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Adding Weapon Wheel Icons

How to add custom icons to the Far Cry weapon wheel (and possibly other FEU files). Based on a tutorial by BIRDdude12.

Overview​

The weapon wheel icons live inside SWF files, which are stored as XML when decompiled. Adding a new icon requires:

  1. Encoding a Base64 hash for your texture path
  2. Adding the hash to the SWF XML
  3. Creating a DefineShape block referencing the new texture
  4. Registering a FrameLabel so the game can look up the icon
  5. Recompiling the SWF back to FEU

Prerequisites​

  • A C# command-line tool for Base64 hash encoding/decoding (included with the original tutorial)
  • fcbconverter for SWF-to-FEU conversion
  • A .png icon file (not .xbt)

Step 1 — Encode the texture path​

Run the command-line tool and select Recompile. Enter:

  • Character ID (e.g. 850)
  • Width and height of the icon
  • Texture path as a .png path (not .xbt)

The tool outputs a Base64-encoded value. Keep this for the next step.

Step 2 — Add the hash to the SWF​

Open the SWF XML. Look for tags like:

<UnknownTag id="0xF6">
 <data>3wAsATwAdWlccmVzb3VyY2VzXHRleHR1cmVzXDA2X2ljb25zXHdlYXBvbnNcdHhfMTg4Ny5wbmcAAAA=</data>
</UnknownTag>

Duplicate the entire UnknownTag block, then replace the <data> content in the duplicate with your new Base64 value:

<UnknownTag id="0xF6">
 <data>3wAsATwAdWlccmVzb3VyY2VzXHRleHR1cmVzXDA2X2ljb25zXHdlYXBvbnNcdHhfMTg4Ny5wbmcAAAA=</data>
</UnknownTag>
<UnknownTag id="0xF6">
 <data>UgMwAoQAdWlccmVzb3VyY2VzXHRleHR1cmVzXDA2X2ljb25zXHdlYXBvbnNcdHhfcmVjdXJ2ZWJvd21ha2VzaGlmdC5wbmcAAAA=</data>
</UnknownTag>

Step 3 — Find the closest existing icon​

Pick an existing icon as close as possible to yours (e.g. a recurve bow icon for a custom bow).

  1. Decode its Base64 hash to find the character ID
  2. Search the SWF XML for that character ID
  3. Locate the surrounding DefineShape block

For example, the recurve bow icon uses character ID 22 and is wrapped in DefineShape objectID="477".

Step 4 — Duplicate the DefineShape​

Copy the entire DefineShape block. Replace the inner ClippedBitmap2 objectID with your icon's character ID:

<DefineShape objectID="477">
 <bounds>
 <Rectangle left="-2680" right="2920" top="-660" bottom="660"/>
 </bounds>
 <styles>
 <StyleList>
 <fillStyles>
 <ClippedBitmap2 objectID="65535">
 <matrix>
 <Transform scaleX="20.00000000000000" scaleY="20.00000000000000" transX="0" transY="0"/>
 </matrix>
 </ClippedBitmap2>
 <ClippedBitmap2 objectID="22">
 <matrix>
 <Transform scaleX="10.00000000000000" scaleY="10.00000000000000" transX="-2680" transY="-660"/>
 </matrix>
 </ClippedBitmap2>
 </fillStyles>
 <lineStyles/>
 </StyleList>
 </styles>
 <shapes>
 <Shape>
 <edges>
 <ShapeSetup x="2920" y="660" fillStyle1="2"/>
 <LineTo x="-5600" y="0"/>
 <LineTo x="0" y="-1320"/>
 <LineTo x="5600" y="0"/>
 <LineTo x="0" y="1320"/>
 <ShapeSetup/>
 </edges>
 </Shape>
 </shapes>
</DefineShape>

In the duplicate, change the ClippedBitmap2 objectID to your icon ID (e.g. 850) and set the DefineShape objectID to your icon ID minus 1 (e.g. 849):

<DefineShape objectID="849">
 ...
 <ClippedBitmap2 objectID="850">
 ...
</DefineShape>

Step 5 — Register the FrameLabel​

Search the XML for the keyword of the icon you copied (e.g. "recurve"). You will find blocks like:

<FrameLabel label="BowRecurve">
 <flags/>
</FrameLabel>
<PlaceObject2 replace="0" depth="1" objectID="477">
 <transform>
 <Transform transX="0" transY="0"/>
 </transform>
</PlaceObject2>
<ShowFrame/>

Duplicate this block and change it to your new icon name:

<FrameLabel label="PrimitiveBow">
 <flags/>
</FrameLabel>
<PlaceObject2 replace="1" depth="1" objectID="849"/>
<ShowFrame/>

The objectID in PlaceObject2 is the DefineShape objectID from Step 4 (your icon ID minus 1).

Step 6 — Add to the store section​

If the icon appears in the weapon wheel but not in the store, find the second occurrence of the keyword and paste your FrameLabel block there too.

Step 7 — Recompile​

  1. Recompile the XML back into an SWF
  2. Convert the SWF to FEU using fcbconverter
  3. Verify the icon texture actually exists at the path you specified

For weapons, the icon ID is stored in the itemdescriptor file under the icon field (e.g. PrimitiveBow).

References​

  • Original tutorial by BIRDdude12
  • fcbconverter for SWF/FEU conversion