Hacking [Release] Wii U Zip

[jam1garner]

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Just a small program to manage/edit archives quicker and easier.

Currently supported:

• SARC based archives (.sarc, .arc, .bgenv, .bars, .pack, etc.)
• YAZ0 compressed SARCs (.szs)
• YAZ0 compressed file (.szs)

Planned:

• PAC - Smash 4 archive for animations
• Lzarc/Lz - Paper Mario Color Splash
• PCK - Minecraft Wii U (and other consoles)
• I might add some others too and I am open to suggestions

Currently Windows only.
Renaming/Adding/Deleting files and Extract/Open/Save are supported for all archives. Drag and drop a file onto the window to add it. "Setup file associations" button adds all the supported formats to open in Wii U Zip by default.

Enjoy and feel free to make suggestions. Thanks to Sammi Husky and smb123w64gb for any direct or indirect help.

 

[CatmanFan]

Sorry, I'm not considering having this on my homebrew list (no offense). But at least other people do

 

[jam1garner]

Sorry, I'm not considering having this on my homebrew list (no offense). But at least other people do

It's not homebrew it's a tool for editing Wii U archive formats on PC...

 

[AmandaRose]

It's not homebrew it's a tool for editing Wii U archive formats on PC...

The problem is by having wiiu in the name of this program implies its a zip extractor for the wiiu not a PC tool lol so no wonder CatmanFan was confused.

 

[the_randomizer]

What so what do we do with this?

 

[jam1garner]

What so what do we do with this?

If you are modding just about any Wii U game it will have these archive formats, this allows you to edit them in a manner akin to 7zip rather than hexing and using scripts to extract, pack, compress, etc. If you want to use this just download the release, extract into a folder and you are ready to go. If you want to set it up to automatically open these archive filetypes in Wii U Zip use File -> Setup File Association and then you just have to double click any of the supported files in file explorer to open them in Wii U Zip. Drag and drop files on top of it to add them to the archive and the rest should hopefully be self explanatory. If you don't intend on data mining/modding Wii U games/anything else using these formats this isn't needed for you unless you intend to do that in the future.

 

[jam1garner]

The problem is by having wiiu in the name of this program implies its a zip extractor for the wiiu not a PC tool lol so no wonder CatmanFan was confused.

It's not in the homebrew section so why would it be homebrew? On top of that I said it is windows only so...

 

[AmandaRose]

It's not in the homebrew section so why would it be homebrew? On top of that I said it is windows only so...

Yes and by that logic your windows app is not a hacking tool or backup loader for the Wiiu so why is it posted in the Wii U Hacking and Backup Loaders section. Anyway the point I was previously making was the title of the thread should say it's for Windows it should be something like

wiiu zip (windows app)

because like I said just calling it just wiiu zip is going to bring people into the thread thinking it is homebrew for the Wii U because a lot of new Wii U homebrew actually does get posted in this section before being moved by the mods.

 

[invdrzim]

Awesome, I'm very excited to give this a go when I have time!

I'm hoping this'll finally help me get started on that Nintendo Land Modding Project - which unfortunately was stopped in its tracks. Will this program help me get past the issues I was having with the .PACK files (repacking them and getting them to actually work)?

Thanks for developing this!

-Zim

 

[jam1garner]

Yes and by that logic your windows app is not a hacking tool or backup loader for the Wiiu so why is it posted in the Wii U Hacking and Backup Loaders section. Anyway the point I was previously making was the title of the thread should say it's for Windows it should be something like

wiiu zip (windows app)

because like I said just calling it just wiiu zip is going to bring people into the thread thinking it is homebrew for the Wii U because a lot of new Wii U homebrew actually does get posted in this section before being moved by the mods.

uh yeah... its a hacking tool. its a tool for hacking/modding various nintendo titles that is run on Windows... not sure what your deal is...

Awesome, I'm very excited to give this a go when I have time!

I'm hoping this'll finally help me get started on that Nintendo Land Modding Project - which unfortunately was stopped in its tracks. Will this program help me get past the issues I was having with the .PACK files that I was having (repacking them and getting them to actually work)?

