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Watch Dogs / Disrupt Engine — XeNTaX Knowledge Extraction

Extracted and organized from XeNTaX forum discussions (2014–2023). Technical knowledge only; trivial posts filtered out.

Cross-references to site reference docs:

FAT/DAT Archive Format​

WD1 FAT/DAT Structure​

Header (by Ekey, 2014-05-23):

struct FATHeader {
 DWORD dwID; // Magic: "3TAF" (0x33544146)
 DWORD dwVersion; // Always 8
 DWORD dwUnknown;
 DWORD dwTotalFiles;
};

struct FATEntry {
 DWORD dwHash; // Filename hash
 DWORD dwSize; // Uncompressed size
 DWORD dwZSize; // Compressed size
 DWORD dwOffset; // Offset into .dat
};

Compression per platform (Ekey, 2014-05-23):

  • PC: XMem (modified)
  • PS3: Deflate
  • Xbox 360: XMem

Magic header in DAT (cra0, 2014-05-25): 0x0F 0xF5 0x12 0xEE — XMem signature.

Archive behavior (Rick, 2014-05-28):

  • Game loads patch.fat/patch.dat if present, overriding content (like Far Cry 3).
  • Disrupt engine is largely based on Dunia 2 (Far Cry 3).
  • The archive format supports uncompressed data fine — no need for modified EXE.
  • Don't repack game archives. Put modified files into a new patch.fat/patch.dat.

XCompress Header (PC)​

Standard header (cra0, 2014-05-25):

long Identifier; // XCOMPRESS_FILE_IDENTIFIER_LZXNATIVE
long ContextFlags;
long Flags;
long WindowSize;
long CompressionPartitionSize;
long UncompressedSizeHigh;
long UncompressedSizeLow;
long CompressedSizeHigh;
long CompressedSizeLow;
long UncompressedBlockSize;
long CompressedBlockSizeMax;

Modified version (killerpepo, 2014-05-26; all big endian):

long Identifier; // XCOMPRESS_FILE_IDENTIFIER_LZXNATIVE
long ContextFlags;
short Version;
short Reserved;
long Flags;
long WindowSize;
long CompressionPartitionSize;
long UncompressedSizeHigh;
long UncompressedSizeLow;
long CompressedSizeHigh;
long CompressedSizeLow;
long UncompressedBlockSize;
long CompressedBlockSizeMax;
long CompressedBlockSize;

PS3 Compressed Data Header (Ekey, 2014-05-25)​

struct DataHeader {
 SHORT wChunksCount;
 SHORT wUnknown; // 0xFF 0x0F
 // followed by wChunksCount × SHORT chunk sizes
};

WD2 FAT/DAT Structure​

Header (Ekey, 2016-12-06):

struct FATHeader {
 uint32_t dwID; // Magic: "5TAF" (0x35544146)
 uint32_t dwVersion; // 11
 uint32_t dwUnknown1;
 uint32_t dwUnknown2; // -1
 uint32_t dwUnknown3; // -1
 uint32_t dwUnknown4; // 0
 uint32_t dwTotalFiles;
};

Entry format (Ekey, 2016-12-06):

struct FATEntry {
 uint64_t dwHash; // NameHash
 uint32_t dwSize;
 uint32_t dwOffset;
 uint32_t dwZSize;
};

Gibbed source mapping (Ekey, 2016-12-06):

NameHash = a;
NameHash |= ((ulong)b) << 32;
Offset = (long)d << 2;
Offset |= ((c & 0xC0000000u) >> 30);
UncompressedSize = (uint)(e & 0xFFFFFFFC) >> 2;
CompressedSize = (uint)((c & 0x3FFFFFFF) >> 0);

WD2 FAT variant (Sir Kane, 2016-12-06):

struct SFatFileEntry {
 uint64_t Hash;
 uint64_t CompressedSize : 30;
 uint64_t Offset : 34;
 uint32_t CompressionMethod : 2; // 0 = LZMA, 2 = modified LZ4
 uint32_t UncompressedSize : 30;
};

