Hacking Banner/Icon Edit,Save Edit, Manual Edit VC Games

[HowardC]

Also... I'd really like to try to get genesis/megadrive saves as well but I'm having a problem.

Can someone give me a confirmed vc genesis title that has a gamesave function? Normally we can find the file fairly easy but it's getting it to an editable state, but this time I can't even find the frikkin thing! I'm beginning to think all my genesis titles don't have saves, and I"m not really a sega fan so I don't like the idea of installing them until i find one with saves.

 

[rabapab23]

I have a question.. Is there any way to add extra room for the title of the games in the custom 0000000.app for NES file? I have a few games that need just a lil bit more space. I tried it once, and bricked that channel. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[rabapab23]

Sorry

I meant the banner.brylt file within 0000000.app

 

[HowardC]

Maybe..... you can be my rat lab on this one.

I think this MIGHT work, but I haven't had any time to test it.

Open the file in a hex editor and find the title. ..... See if it has any "dots" after the title name. You'll need two for every character you wish to add.

Now here's the key...... one of the "dots" directly after the name string isn't a "00" (on the hex side) it's another value but it simply shows up as a "dot". If you have enough room to copy this value to the end of your new title then it SHOULD work. Try it out for me, if it works then I'll add support for it with my utility. Keep in mind that this "hidden" character isn't universal and it is probably different for each entry.

 

[masud]

Maybe..... you can be my rat lab on this one.

I think this MIGHT work, but I haven't had any time to test it.

Open the file in a hex editor and find the title. ..... See if it has any "dots" after the title name. You'll need two for every character you wish to add.

Now here's the key...... one of the "dots" directly after the name string isn't a "00" (on the hex side) it's another value but it simply shows up as a "dot". If you have enough room to copy this value to the end of your new title then it SHOULD work. Try it out for me, if it works then I'll add support for it with my utility. Keep in mind that this "hidden" character isn't universal and it is probably different for each entry.

I can confirm there is a hidden character terminating the save name, i think it is 0A, if you don't put it you will end up with a non working channel.

BTW, does anybody know if it would be possible to add a 384 kbytes nes rom in the ninja gaiden wad, wich is only 256 kbytes long? It is the biggest 60hz wad running on pal consoles, so i can't inject games bigger than that.

 

[RadioShadow]

I have a question.. Is there any way to add extra room for the title of the games in the custom 0000000.app for NES file? I have a few games that need just a lil bit more space. I tried it once, and bricked that channel. Any help would be appreciated.

If you require, put the hex value 0A which will allow you to use the second line. As for extra space, I think you can just add some extra bytes but let me check it out first.

Well.. I just successfully cracked a neogeo save icon!

The reason I had so much trouble is that the "banner.bin" in 6.app isn't really a u8 archive. What it is, is a tpl file with the header (which basically tells the tpl converter "hey I'm a tpl file!") replaced by empty space and the save icon text!


UPDATE!!

UGH.. we've got a very interesting problem...... Apparently neogeo save icons have more frames of animation. It looks to be around 15 images to me. Now the tpl converter can only handle 5..... any suggestions?

Obviously we could just make a 5 image tpl, but I wonder if the neogeo emulator can handle that? The "real" banner.bin doesn't have a header, so I've gotta assume it's expecting 15 images.

UPDATE 2!!

Well I've figured out a very round-about solution. I made a tpl with 4, 48x48 pixel icons, used hexedit to make a file of only the header, split the tpl into two tpls, the second with the 4 icon header and now we have two tpls to edit. I'll obviously have to make a utility for this one as it's too complex.

So the NeoGeo save banner uses more than five icons. Well if it uses 15, you could make five SNES save banners, insert the nesscary pictures, remove the headers in each one, combine them into one and add the NeoGeo header at the start. But that would be a lot of work. I'll need to download a NeoGeo wad to try that out.

If you wanted to be lazy you could make a NeoGeo save use the SNES one as the header is set up to create the save file using the following five images. The rest of the data would just be ignored.

Also... I'd really like to try to get genesis/megadrive saves as well but I'm having a problem.

Can someone give me a confirmed vc genesis title that has a gamesave function? Normally we can find the file fairly easy but it's getting it to an editable state, but this time I can't even find the frikkin thing! I'm beginning to think all my genesis titles don't have saves, and I"m not really a sega fan so I don't like the idea of installing them until i find one with saves.

Yes the "Mega Drive" does have a save funtion. I have a feeling it's located in the data file which can be extracted in 00000005.app. I'll have a look tomorrow.


QUOTE(HowardC @ Jul 12 2008, 01:01 AM)

Ok, I think I got everything squared away and I know what I'm doing. I'll work on a save icon injector late tonight. I'll go ahead and add nes support as well.

RadioShadow: In your tutorial the "insert script" section... I'm guessing what it's actually doing is overwriting the existing data in that area, not adding more data correct? I just want to make sure.