Thanks for developing this!

-Zim

Just realized pack may be broken in this release but once I get the padding fixed it should work 100% for that.

 

[invdrzim]

Just realized pack may be broken in this release but once I get the padding fixed it should work 100% for that.

No worries, looking forward to using the tool once that's all sorted out.

Dealing with those .SZS files within .PACK files was a real pain the rear because I had to keep track of what went inside where. If this tool will (eventually) let me browse and edit the files within them simply by dragging and dropping then I'll be an extremely happy camper.

Thanks again!

 

[Don Jon]

is this 3ds max friendly?
like will i be able to export models into 3ds max and than reimport?
looking particularly at splatoon...

 

[jam1garner]

is this 3ds max friendly?
like will i be able to export models into 3ds max and than reimport?
looking particularly at splatoon...

As with invdrzim all I need to do to sort out splatoon and other .pack game related issues is fix padding when repacking. Other than that it should work fine with bfres/3ds max/whatever you are talking about

 

[invdrzim]

is this 3ds max friendly?
like will i be able to export models into 3ds max and than reimport?
looking particularly at splatoon...

This tool should let you poke around through the archives and get to the BFRES files. From there you can try using mariosonicds' BFRES Vertex Tool to import it into 3dsMAX (or Blender), modify it, and then export it*. Presumably you'd then be able to drop it back into the archive and have some fun.

Good luck!

*I've not used this tool myself, but it should at least point you in the right direction. If that doesn't work out, you can also check out ItsEasyActually's BFRES Ripper.

 

[Don Jon]

thanks guys
i like the way the community is heading
im planning on importing mario into splatoon with f.l.u.d.d
or at least vertex editing if importing is not possible
but i think it is

 

[jam1garner]

Ok - updated it to v0.8. Should support games that use .pack archives - such as splatoon.

@invdrzim
@Don Jon
I know you guys showed interest.

 

[Don Jon]

thanks bro
im off to holiday vacations and will be having time for mods

 

[dubbz82]

Nice. Doubt I'll personally make much use of this myself, but being able to deal with game specific archives is always nice...could lead to some interesting things long term.

 

[AboodXD]

Here're some hints:
You should make the user be able to choose the "Beginning of data offset". (Located at byte 0x0C, size is 0x04)

Some games won't work without a specific value.
For example, most of Wii U archives need the offset to be 0x2000.
In NSMBU, if you don't use that value, the game will start to glitch.

So, let the user choose the value they want, or set it to 0x2000 by default if they don't know what to choose.

PACK files are just SARC files with a unique "Beginning of data offset". (they change a lot)
I just checked three PACK files, the first had a value of 0x4000, the second had a value of 0x1800 and the third had a value of 0x100.
Edit: I'm just telling you that PACK files are a whole different story.

All of this could be wrong, it might have been an issue in SARCPack. (what I used to test all this)

BTW, what language is this written in?

 

[jam1garner]

Here're some hints:
You should make the user be able to choose the "Beginning of data offset". (Located at byte 0x0C, size is 0x04)

Some games won't work without a specific value.
For example, most of Wii U archives need the offset to be 0x2000.
In NSMBU, if you don't use that value, the game will start to glitch.

So, let the user choose the value they want, or set it tp 0x2000 by default if they don't know what to choose.

PACK files are just SARC files with a unique "Beginning of data offset". (they change a lot)
I just checked three PACK files, the first had a value of 0x4000, the second had a value of 0x1800 and the third had a value of 0x100.

BTW, what language is this written in?

It's written in C#, also I know that PACK has special offset stuff but I looked at every PACK I could find and the common thread wasn't 0x2000 its just to the nearest 0x100... tested this with splatoon some and it showed no issues. as for NSMBU I have not tested with it's SARC stuff as I don't own the game. Have you tested it with nearest 0x100 padding? If not I would like to hear the results of such a test. However it would only take a minute or two to add the option to export with a certain padding value so I might as well add that anyway. Could you DM me a NSMBU SARC so I can look at it some?

> (Located at byte 0x0C, size is 0x04)

Ofc I know that silly, I had to write code to build SARCs