Creator Internals

Creator internals

How Xenvious makes the creator do things. Read Game memory first.

Where the job lives

• Job data (what gets saved and published) is in globals, in three big structs. Judging by the keys in offsets.ini: Global_4718592 holds the job header (title, description, image flags), checkpoints, play area, zones, teleports and rules; Global_4980736 holds actors, vehicles, dynamic props, objects, weapons, goto locations and doors; Global_5242880 holds the placed (static) props. Each list is an array with a count global, e.g. Props.number, Props.loc and the stride Props.NEXT.
• Creator UI state (current menu, camera, the worker state machine) is in the locals of the creator script, see MainWindow.CreatorLocals.cs.
• Which creator is running: CreatorMap.CurrentCreator() / GTA.CurrentCreatorName() return the script name (fm_race_creator, ...). Functions.isRace(), isLTS(), isCapture() ... check the job type global instead.

Limits differ by edition: 300 placed props on Enhanced, 200 on Legacy. Other Enhanced limits are not known yet.

Text fields (title, description) are stored in chunks of 63 bytes plus a terminator, one chunk every 16 slots; see setDescribtion in MainWindow.Misc.CopyJobs.cs.

Options the creator does not show

The option bitsets menubs to menubs32 (Global_4718592.f_12 to f_43) hold more bits than the creator menus offer. The creator saves each bitset as a whole, so a bit set from outside stays in the published job, and the mission controller acts on some bits the LTS and Capture creators never set (both creators set the same bits). Mission > General shows the ones whose effect was found in the decompiled fm_mission_controller, the controller LTS and Capture jobs run on, sorted in with the related options and marked with *; fm_mission_controller_2020 was not checked. The table that drives them is in MainWindow.Mission.Extras.cs.

To add one, find BitTest(Global_4718592.f_N, b) in the controller and read what the code does when it is set. menubsN is f_(11+N), and script bit b is the same b in writebinary / checkbinary. Per-entity bitsets count the same way; for example vbs2 bits 2 to 5 lock a vehicle for team 1 to 4.

Rebuild: making changes visible

Writing job data changes the saved job, but the creator still shows the old entities. Creator Classes/CreatorMap.cs forces a rebuild:

• The creator's main state (worker.f_565) is 3 while editing. Setting it to 7 runs the "back from testing" path: it deletes every placed entity without touching the job data, builds everything again from the globals, then returns to 3.
• That path also resets the menu and moves the camera. For the one frame the rebuild takes, those two statements are NOPed in the bytecode and restored afterwards, so the user keeps their menu and camera.
• All five fm_* creators share the state numbering. Deathmatch and Survival rebuild too, but their menu and camera are not kept (the NOP patterns only cover Race, LTS, Capture and the Mission Creator).
• Other states used: 5 = save, 91 = publish (see MainWindow.CopyJobModes.cs).

Anything that writes job data in bulk (map restore, copy job, moving props between lists) ends with a rebuild.

Map backup

CreatorMap snapshots the raw global arrays (props, dynamic props, checkpoints, templates) into an .xvmap file (JSON with gzip+base64 slot data) under %AppData%\Xenvious\maps\. Raw slots keep every field, even ones Xenvious does not know, but tie the file to the edition and build it was taken on; restore refuses anything else. Before a restore the current state is saved as an undo file. UI: MainWindow.MapBackup.cs.

The snapshot format has a version; bump it when the meaning of saved data changes (version 1 files saved a wrong dynamic prop count and are handled specially).

Static and dynamic props

Creator Classes/PropMover.cs moves a prop between the static list (Props) and the dynamic list (DProps): copy the slots field by field (the two strides differ), shift the rest of the source array left, clear the last element, update both counts, rebuild.

Precise templates

Creator Classes/PreciseTemplates.cs gives templates the "Advanced Options" (override position/rotation) that Rockstar only offers for single props. It switches a set of triggered script patches in while the template category is selected and points the creator's "displayed prop" at the template's first object while Override Position is open. The class comment explains why that alias must be short-lived (a dead handle crashes the game later).

Advanced prop placement

Creator Classes/AdvancedPlacement/ (RepeatPlanner, PropPlacementService, dimensions) with ViewModels/AdvancedPropPlacementViewModel*.cs and Controls/AdvancedPropPlacementView.xaml / PlacementPreview3D.xaml: repeat a prop along a line, curve, spiral or loop, with a live 3D preview and presets (OfflineData/placement_presets.json). This part uses MVVM (CommunityToolkit.Mvvm source generators).

Copy jobs

MainWindow.Misc.CopyJobs.cs: takes a Social Club job link or the bare 22-character job id, loads the job details, then the job JSON that sits next to the job image on Rockstar's cloud (<part>_<version>_<language>.json, trying languages and versions). The JSON maps to the classes in JSON/job_json.cs; each field is written into the matching global, then a rebuild, then optionally save or publish (publishing asks first).

Freezers

GlobalFreezer / LocalFreezer keep writing a value to a global or local, for values the creator keeps resetting. Used by the global/local editor (MainWindow.GlobalLocalEditor.cs).