public Declare Function DrawText Lib "user32.dll" Alias "DrawTextA" (hDC As Long, lpString As String, nCount As Integer, lpRect As RECT, uFormat As Long) As Long

Public Type RECT
     Left As Long
     Top As Long
     Right As Long
     Bottom As Long
End Type


[Warrior]

Does it work :p.

[Blaze]

No, but thats not the point.   I was hoping somebody would correct me on something.

[MyndFyre]

I did that last night, the only function I saw that looked like it had something to do with drawing was DrawTextA in storm.dll.  Its also in your user32.dll.

Code Select Expand


Public Declare Function DrawText Lib "user32.dll" Alias "DrawTextA" (hDC As Long, lpString As String, nCount As Integer, lpRect As RECT, uFormat As Long) As Long

Public Type RECT
     Left As Long
     Top As Long
     Right As Long
     Bottom As Long
End Type


DrawTextA is an imported function.  Storm's own exported functions will not be named with a name that would say what they do.

[Don Cullen]

BWCoach's text display works pretty well by interfacing with SC- so I think the program author solved that issue already. Maybe if someone downloaded BWCoach, and had it run- that someone'd be able to break (bp) the second BWCoach told SC to display something. Personally, I have no experience in reverse engineering, so I'd not be able to look into this potential venue... But perhaps someone else with the experience can?

[Warrior]

It might be easier to reverse BWCoach as opposed to Starcraft.exe