WD2 hash algorithm — FNV1a x64 (Ekey, 2016-12-06):

static ulong gethash64(string value) {
 ulong fnv64Prime = 0x00000100000001B3ul;
 ulong hash = 0xCBF29CE484222325ul;
 for (var i = 0; i < value.Length; i++) {
 hash *= fnv64Prime;
 hash = hash ^ value[i];
 }
 return hash & 0x1FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFul | 0xA000000000000000ul;
}

WD2 FAT analysis (disastorm, 2016-12-03):

  • First 8 bytes always same: 35544146 0B000000 — name/version
  • Next 4 bytes: 01064600 (most archives) or 00004600 (sound archives)
  • Followed by FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF and 00000000
  • Fourth column values are constantly increasing (not offsets, too high)

WD2 Compression​

Two compression types (Sir Kane, 2016-12-06):

  • Type 0: LZMA (slightly modified)
  • Type 2: Modified LZ4

LZ4 modification (Ekey, 2016-12-08): Only the dec32_table changed:

  • Standard: {0, 1, 2, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4}
  • Ubisoft: {0, 3, 2, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0}

LZMA presence: Undoubtedly supported, but may not be used in PC version (Sir Kane, 2016-12-09). Files can be either compressed or uncompressed, with the latter mostly for really small files.

Key constant for LZMA (Sir Kane, 2016-12-07): 0xE6C — useful for locating the modified LZMA code.

XBG Model Format​

WD1 XBG Structure​

Basic format (cra0/Chipicao, 2014): The .xbg and .geom formats are the same — Rick's tool saves unknown filenames as .geom and known as .xbg (Ekey, 2014-05-29).

File extensions mapping (Ekey, 2014-05-29):

CGeometryResource: .glm/.dae → .xbg
CTextureResource: .png/.dds → .xbt
CAnimationResource: .mac → .mab
CSkeletonResource: .skel.xml → .skeleton
CPhysResource: .hkr → .hkx
CMaterialResource: .material.xml → .material.bin

Vertex format (Wobble, 2014-07-08; cra0, 2014-07-08):

Vertex Format (Stride varies: 36, 40, 44 bytes)
position | uv0 | uv1 | blend_weights | blend_indices | normal | color | tangent | binormal

For stride 44:

POS → UV → UV2 → BoneWeights → BoneIndices → blankUnknown → VertexNormal → VertexColor → BiNormal → Tangents

UV/Vertex Scaling (Chipicao, 2014-08-05):

  • @offset 36: VPscale = [float, float]
  • @offset 48: UVscale = [float, float]
  • Applied via HLSL mad function: Vp = int16 * VPscale.y + VPscale.x
  • Only one set per file/model. Further UV scaling via material tiling.

Per-model UV scaling (Oleg, 2014-07-25): The xbg model is "decompression" scaling for UV for entire model, while material UV scaling (tiling) configures scale on per-material level.

Vertex format flags (from vertexdeclaration.inc.fx):

VERTEX_DECL_POSITIONCOMPRESSED
VERTEX_DECL_POSITIONFLOAT
VERTEX_DECL_UV0
VERTEX_DECL_UV1

Character models: Use "extra skinning" mode with 6 bone weights (Oleg, 2014-07-25). Limited to 255 bone indices in some tools.

Per-vertex color: NOT the color of mesh — it's per-vertex effects masking. E.g., wetness areas masked via vertex color channel (R on some shaders, G on others) (Oleg, 2014-07-26).

WD2 XBG Changes​

Format version bump (Wobble, 2016-12-14): WD2 XBG follows the old format but with a version bump and new bits. Old WD1 scripts won't load WD2 models.

Blender importer (volfin, 2017-01-14): WD2 Blender importer released (2.70+). Mesh only — no skeleton support. UV coordinates arbitrarily scaled.

