ResForge

A standalone tool to decompile, edit, and recompile Haven & Hearth .res files for modding. It opens a .res in a graphical editor, lets you swap textures, sounds, fonts, text and keybinds, and saves it back — byte-for-byte identical when nothing is changed. Everything is also available on the command line for scripting and batch work.

Graphical editor

The editor is the main way to use ResForge. Double-click the jar, or run it with no arguments, to open it:

java -jar build-gradle/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar          # opens the editor
java -jar build-gradle/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar gui horse.res   # opens a file

Open a .res (toolbar button or drag-and-drop), or Fetch from server… to download one straight from the game's resource server by its in-game path (e.g. gfx/borka/male). Selecting a layer shows the right tool for it: a picture preview with Replace/Export for icons and 3D textures; a built-in sound player (Play / Stop / draggable seek) for audio; a live animation preview that plays sprite animations; an editable text box for tooltips/pagina; an editable JSON box for properties and keybinds; Replace/Export for sounds and fonts; and a full 3D model round-trip — export to a Blender-ready binary glTF (.glb, carrying both of Haven's UV sets, textures, the skeleton/skinning, skeletal animations and mesh-morph animations in one file); Rebuild from glTF to bring edits back — regenerate geometry so you can reshape/sculpt, re-UV, add, remove or re-topologize vertices and faces (multi-part, morph, skinned and normal-mapped models supported — positions/normals/UVs are re-quantised into the original on-wire formats, skinning weights rebuilt, tangents recomputed, the skeleton re-posed and morphs re-shaped). You can also add, delete and reorder layers, edit the resource version, and undo/redo. For old-style image layers you can also edit the header (id, z/sub-z, draw offset, no-offset flag), edit a texture header (id, atlas offset, size) and an audio clip's id + volume, and adding an image wraps it in a fresh layer with the next free id — so you can extend a sprite animation by adding frames and listing their ids in the anim editor. The 3D vbuf2/mesh layers show their vertex/attribute and triangle/material detail (read-only in-app), but a whole model can be edited by the glTF round-trip (export → edit in Blender → re-import). Unchanged layers are preserved byte-for-byte on save, so edits can't corrupt a file.

The .res format

A .res file is a tiny container (see haven.Resource.load() in the client):

"Haven Resource 1"   16-byte ASCII signature
uint16  (LE)         resource version
repeat until end of file:
    string           NUL-terminated UTF-8 layer name  (e.g. "image", "tooltip")
    int32   (LE)     layer payload length
    <length bytes>   layer payload

Each layer has its own internal format. The client's Resource.java contains a decoder for every layer type (image, tooltip, pagina, neg, props, obst, anim, action, audio, code, vbuf2, mesh, ...). The developer's mkres Python compiler is the encoder side (mostly 3D meshes).

How this tool works — the "parts" model

Unpacking a .res writes a folder containing a manifest.txt plus a layers/ sub-folder. Every layer becomes one or more part files whose concatenation equals the original payload, so repacking can always rebuild the exact bytes.

Layer type	Parts written	Editable as
image	*.imghdr + *.png	swap the PNG texture
tex	*.pre.bin + image + *.post.bin	swap a 3D model's texture (JPEG/PNG)
audio2	*.audhdr + *.ogg	swap a sound (Ogg Vorbis)
props	*.json	edit typed properties as JSON
action	*.json	edit button/keybind metadata as JSON
mat2	*.json	edit material commands as JSON
anim	*.json	edit sprite animation (speed + frames) as JSON
neg	*.json	edit click hotspot / hitbox + connection points as JSON
obst	*.json	edit movement-collision polygons as JSON
boneoff	*.json	edit equip-point placement (translate/rotate ops) as JSON
light	*.json	edit a light source (colours, attenuation, direction) as JSON
font	*.fonthdr + *.ttf/*.otf	swap the embedded font
midi	*.mid	swap the MIDI music
tooltip,pagina	*.txt	edit UTF-8 text
anything else	*.bin	raw bytes (lossless)

For images, the header (z, sub-z, id, offset, metadata) is preserved verbatim in the .imghdr part and only the embedded image is replaced — the most common mod (re-skinning). The PNG may be any size; the layer length is recomputed.

tex layers hold the textures used by 3D models (the embedded picture is a JPEG or PNG after a short header). The texture is exposed as a normal image file between two verbatim .bin parts; on repack its length is recomputed, so you can drop in a replacement of any size.

props layers hold typed key/value properties (a tto stream). They are exposed as editable *.json, but only when the round-trip is provably lossless — the tool decodes, re-serializes to JSON, re-encodes, and checks it reproduces the original bytes before offering JSON; otherwise the layer stays a raw .bin. So editing props can never silently corrupt a resource.

audio2 layers hold sound effects/music as Ogg Vorbis. The audio runs to the end of the payload (like image), so it is split into a verbatim *.audhdr header and a replaceable *.ogg — drop in any Ogg Vorbis file to swap a sound.

action layers describe action buttons/keybinds (parent resource, name, hotkey, arguments). The format is fully deterministic, so it is exposed as editable *.json (with the same lossless-or-raw guard as props) — handy for renaming a button or rebinding its hotkey.

font layers embed a TrueType/OpenType font after a 2-byte header — split into *.fonthdr + *.ttf/*.otf so you can swap the typeface. midi layers are a whole MIDI file, exposed as *.mid.

