I found that .bfma files (or E-Manuals) were pretty badly documented, aka no one knew the layout, text etc. Some people even were asking to use the proprietary manual making tool by nintendo. Well, me a loser! Has spent time documenting it.
The bfma file itself is a very regular degular SARC Archive, no documentation is needed here as that was known for a while!
Part 1: The text
The text is in UTF-16 (Takes up 2 bytes per character) and stored in .bin files. The titles are fully plain UTF-16, nothing else in there. Regular text bin files have a counter near the start of the file, this hex value tells the wii u how many characters are in there are in the file. This means that each bin file can only contain 255 characters, as hex only goes up to FF.
Part 2: Layout
BFLYT files are used by the bfma files, the BfmaInfo.bflyt has many params which can easily be viewed via a YAML reconstruction, it lists the languages and CafeStd.bffnt, which arc file to load for images (In most cases it is Common_texture.arc) and the Product cod. etc.
Part 2.1: BfmaInfo.xml
This defines product code and languages.
]
Next up is Index.bflyt, this defines alot more of the bfma. This has params for all pages in the Manual. Like Colors, Normal Maps, Font Size, Character Space, Line Space AND Many more! It also defines the different categories and their names.
Then there are middle bflyt's. Middle Links, these just define the buttons that on a page let you jump and takes you to another page. Middle 0, these define the many text boxes in the manual and their parameters and also the images (bflim files) from the defined texture archive. Middle Info and Middle BG, these define more parameters for text boxes.
Conclusion?
Not really, i hope this is useful, albeit i am not sure it is enough to make a tool. I hope whatever info you pick up from this can help in making a BFMA Compiler and Maker, i wanna try making my own but no guarantees of me making it. If you make one and this documentation helped you credit me, it would make this documentation worth it! Bye! Made by ThatOneDumWiiUGuy/Lukarth
The bfma file itself is a very regular degular SARC Archive, no documentation is needed here as that was known for a while!
Part 1: The text
The text is in UTF-16 (Takes up 2 bytes per character) and stored in .bin files. The titles are fully plain UTF-16, nothing else in there. Regular text bin files have a counter near the start of the file, this hex value tells the wii u how many characters are in there are in the file. This means that each bin file can only contain 255 characters, as hex only goes up to FF.
Part 2: Layout
BFLYT files are used by the bfma files, the BfmaInfo.bflyt has many params which can easily be viewed via a YAML reconstruction, it lists the languages and CafeStd.bffnt, which arc file to load for images (In most cases it is Common_texture.arc) and the Product cod. etc.
Part 2.1: BfmaInfo.xml
This defines product code and languages.
]
Next up is Index.bflyt, this defines alot more of the bfma. This has params for all pages in the Manual. Like Colors, Normal Maps, Font Size, Character Space, Line Space AND Many more! It also defines the different categories and their names.
Then there are middle bflyt's. Middle Links, these just define the buttons that on a page let you jump and takes you to another page. Middle 0, these define the many text boxes in the manual and their parameters and also the images (bflim files) from the defined texture archive. Middle Info and Middle BG, these define more parameters for text boxes.
Conclusion?
Not really, i hope this is useful, albeit i am not sure it is enough to make a tool. I hope whatever info you pick up from this can help in making a BFMA Compiler and Maker, i wanna try making my own but no guarantees of me making it. If you make one and this documentation helped you credit me, it would make this documentation worth it! Bye! Made by ThatOneDumWiiUGuy/Lukarth
Last edited by ThatOneDumWiiUGuy,
