ROM Hack Extracting nds rom

[unknownnumber]

Hey all,

just want to extract the nds rom Hotel Dusk - Room 215 by using taxahan.
I can open the rom with the filestructur:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/viewp.gif/

There are questionmarks everywhere, no matter which subtree i open.
actually i´m searching for an special artwork ingame (the picture "Angel opening a door").

The "Palette" and "Picture" Tabs on the top are kinda useless, they show no files.


What am i doing wrong?

 

[shadowmanwkp]

Taxahan does not support all file types. Your best bet is to fully unpack the ds rom with an utility like dsbuff and look for graphics with a graphics editor like tilemolester, because you're looking for flat graphics. It will take some time though, because you need to search for graphics with different compressions through several files.

There are more ds specific utilities though, but because I'm more into retro rom hacking, I only know of some general ones.

 

[Auryn]

In other words it's not something you can make in 5 min.
I just took a look at the game and it seems that all BG files are in archives and compressed.
If you have a save game near the place where you have that image, maybe you are faster in doing a screenshot with an emulator.
It's maybe this that you are looking for??

This took me 10 second to find in google

 

[unknownnumber]

@shadow: i´ll download tilemolester and see what i can do, thanks though

@auryn: i´m searching my artwork for quite a while now, it can take as long as it wants
Sadly it´s not the one you´ve posted. Do you know the game? There's a painting ingame called "Angel opening a door".
But your picture fits too i guess, a pretty girl opening a door, but it's actually an angel though.


EDIT: Downloaded tilemolester, extracted the .nds file with dslazy.
But tilemolester cannot open any of the extracted files. When i choose "open" in filemolester and search
trough the unpacked rom files, no file can be selected... Do i have to unpack the extracted files?

In the unpack folder there are files like .mtc, .wpf, .tbl, .bin...

 

[Auryn]

Well, it's been a while since i finished it so i forgot how it look like but something sound familiar with that name.
Tilemoloster alone will probably not be very useful because like i said, they are compressed.
You know how to use an hex editor??

 

[unknownnumber]

Sadly i don't know how to use one, but if i have to, i'll learn it.
You can see which painting i mean here:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2188/2239335199_62a3eaca63.jpg

This is the end screen of the game and the angel in the background.
But as you can see it's completely blue and cut in half...

If there's no other way to decompress these files, i'll learn to use a hex editor...

 

[Auryn]

Well, if it's like that, then it's probably stored in the game like that as well.
I really think you should take a screenshot of the game with an emulator ... you sure have a savefile near the end of the game.
In an emulator, you can switch the backgrounds as well so you will not have that "fin"in front of it.
Just to show you...this i made starting from your pic .... i made it with ms paint because i don't have photoshop installed in this pc:

 

[unknownnumber]

I really appreciate your effort, but unfortunalety this isn't the whole picure, up and down are some parts missing.
Taking a screenshot ingame won't work as well (as far as i know), because you never see the whole picture at a time, it's
always blocked by some random scenery (but i never tested it in an emulator like no$gba, i play on my ds with the SupercardDStwo).
Furthermore i have no savegame of this game anymore, this is why i hope i could extract it.

 

[Auryn]

You are right and I don't believe you want her so pixelated like this :


And sadly you are right with the not full image but I am scared that you will not get her better than this:


I am just scared that you spend alot of time learning how to use an hex editor, try to discover the compression of those file and search those files and you don't get it any better than the pic above.
You best shot is to try to get that texture from the vram of an emulator.
I didn't try it yet because I was hoping to see the whole pic while or after the long dialog there but nothing.
Now i have to go work but here you go (the 3rd save game) ... grab the palette knife and good luck.

 

[unknownnumber]

I'll do anything to get this picture... even if i have to learn using hex editors or messing around with the vram (whatever this is)...
Is it just me or is your last sentence not a link? Can't click it...
How did you get this far in the game so quick in the first place?

But i don't think a savegame is the way to go, because you dont see more than your second picture, the whole gameplay is here from minute 6 on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89pkgp1qsp4

So i definitely have to extract this from the rom...
What is the best way to extract these compressed files?
No matter how hard the best way is, i'll do it.

 

[Auryn]

I have a backup of my finished games "save game" on the pc but sadly it was at the new game only so give a call to my best friend "Google" and you soon get here and sure after that to this.
Then play some minuted and you will get there.

Well, if you are so stubborn, then download this, it's a tool all on one.
Decompress it and start it.
File> open and choose your nds file of Hotel Dusk room.
Now press the NDS icon in the toolbar and you will get a new window with all the files you have in that rom.
In that new window go to File > split rom and then choose where to save; this will break down your rom into the files that they compose it.
The problem here is that if you take a look at those files, you have many file pair with the same name and the extention .tbl /wpf.
The tbl files are a list of files with the offset that you have inside the wpf file and this subfiles are compressed.
Now you would need to break down this wpf files into the single pieces and for that you can go 2 ways:
-is to program your own toll
-just use the hex editor because inside the wpf files you can see the names of the files at the top of each file.

In Crystal tile, you can view the tiles as in tile moloster, you can try that by pressing the icon with the painting and the grid on the tool bar.
On the left you can change the colors deeps that should be 1/2/4/8 bpp (i think your images are 4 or 8 bpp).

What else can i tell you?? Check the name of the files, normally they hint you what is inside (double click on the file data>local>us>itemtext.dat and look on the right side of the window with all the numbers to understand what i mean )

I can't help you in how to crack the compression because I am not so good at that as well.
Maybe try to find the smallest image possible (by the name) and try with that one.
And the last help is here.

Good luck