Editing 3D models (the glTF round-trip)

Haven's 3D models live in vbuf2 (vertices) + mesh (triangles) layers, with quantised attributes (positions, two UV sets, octahedral normals/tangents, bone weights), plus optional skel (skeleton), skan (skeletal animation) and manim (mesh-morph animation). ResForge round-trips the whole thing through Blender via glTF:

1. Export glTF — writes a self-contained .glb with geometry, both UV sets, embedded textures, the skeleton + skinning, and the animations. Open it in Blender (or any glTF tool).
2. Edit in Blender.
3. Rebuild from glTF — regenerates the geometry from the edited .glb, so you can reshape/sculpt, re-UV, add, remove or re-topologize vertices and faces (and whole parts). It re-encodes positions/normals/UVs/weights into the original formats, recomputes tangents, rebuilds the submeshes/morphs, and re-poses the skeleton if you moved a bone. It isn't byte-lossless, so verify in-game. Multi-part, skinned, morph-animated and normal-mapped models are all supported.

What still can't be edited through the round-trip: the skeleton's animation keyframes (skan) and adding/removing morph frames — the meshes, materials, skinning, skeleton rest pose and morph shapes all round-trip.

Building / testing

Requires JDK 21. There are three equivalent builds — use whichever you prefer; all compile the same sources, run the same JUnit 5 tests, and produce the same runnable fat jar (the JOrbis Ogg decoder folded in). Each writes to its own output directory so they never clash.

Gradle (bundled wrapper, auto-downloads dependencies):

./gradlew build      # compile + run the tests
./gradlew jar        # -> build-gradle/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar

Maven (auto-downloads dependencies + plugins from Maven Central):

mvn package          # compile + run the tests + build the jar
                     # -> build-maven/resforge-0.1.0.jar

Ant (for those who prefer it; no internet needed — JUnit jars are vendored in lib/):

ant build            # compile + jar + run the tests  -> build-ant/
ant jar              # -> build-ant/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar

The Ant build has no internet dependency — the JUnit 5 jars live in lib/. Gradle and Maven fetch JUnit (and Maven its plugins) from Maven Central. Outputs go to build-gradle/, build-maven/ and build-ant/ respectively, so the three never clash. Ant requires 1.10+ (for the native JUnit 5 junitlauncher task); Maven output is redirected to build-maven/ (not the usual target/). Point JAVA_HOME at the JDK root (not the \bin sub-directory) for any of them.

Command-line interface

The graphical editor is the recommended way to use ResForge, but every operation is also available on the command line — handy for scripting or batch-modding a whole folder. Build the jar once, then (optionally) alias it (the jar handles paths with spaces):

./gradlew jar
# the jar is at build-gradle/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar
alias resforge='java -jar build-gradle/libs/resforge-0.1.0.jar'

# Inspect a file, or see what's moddable across a whole folder:
resforge info    horse.res
resforge catalog C:\Haven\res

# List every resource a file references (deps + rlink + code + material links):
resforge refs    horse.res

# Download a resource straight from the game server (by its in-game path):
resforge fetch   gfx/borka/male            # -> male.res
resforge fetch   gfx/borka/male male.res   # choose the output name

# Swap a single asset in one command (the originals are format-checked):
resforge replace horse.res image  newicon.png    horse.res   # 2D icon / sprite
resforge replace horse.res tex    newskin.jpg     horse.res   # 3D model texture
resforge replace theme.res audio2 newsound.ogg    theme.res   # sound
resforge replace ui.res    font   myfont.ttf      ui.res      # UI font
resforge replace menu.res  action newaction.json  menu.res    # keybind (JSON)

# Edit text / typed data: unpack, edit the files, then pack:
resforge unpack horse.res            # -> horse.resdir/ (edit layers/*.txt or *.json)
resforge pack   horse.resdir         # -> horse.res

# Export a 3D model to a Blender-ready binary glTF (UV sets + textures + skeleton, one file):
resforge gltf   horse.res horse.glb

# Rebuild geometry from an edited glTF — reshape/add/remove vertices, weights, morphs,
# skeleton (regenerated, not byte-lossless, so verify in-game):
resforge rebuild-gltf horse.res horse.glb horse-edited.res

