Hacking Er... multiple M3 Sakura Skins?

[BainIthron]

'lo...

Been messing with the M3 iSakuReal and the iBoot triple loader (for M3 Real and iTouch respectively)... and looked at all the skins located on the M3 Sakura FAQ. Some are simply .skn files, which is what I expected... however others have additional image files attatched to place within the SYSTEM folder. Further, I looked upon the japanese sakura website and noticed all their skins are composed only of .skn files (after having checked the uploaded Sakura manual here).

This leaves me with a few questions:

1.) What is the purpose of these additional image files being include for M3 Sakura skins?

2.) Is there any way that one can have multiples of these skins that use additional image files?

3.) If no, what will be the effects of installing these skins without the additional image files?

Apologies once again, and thanks for any help given.

 

[Densetsu]

They're not ignorant questions at all, they're actually really good questions

The .skn files will change the appearance of all of the icons, clock, video player, MP3 controls, and most of the other screens. It will not change the game loading screen (the "Now Loading" screen you see when you load a ROM) or the appearance of the ROM config menus (the cheat, RTS, slo-mo, soft-reset settings). The additional files will change the loading screen and config menus so that they match the theme of the .skn file.

Unfortunately you can't change them by merely changing .skn files. If you want all of the screens to match the skin theme, you have to replace certain images in the firmware and overwrite the default ones. That's what the additional image files are for.

You can have multiple .skn files on your card, but if you want to change the loading screen and config menus, you always have to insert the card into your PC and overwrite the files.

There are no ill effects from installing the .skn files without the additional files. You should only use them if you have a particular skin that you love and you don't change skins often. Or not

That's entirely up to you.

From what I can gather, it looks like Sakura v1.33 has completely integrated everything into the firmware, so skinning may be different and may no longer require these additional image files once v1.33 is released outside of Asia. But that's just my own speculation.

 

[BainIthron]

Oh, awesome, thanks!

Yeah, well... Mostly I'm asking because a couple of my friends had me order for their nephews and nieces, and so I wanted to pack them full of skins, since I doubt they'll be updating them often. I suppose I'll just put in a bunch of .skn files.

Thanks again!