WD2 character heads: Super large heads (5-6 MB) stored differently than regular meshes — likely very high rez heads for cutscenes with extra facial expression data (volfin, 2017-02-13).

XBT Texture Format​

Structure (cra0, 2014-05-28): XBT is a DDS with a custom header laid on top. To convert back: cut the header off the old XBT and attach to new DDS.

XBT→DDS tool (cra0, 2014-05-28): xbt2dds — https://github.com/cra0kalo/xbt2dds

Normal maps (Oleg, 2014-11-16): Green-alpha normal displacement maps. Green = displacement on X/U, Alpha = Y/V. Move alpha to red, save as GR16, load as bump map in DirectX editor — blue channel computed automatically.

Tangent space maps (HeliosAI, 2014-07-14): Originally orange because one channel stored in alpha. Swap channels to get purple form.

ZOLA textures (volfin, 2017-01-30): Not a standard graphics format. Likely GPU compute data (CUDA) from Nvidia research on dimensionality reduction. Probably not image data despite having c/high/med prefixes.

Localization Files (.loc)​

Magic bytes (cenkzenk, 2014-06-10): 53 4C 01 00 ("SL")

Loc file structure (rengareng, 2015-01-26):

uint magic;
ushort languageCode;
ushort count1;
uint stringFragmentsOffset;
struct { uint a, b; } t[count1];
// at stringFragmentsOffset:
int count2; // includes zero-zero node
struct { short right, left; } nodes[count2-1];

String fragments (rengareng, 2015-01-26): Strings are stored as fragments in a table, indexed by byte values. 1-byte indexing works for small files; larger files need multi-byte indexing.

Unpacking (rengareng, 2019-01-25): Tool available for WD1 main_english.loc. Min/max IDs must be provided since loc files lack explicit IDs. Source code released 2019-05-29.

QuickBMS script (cenkzenk, 2014-06-10): Handles SL header parsing with type detection (0 = .unslz, 4 = .xcompress).

Audio Formats​

SBAO Files​

Format (Paul44, 2014-09-30): .sbao files are trailed with an additional 55-byte header. The game uses pre-compiled audio — conversion from SBAO to OGG fails for many files.

Conversion tools (filu23, 2014-06-02): Batch scripts for SBAO→MP3 and SBAO→WAV conversion.

Sox usage (Paul44, 2014-09-21): Use Sox v14.4 with "sndfile" library for better OGG conversion results.

WD2 Audio​

In-memory audio streaming (Paul44, 2014-09-21): Not all files within a DAT are compressed. Some DDS files in windy_city.dat are uncompressed — recompressing them causes the game to not display them.

Material System​

Shader Resources (Ekey, 2014-05-29)​

Key resource classes and their extensions:

  • CMaterialResource: .material.xml → .material.bin
  • CGeometryResource: .glm/.dae → .xbg
  • CTextureResource: .png/.dds → .xbt
  • CAnimationResource: .mac → .mab
  • CSkeletonResource: .skel.xml → .skeleton
  • CPhysResource: .hkr → .hkx

Material Properties​

UV tiling (Oleg, 2014-07-25): Material descriptors contain NormalUVTiling, DetailUVTiling etc. Per-model UV scaling gives "decompression" scaling for entire model; material UV scaling configures per-material level.

DriverCloth shader (Oleg, 2014-07-26):

  • Diffuse texture premultiplied with DiffuseColor1
  • Specular map: R = glossiness, G = colorization mask
  • DiffuseColor2 masked by SpecularMap.Green for multi-color clothes
  • Second diffuse texture: grayscale premultiply/overlay for fabric simulation
  • Normal map #2 can be displacement map for fabric texture bumps

Per-vertex color masking (Oleg, 2014-07-26): Vertex color is NOT mesh color — it's effects masking (wetness, etc.) via R or G channels depending on shader.

