ROM Hack Extracting game cutscenes?

[Veho]

So ROM crackers nowadays can take the ROM apart, parse the data, find the game settings location, and add unlimited ammo, invulnerability, etc. etc.

Would it be possible to find the movies within the ROMs, and extract them? Are they coded in some weird incomprehensible codec that noone is able to recreate at home? Can there be a homebrew cutscene player? Or does every game have a different codec?

I would like to know.

 

[FAST6191]

Unlimited ammo/lives/grog type of stuff tends to come from holding memory values/register values constant as opposed to actual code altering.
As for taking the rom apart that has alwasy been able to be done (corruption or ASM), it is just far easier now DS roms tend to use the file system.

As for the videos there seems to be no standard by which they are done although the standards are used across games.
That being said the DS lacks enough resources for serious video: much simpler standards making reverse engineering easier.
Also consider that some cutscenes are rendered ingame (it is far easier (and smaller) to tell and already defined sprite to move than to have a video of it.

The best way for this to go forward though would be to use a loopback system in an emulator (VBA has one under tools record), I guess it is just a matter of waiting.

 

[Veho]

I know most games have game-engine cutscenes instead of pre-rendered movies, because it saves space, but I was thinking Metroid Prime: Hunters.

 

[RyuKakashi]

Yes, i wonder wondering about the codec they use for all DS games. I find it odd as how ensata was leaked but not their legendary codec.

Seems that it has full quality but tiny space and completely destroys DPG.

 

[Pochi]

Maybe if you can ever find the ActImagine content devkit, you will be able to read the video that you can can extract from a ROM using NDST.

http://www.actimagine.com/rubrique.php3?id...que=428&lang=en

(ActImagine is the firm that created the codec used for FFIII, Metroid, and many others NDS games)