Hexecute does indead overwrite data when you insert data.

 

[HowardC]

Turns out it's a more managable 9 icons. My injector I'm writing does exactly what you are saying, namely it takes two tpls that you've edited (the second is 4, 48x48 icons), removes their headers, merges them, and then puts a neogeo header at the beginning. The whole thing has to be done with templates though as I'm not completely sure about tpls.

The format is a tad odd though... it looks like the extra frames were added simply to make a slower fade without the use of scripting. How it breaks down is this:

First TPL
1. Normal "wide" save banner
2. 100% Snapshot (normally image 2 in a regular tpl)
3. 100% Snapshot (normally image 2 in a regular tpl)
4. 100% Snapshot (normally image 2 in a regular tpl)
5. 75% Snapshot/ 25% "NeoGeo" (normally image 3 in a regular tpl)

Second TPL

1. 75% "NeoGeo"/ 25% Snapshot (normally image 4 in a regular tpl)
2. 100% "NeoGeo" (normally image 5 in a regular tpl)
3. 100% "NeoGeo" (normally image 5 in a regular tpl)
4. 100% "NeoGeo" (normally image 5 in a regular tpl)


So as you can tell, they've just made frame 2 and frame 5 into three frames each, so it stays as one icon for a sec before blending into the other. Leave it to snk to do things the hackish/wasteful way.

About the adding more space stuff in the brlyts..... If we knew more about the format it'd definately be possible, but atm I think we are limited as to how much extra we can add. I'm pretty sure a brlyt has a section towards the top that tells the length of the file and the addresses of the different fields. If someone can confirm that this is NOT the case, then I can easily add more space and remove the sanity check in my app that denies you from doing so.



I've done all of this manually and it DOES work, so it's just a matter of me buttoning everything up.

Nes support is gonna take a while..... gotta write a routine to search for those values you mentioned when everything is converted to a non-hex byte array. It should be easy, but my mind isn't working properly atm. I was kinda holding out on releasing a new version of the save icon maker until we figured out a little more about the genesis save data.. at least until we can somehow manage to extract a ful tpl.

 

[HowardC]

Success! I got my injector to properly merge the two tpl files and heder and I installed the new icon into a metal slug wad and it displayed fine!

For anyone who is too impatient to wait on the release of my injector, here is a generic neogeo save icon (the title is "neogeo" and the snapshot has been replaced with a picture of the console) both in the combined banner.bin format (ready to go) or two editable tpls and the header.

Generic Neogeo Save Icon (with individual files)

To make your own manually EDIT (keyword edit, do NOT make new files from scratch) the two tpl files to your liking, edit the title in the header via a hex editor, via hex editor remove the headers from both tpls and save, open the header file and add (NOT replace) first the neogeo1.tpl and then the neogeo2.tpl and save the whole mess as banner.bin.

Something of note is that you MUST use u8 coes to repack the 00000006.app file as the u8packer will corrupt your save. (Took me forever to figure out that was my issue.)

 

[HowardC]

Man... I am on a frikkin role tonight!

Managed to properly decrypt the banner.bin and icon.bin in metal slug's 00000000.app and install it into a custom wad.

I need to edit the vc pics (so we know it's different) edit the game info and install a new sound.bin, but I should have us a new, properly colored neogeo template file to use by tomorrow!

 

[crwys]

Hey. Do you have your .brlyt file editing working for n64 app files? I can't get past hex editing, i have managed to change the year and thats it. My wii freezes up when i try to customize the players and name >< Also does anyone have any idea how to make the music loop?

 

[HowardC]

Well I spoke too soon on the neogeo banner.....

Here's the deal... it worked fine, showed the correct colors and all, but it was "METAL SLUG," which is a very short game name for neogeo and when I tried to add in extra space it would brick the channel. So I can confirm that other than a wee bit of extra space already in the brlyt you CANNOT simply insert a longer string. I tried making a banner using the same method with kingf of fighter's 94 (the longest neogeo title released so far) but the banner always ends up with corrupted images. Later on I will get ahold of king of the monsters (second longest title) and see if I can squeeze three more characters out of it and make a banner out of that.

crwys: No I'm still working on n64.

With the upmost respect to those who made the 00000000.app templates we use now, the games chosen were often poor choices due to name length (should be the longest title available), number of players (should never be 1), ect...

I think we might want to take the time to do new templates from the best possible "official" games, that way short titles aren't an issue.

 

[crwys]

Alright thanks for replying =)

 

[Keylogger]

Is there a way to edit the save game icon and name for a Genesis/Megadrive VC Game?

I have a custom banner but the save icon is the Sonic 3 one and I don't know how to change it.

Thanx for your help.