Hair materials (HeliosAI, 2014-07-14): Models use two UV channels for hair — same UV layout as alpha texture.

WD2 Material Hashes​

Key material field hashes (disastorm/redcomet, 2016-12):

  • D935FAD9 — graphickit_parts.lib reference
  • A849532C — material of model part
  • 7E23AAAE — model path (binary hex string)
  • 73642E5E — graphickit part container
  • 24436F9E — texture of clothing item (refers to texturedb.lib)
  • 0F43A933, 54D14F92, 4CAAD60F — availability rules (set to FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF to unlock)
  • E7575742 — category (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF = uncategorized)

WD2 Clothing Category Values (disastorm, 2016-12)​

DDD0721E02000080 NORMCORE
DED0721E02000080 BIKER
DFD0721E02000080 URBAN
E0D0721E02000080 HIPPIE
C61D21C801000080 HIPSTER
DBD0721E02000080 SUITS
DCD0721E02000080 HIP-HOP

Modding Workflow​

WD1 Modding​

Extract/Repack workflow (Rick, 2014-05-28):

  1. Use Gibbed.Disrupt tools: http://svn.gib.me/public/disrupt/trunk
  2. Builds: http://svn.gib.me/builds/disrupt
  3. Requires XNA Framework: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

Packing best practices (Rick, 2014-06-04):

  • Put modified files in a clean patch.fat/patch.dat
  • Valid hash in FAT = valid filename
  • Pack tool handles unknown files via __UNKNOWN directory structure
  • Root directory given to Pack is NOT included as part of data path

Filelist rebuilding (Haoose, 2014-05-28):

  • Create projects\Watch Dogs\files\newfilenames.filelist with new filenames
  • Run RebuildFileLists.exe
  • Progress tracked: reached 61% (192,362/310,356) by 2014-08-11

In-game testing (eycaramba, 2014-05-29): Modifications work without recompression — just use the pack command. Game loads modified archives directly.

WD2 Modding​

Extraction tool (Sir Kane, 2016-12-09): WD2Extract — handles LZ4 decompression and filename resolution.

Packing tool (Sir Kane, 2016-12-12): WD2Pack — repacks without compression (files remain uncompressed in archive).

Full modding flow (disastorm, 2016-12-13):

  1. Extract patch.fat/patch.dat
  2. Convert file to XML using Gibbed tools
  3. Modify XML
  4. Convert back to binary format
  5. Repack patch.fat/patch.dat using WD2Pack
  6. Place in game's data_win64 directory
  7. Run game with anti-cheat disabled

Gibbed tools for WD2 (redcomet, 2016-12-14):

  • Remove binary objects folder from disrupt tool path\project\watch dogs to handle .lib files
  • Remove WD1 class definitions from project/Watch Dogs/binary objects/files/gibbed directory

RML converter (Ekey, 2016-12-14):

Gibbed.Disrupt.ConvertXml -xml music.rml music.xml
Gibbed.Disrupt.ConvertXml -rml music.xml music.rml

WD2 Model Swapping​

Clothing swap workflow (disastorm, 2016-12-14):

  1. Open items.lib clothing XML for source item
  2. Open graphickit_models.lib for target character
  3. Copy the object section containing D935FAD9 reference
  4. Use grep on graphickit_parts directory to find what each section represents
  5. Replace target sections with source sections

Head replacement with animation (redcomet, 2016-12-22):

  • Edit W2CH_MOD_nar_ava.avatar.xml in graphickit_models.lib
  • Replace head definition with target character's head definition
  • Results in swapped face WITH animation

Important notes (disastorm/redcomet, 2016-12):

  • Modified items won't appear in locker — must equip before adding modded patch
  • Each item maps to one graphickit part
  • After modifying patch, game must be restarted
  • One item per graphickit part definition

WD2 Custom Clothing Tutorial (CobraGamer, 2017-04-08)​

Files to edit:

  1. items.lib — create new clothing item with graphickit_part reference
  2. itemsshopproperties.lib — define shop category and price
  3. shopcomponentsettings.lib — make item appear in specific shop
  4. graphickit_models.lib — contains model parts

Key fields:

  • 389F6DA7 — item ID (hex A-F only)
  • D935FAD9 — graphickit_part reference
  • 73280CDE — link to item in items.lib
  • 92AF09E1 — shop category
  • 33E4CFD7 — price (hex→decimal)

WD2 Archive File Distribution​

Final filelist status (Ekey, 2016-12-15):

common.fat → 5,779 resolved / 256 unknown
patch.fat → 51,394 resolved / 4,901 unknown
san_francisco.fat → 152,515 resolved / 48,495 unknown
san_francisco_preload.fat → 44,247 resolved / 42,466 unknown
shadersobj.fat → 47,357 resolved / 2,977 unknown
sound.fat → 50 resolved / 0 unknown
videos.fat → 129 resolved / 1 unknown

Models location: windy_city and windy_city_cache DAT files (Ekey, 2014-06-13).

Signs/billboards: Major signs are .hkx files (Xecutioner, 2017-04-16). Some signs under graphics/_geometries/building_dressing/signs.

Tools Reference​

ToolPurposeAuthor
Gibbed.Disrupt.Unpack/PackWD1 extraction/repackingRick (Gibbed)
WD2Extract / WD2PackWD2 extraction/repackingSir Kane
xbt2ddsXBT→DDS texture conversioncra0
wd_extractorWD1 XMem decompressioncra0
Blender 249 XBG ImporterWD1 model importSzkaradek123
io_scene_WD2WD2 Blender importer (2.70+)volfin
ZModeler3WD1/WD2 model import/exportOleg
Gibbed.Disrupt.ConvertBinaryObjectBinary↔XML conversionGibbed
Gibbed.Disrupt.ConvertXmlRML↔XML conversionEkey
WD_Repack batchfilesBatch extraction/conversionPaul44
wd_loc.exeWD1/WDL loc file unpackerrengareng
RebuildFileLists.exeFilename database builderGibbed
QuickBMSGeneric archive extractionAluigi
xbcompress / xbdecompressXMem compression/decompressionMicrosoft

WD2 Command-Line Parameters​

(Ekey, 2016-12-17):

-nosplash Skip intro videos
-nologfile Disable log files
-nosound Disable sound
-norender Disable rendering
-nophysicstepworkerthread
-skiploggertool
-tf Time factor
-txtlang Language override
-spawnpos Spawn position
-editorpc Editor mode

Feu Files (Flash)​

(Ekey, 2016-12-17): .feu files are standard Flash files — just change header UEF to FWS. The WD2 boot sequence is a Flash file at patch/ui/fire/bin/wd2bootsequence.feu.

Vehicle Modding​

Car on Demand (neburas, 2016-12-18):

  • Add new vehicles by creating CarHackingRewards.Generic.Budjet.XXXX.xml in items.lib
  • All vehicles from Car on Demand treated as "player owned" — no wanted level
  • Vehicle archetypes identified by GUID hashes (griffin02, 2017-01-24)

Traffic density (Paul44, 2017-03-05):

  • Settings in common.dat → trafficpatternselector.lib
  • XML settings allocated to specific map areas (blocks/streets)
  • Density values = spawn timing (lower = more frequent spawns)
  • File: generated/databases/generic/trafficpatternselector.lib

Cross-Platform Notes​

  • WD1 formats largely same as Far Cry 3 (Dunia 2 engine base) — Rick, 2014-05-28
  • WD2 uses same Disrupt engine but with format version bumps
  • PS3 uses Deflate compression (different from PC/Xbox XMem)
  • Xbox 360: GDek's tools may work but untested by original author
  • WD Legion: Different XBG format, not compatible with WD1/WD2 importers