Game is supposed to be installed in C:\Program Files\3DO\Heroes3 but don't worry if it's elsewhere! It will work either.

ModHoMM3 is modifying only 2 files you should backup. They can be found in C:\Program Files\3DO\Heroes3\DATA

These are meta-files: you find inside many and many others files, which are zipped and merged in order to take less place. There's a lot of progs you could find on the net which do the same as ModHoMM3. I mean: extracting & dezipping files from these LOD meta-files, zipping & importing files inside these LOD meta-files.

Exceptions exists for Armeggedon's Blade owners. Patches are adding files, but why on earth has 3DO decided not to add them to H3BITMAP.LOD and H3SPRITE.LOD ??? News files have been added to new LOD meta-files, in order not to replace existing files.

• installing AB 2.0 creates H3AB_BMP.LOD and H3AB_SPR.LOD
• patching to AB 2.1 creates H3ABP_BM.LOD and H3ABP_SP.LOD
• patching to AB 2.2 creates… nothing!

ModHoMM3, when used with AB, should import files to the last created LOD files.

H3BITMAP.LOD (about 100 Mo) contains files which extensions are

• TXT = text-only files that you shoud modify with a text editor in order to change game-play parameters
• PCX = non-animated drawing; beware! these files are not normal PCX files, you have to use ModHoMM3 in order to extract one BMP file from one PCX file
• H3C = campaigns; may be used in further developments…
• WAV = may be used in further developments…
• FNT = may be used in further developments…
• PAL = may be used in further developments…
• SMK = who knows? who cares?
• BIK = who knows? who cares?
• XMI = who knows? who cares?

H3SPRITE.LOD (about 60 Mo) contains files which extensions are

• DEF = from one to many drawings in each file, each drawing is a step of a meta animated drawing
• MSK = drawing in adventure map has got such a mask

You do not need to import TXT or PCX files in meta-file H3BITMAP.LOD : place files in DATA directory, it works! We think people from 3DO used this while developping, and then forgot to unplug it.

• [0008h] = number of files in meta-file (long)
• from [005Ch] to [005Ch + nb of files * 0020h] = headers of files
• [005Ch or so] + [0000h] = name of file (up to h000F chars)
• [005Ch or so] + [0010h] = offset/adress of file inside meta-file (long)
• [005Ch or so] + [0014h] = size of unzipped file (long)
• [005Ch or so] + [0018h] = who cares? set to 0, it works! (long)
• [005Ch or so] + [001Ch] = size of zipped file (long)
• from [004E260h] til end of meta-file = zipped files

Files are zipped and unzipped with gzip. Unzipped files also exist; in this case, size zipped is set to 0.