# Validate round-trip + image splitting for one file or a whole folder:
resforge verify path/to/folder-of-res

# Experimental write path: scale a model's geometry (then load in-game to check):
resforge transform horse.res 2 2 2 horse-big.res

replace is the easy path for re-skinning; pick the layer by name (image), name + occurrence (tex#2), or absolute index (#5). If the output path is omitted it overwrites the input in place — written atomically (to a temp file, then renamed), so an interrupted save can't truncate your only copy — and the replacement media is format-checked (PNG/JPEG for images, OggS for audio, sfnt for fonts), so a wrong file type is rejected rather than written. unpack/pack is the route for editing text (tooltip/pagina) and typed JSON (props, action); as in the GUI, typed layers are only exposed when they re-encode byte-for-byte, otherwise they stay raw. Run with no arguments to open the editor instead.

Extending

New here (or an AI assistant resuming work)? Read docs/AI-CONTEXT.md first — a one-file primer on the architecture, builds, feature set, per-layer status and open work. docs/DESIGN-notes.md has the deep format/reverse-engineering log. For quick lookups there's a tiny local knowledge-base retriever in kb/: java kb/Rag.java "your question" (BM25 over kb/notes/ + docs/ + the source, no build, no dependencies). Add -f to print whole chunks — ideal for an AI that wants complete grounded context in a single call. See kb/README.md.

Typed decoders live in resforge.layers. To make another layer human-editable, add a part-splitting rule in res/Unpacker.java (and the inverse is automatic, since pack just concatenates parts). The io package mirrors haven.Message primitives for decoding payloads.

Status / scope

v0.1 guarantees lossless unpack/repack for all layers and friendly editing for 2D images (image), 3D model textures (tex), sounds (audio2), fonts (font), typed properties (props), action/keybind metadata (action) and materials (mat2) as JSON, sprite animations (anim: speed + frame sequence) as JSON, click hitboxes (neg: hotspot + connection points) as JSON, movement collision (obst: polygons) as JSON, equip-point placement (boneoff: the translate/rotate opcode program) as JSON, light sources (light: colours, attenuation, direction) as JSON, and text. 3D models get a full edit-and-add/remove round-trip through Blender via glTF (see "Editing 3D models" above): export carries geometry, both UV sets, textures, skeleton, skinning and animations; Rebuild from glTF brings edits back — regenerating geometry so vertices/faces/parts can be reshaped, added or removed (positions/UVs/weights re-quantised into the original formats, tangents recomputed, skeleton re-posed, morphs re-shaped; not byte-lossless, so verify in-game). The code/codeentry layers are decoded read-only (class names and the entrypoint/classpath manifest shown; the embedded Java .class can be exported). A read-only dependency / reference view surfaces what other resources a .res points to: the explicit dependency list (deps: name + version), resource links and their decoded specs (rlink), and embedded source files (src, exportable as .java). The References… toolbar button (and the refs CLI command) rolls all of this up into one deduplicated report of every resource a file references — gathered across deps, rlink, code classpaths and mat2 material links. The rig layers skel (bone hierarchy), skan (skeletal animation: length, mode, per-bone tracks) and manim (mesh/morph animation: per-frame vertex offsets) are decoded read-only; boneoff (equip-point transforms) and light (a light source: colours, attenuation, direction) are editable as JSON. The skeletal/morph animation keyframes themselves (skan timing; adding/removing manim frames) are the main thing the round-trip doesn't yet edit; deeper typed editing can be layered on incrementally using the same parts model.

How this was built ("vibe coded")

ResForge was written entirely by an AI coding assistant — Claude Opus 4.8, driven through the GitHub Copilot CLI — under human direction, i.e. "vibe coded." The .res format was reverse-engineered mainly from the Haven & Hearth game client, with additional context from CarryGun's (a.k.a. Kerrigan) HafenResourceTool (used as a format reference; no code taken) and the server-side mkres Python scripts shared by the game's developer (loftar) — kept for reference as docs/reference/mkres-fragment.py. All the code, tests and docs were produced by prompting the assistant and validating the results against real game files (the round-trip oracle in verify). Commits reflect this with a Co-authored-by: Copilot trailer and a Powered by Claude Opus 4.8 note.

License

ResForge is open source under the MIT License — use it however you like (modify, redistribute, embed, commercial or not). See LICENSE.

It bundles and references third-party components under their own licenses — notably the LGPL JOrbis Ogg/Vorbis decoder (shipped standalone as lib/jorbis-0.0.17.jar and folded into the fat jar for convenience) and the LGPL-3 Haven & Hearth client sources kept for reference under docs/reference/ (not compiled into the tool). Those remain under their respective licenses; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. If you redistribute ResForge, keep those notices intact.

This is a personal, fan-made modding tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the makers of Haven & Hearth.