 

[crwys]

Hey sperion you can update your tourtial. I found where to edit the name for the save file for n64 games. Its in the 0005.app file, and the file is called:
saveComments_saveComments_en.bin

Hex edit it, and there should only be 1 name, really easy to edit.

 

[Sperion]

Hey sperion you can update your tourtial. I found where to edit the name for the save file for n64 games. Its in the 0005.app file, and the file is called:
saveComments_saveComments_en.bin

Hex edit it, and there should only be 1 name, really easy to edit.

yeah i will update the tuts as soon is ive got time, but im really bussy with work so i dont really have time atm for editting work :/

 

[dergrafdmb]

Hello Everyone,
I've been following this thread for the last couple of days to create my own rom-VC-channels and up until yesterday I had no problems.
You guys are all doing a great job explaining every single detail!
I'm mostly interested in MEGADRIVE / Genesis Games.

So here's my problem:

I injected a Genesis-ROM of Mickey Mouse - World of Illusion into COMIC ZONE WAD
(I'm always using this wad cuz it has proven to be the one that's working for genesis-games)

No here's my problem:

I tried to create my own banner using the 000.apps for GENESIS from the first page of this thread.
It looks great in the Wii-Menu but when I click on the channel - the channel won't open and my wii-menu freezes - so the channel is bricked somehow.

HOWEVER - using the 000.apps for megadrive (also located on the first page of the thread)
The Channel and the game work flawlessly EXCEPT now I have a distorted image of the banner and icon. (like on of you guys already had a couple of pages ago)

Here are the two wad-files

http://rapidshare.com/files/129602110/WoI_03.wad.html
This is the NOT working channel - but the banner looks perfect. (using the genesis_0000.apps)

http://rapidshare.com/files/129601561/WoI_01.wad.html
This is the working channel with graphics errors. (megadrive_0000.apps)


Can anyone help me - or give me some hints on how to combine those to wads to a perfectly functioning one?
Or how to fix one of these?

What I already tried is I used the VCPics.tpl and IconVCPics.tpl from the nice looking on - in the bad-looking-channel - but it still looks bad.

Any ideas?

 

[dritz]

Success! I got my injector to properly merge the two tpl files and heder and I installed the new icon into a metal slug wad and it displayed fine!

For anyone who is too impatient to wait on the release of my injector, here is a generic neogeo save icon (the title is "neogeo" and the snapshot has been replaced with a picture of the console) both in the combined banner.bin format (ready to go) or two editable tpls and the header.

Generic Neogeo Save Icon (with individual files)

To make your own manually EDIT (keyword edit, do NOT make new files from scratch) the two tpl files to your liking, edit the title in the header via a hex editor, via hex editor remove the headers from both tpls and save, open the header file and add (NOT replace) first the neogeo1.tpl and then the neogeo2.tpl and save the whole mess as banner.bin.

Something of note is that you MUST use u8 coes to repack the 00000006.app file as the u8packer will corrupt your save. (Took me forever to figure out that was my issue.)

This works great.
Nice job.
But like you said if you add a name longer than whats there the ending letters are garbled

 

[dritz]

Anyone who is interested
I made a generic manual Generic neo manual
Just replace the this file with the html.arc file thats in the 00000005.app

I only edited the english side with the 2nd page.

if you extract the file.
You can also edit the name of the game in the startup.html and if you want to edit the classic controller pic on page 2 just edit the controls_classic.gif file in the ukv folder.

Page 1 generic
pic 1

page 2 generic
pic 2

Page 1 edited
pic 3

Page 2 edited
pic 4

 

[Chaorain]

I am having problems with the banner.brlyt file for the N64. I can change the release date but that's it. Every time I try to change the number of players from 1 to 1-4 it causes the game to crash.(I know it is this because I have compiled before and after this change so I know it is this part). Can some one explain what I'm doing wrong? or upload a completed banner.brlyt for Super Smash Bros. that works. I just want the banner.brlyt or banner.bin or 00000000.app NOT the wad I do not want to download a wad. Thank you in advance.

 

[HowardC]

I am having problems with the banner.brlyt file for the N64. I can change the release date but that's it. Every time I try to change the number of players from 1 to 1-4 it causes the game to crash.(I know it is this because I have compiled before and after this change so I know it is this part). Can some one explain what I'm doing wrong? or upload a completed banner.brlyt for Super Smash Bros. that works. I just want the banner.brlyt or banner.bin or 00000000.app NOT the wad I do not want to download a wad. Thank you in advance.

Well this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about and why we need to completely re-do our template files. The donor game needs to be multi-player because they way the "player" characters are written there really isn't any extra space left so it's nearly impossible to change.

I can work on making us some new templates this weekend, but what would be helpful is if somebody went through the official release list for each system and determined the multiplayer game with the longest title in each case.


Here I'll start us off:

Neogeo-King of the Monsters (kof 94 gets corrupted)