Imcodec

About

The "Imcodec" project began as a learning exercise to explore the mechanics and architecture of MMORPG server design. I have the utmost respect for the original developers and have taken steps to ensure this project does not infringe on their intellectual property. That being said, Imcodec has a BYOD (bring-your-own-data) philosophy and does not distribute any copyrighted game files. Users must obtain the original client and any necessary assets independently.

Usage

Imcodec is a command line utility to unpack, deserialize, and understand the inner workings of Wizard101.

Two of the most common usages will be:

• Unpacking "KIWAD" (KingsIsle's Wheres-All-The-Data) proprietary archive format
• Deserializing binary serialized files (known internally as Object Property)

Installation

Imcodec is built with .NET 9.0 and packaged as a self-contained executable for Windows x64. Simply download the latest release and run the executable from the command line.

Command Structure

Archive Commands (wad)

imcodec wad unpack <archivePath> [outputPath] [--deser] [--verbose]

• archivePath: Path to the KIWAD archive file
• outputPath: Optional path to the output directory. If this is not present, defaults to the archive name in the same directory.
• --deser: Attempt to deserialize archive files
• --verbose: Enable detailed output (may impact performance on large archives)

Object Property Commands (op)

imcodec op file <inputPath> [outputPath]

• inputPath: Path to the binary file to deserialize
• outputPath: Optional path to save deserialized JSON (defaults to input path + "_deser.json" suffix)

imcodec op blob <hexblob>

• hexBlob: Hexadecimal string representing binary data to deserialize

Object Property Output Format

When deserializing files, Imcodec produces JSON output with metadata including:

• Original filename
• Serialization flags
• Class name & hash

Binary Collision Data Commands (bcd)

Binary Collision Data (.bcd) files contain geometric collision shapes for zones.

imcodec bcd parse <inputPath> [outputPath] [--verbose]

• inputPath: Path to the BCD file to parse
• outputPath: Optional path to save JSON output (defaults to input path with .json extension)
• --verbose: Show detailed information about each collision object during parsing

imcodec bcd create <inputPath> [outputPath] [--verbose]

• inputPath: Path to JSON file (previously exported from BCD) to convert back to BCD format
• outputPath: Optional path to save BCD output (defaults to input path with .bcd extension)
• --verbose: Enable detailed output during creation

imcodec bcd info <inputPath>

• inputPath: Path to the BCD file to inspect
• Displays comprehensive statistics including:
  • File size and collision object count
  • Geometry type distribution (Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Mesh, etc.)
  • Collision and category flag usage
  • Mesh statistics (vertices, faces, averages)

BCD Output Format

When parsing BCD files, Imcodec produces JSON output with metadata including:

• Original filename and parsing timestamp
• Total collision object count
• Complete collision data with geometry parameters, transformation matrices, and mesh data
• Collision flags (Object, Walkable, Hitscan, Water, Trigger, etc.)

Note: BCD files within WAD archives are automatically detected and can be deserialized using the --deser flag with archive commands.

Building

1. Clone the repository
2. Imcodec uses compile-time source generation rather than runtime dynamic types to create strongly-typed C# classes from the game's data definitions:
   • Place a type dump in the JSON format in the Imcodec.ObjectProperty/GeneratorInput directory. These can be gathered using wiztype.
   • Place message definition XML files in the Imcodec.MessageLayer/GeneratorInput directory. These files (suffixed with *Messages.xml) can be gathered by unpacking the Root.wad archive using Imcodec itself
3. Any C# analyzer may be furious that source generated classes are not present. Simply run dotnet build once (at the project root) to run the source generators.
4. Run dotnet publish -c Release to create a publishable version

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See individual source files for the full license text.