ROM Hack Modding/Extracting Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story (3ds remake)

[jfmherokiller]

I just want to share my progress on modding this game:

found but not working tools:
http://pikmintkb.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Yoshi's_New_Island_decompress
partially working tools:
http://aluigi.altervista.org/bms/mario_luigi_paper.bms
https://github.com/gdkchan/SPICA

Interesting information:
The game seems to store some data in plaintext utf8 csv files under the HB\param HB\event HB\bparam folders
Almost all files seem to start with the BG4 header

Situation so far:
Im unable to figure out how to decompress or decrypt the files that end in .z in the HB folder.
Im able to extract a large collection of textures and models
Some models/files crash SPICA
Even tho im able to extract alot of the data some of it seems to be missing or atleast hidden inside of those .z files.

Other bits:
If anyone could possibly point me in the right direction in terms of decrypting or atleast decompressing the .z files id be greatful.
2 extraction examples below

 

[jfmherokiller]

.z file studies:

so far all the files seem to start with this charater @.

 

[CHEMI6DER]

I bet .z files might have some additional compression applied(strange, considering that BG4 already has BLZ compression by default). Can't say which compression exactly. As for some models crashing spica: some model files aren't bch, but rather ptx files. We don't know the purpose of these yet, but they seem like a container of sorts(or maybe tney contain additional data about the map, IDK). If you open them in a hex editor you'll see that the first three bytes are "PTX" in ascii. Then you can just search for "BCH" and delete everything before it.
Another thing to remember about textures in these bch files(especially the one from the battle map you have on the screenshot) is that when you extract the texture it's mostly transparent only with some parts visible...but the model rendered in spica has the full texture applied so why is it? Well, as I've found out, pixels with 100% transparency still have assigned rgb values, and so by stripping away the alpha channel the full proper image can be obtained(actually it's not just this game, Dream Team also has the same issue, but instead it's just annoying because transparent areas contain colours but not the actual image which makes the model viewing in spica somewhat messed up)(you can strip away the alpha channel by using GIMP, decomposing the colours into rgb and then recomposing them).
Btw, if you are going to rip level models from the game, do you know how to fix the improper textures?(It's just that I tried this with Dream Team and the usual 3ds thing of "textures are misapplied with export", but I can't seem to fix it by flipping or mirroring the image to the side, it just get's messed up even more)

 

[Deleted member 488468]

I'm interested in modding the game as well. It's a shame the original is all encrypted and can't be edited.

 

[Boseph21]

how did you get the bowser model to show its textures? I was able to get it but the textures arent applied

 

[Deleted member 553894]

I am sure Z Files just have some compression

 

[Boseph21]

I was able to decompesss them

 

[Boseph21]

How did you get the bowser model, or can you tell me how you got it to have its shader?

 

[Deleted member 553894]

The Bowser model looks pretty good even though it was made for the 3DS

 

[Boseph21]

View attachment 278468
The Bowser model looks pretty good even though it was made for the 3DS

how did you get it?

 

[Boseph21]

Hey I was able to decompress the bch.z files but my files aren't coming out like yours, could you please tell me how you got your bowser?

 

[lone_wolf323]

Hey I was able to decompress the bch.z files but my files aren't coming out like yours, could you please tell me how you got your bowser?View attachment 294867

You are trying to poke at accounts which havent been seen since 2020. I would try other places to see if ya can get a proper answer for this.

 

[Boseph21]

You are trying to poke at accounts which havent been seen since 2020. I would try other places to see if ya can get a proper answer for this.

Like where?