ROM Hack Nintedo ARChive Format

[Deleted User]

As many of you know, I've done a lot of reversing for nintendo ds games, mainly phoenix wright related stuff.

Lately I've seen in an increasing number of games the use of a specific file format for packing files together. We could refer to it as the NARC file format. It is the used extension in some games.
The archive not only point to data, but gives a structure between sprites, tiles, strings, ect... So it is really important to understand it.
Seeing this, it would be best to unite our efforts and make a full library to handle this file format.


To do so, I propose a little schedule :

1) Find exactly which games used this format. It might be tedious, as although games like Pokemon P/D makes a direct use of the format with explicit extensions, games like GS4 have their own packing format, and in some part of the data you can recognize some NARC files.

2) Completly document the format. So far I'm able to extract chunks of data, but I've not found the exact type of each chunk. For example each chunk has an identiefer as a string of 4 characers. LBAL chunks are array of strings, with an easy to find structure. On the other hand GMIF chunk seems to contain a list of sub NARC, the offsets to these NARCs being referenced by a BTAF chunk.

3) Make a library to handle these files, with a grahical browser. It is really important here to make a packing function too, as for hacking purpose we want to inject data in the same way as devellopers do.

I will soon change the wiki version on my website, the current one being awful to use (a lot of white page lately...). As soon as it is done, I'll make a page for this format. If some moderators read this, maybe we could use the GBATemp wiki, but I'm not sure if rom hacking is on topic.

 

[FAST6191]

Search for natrium42's narctool (it does carc (lz compressed narc) as well)
also have a read of http://www.pipian.com/ierukana/hacking/ds_narc.html (some of the other stuff is detailed a fair amount as well).
http://pokeguide.filb.de/index.php may prove of interest.

Oh and tony hawks uses an xml derivative if I recall.

With regard to other files I volunteer my sound file exploits and I can also drum up loads of info on text files (various pointer systems ranging from simple to unusual to downright weird are used).

 

[Deleted User]

wow I feel like an idiot. I had reversed almost everything on the page already... All the work goes to the trashbin :'(

 

[FAST6191]

Do not feel bad deufeufeu: I did the same this weekend only to find that website.

 

[arctic_flame]

Well, Natrium's tool is unfinished, and doesn't work if the archive contains folders, so you could still do it...

P.S. Mario Kart DS contains .carc /.narc files

 

[Deleted User]

Yes in fact my own tools was already more advanced than natrium's one. So it could be interesting that I go further into this.

P.S. : everything I said was not to flame natrium's work but to make progress into ds hacking.

 

[Heran Bago]

Didn't some gamecube games contain .arc? I'd keep going at it deufeufeu, and release your tools of course.

edit: woa no, i was thinking of that other one the zeldas used.

 

[Deleted User]

For those interested, my tool is something like this :

 

[jelbo]

You are my god. This will be great for helping the spriting community so we can all rip sprites and stuff. Thanks for your hard work deufeufeu! Keep it up!

Indeed, this stuff is great to use original gfx from DS games to make stuff like .gif's or cursors.

 

[DaRk_ViVi]

Great! Is this app able to extract and reinsert the files? It could be useful for translations.

P.S. Mac rox.

 

[Rankio]

Great job, looking forward to any progress.

 

[Flam9]

Very good work!

 

[Wolfus]

That looks like it'll be really useful to a lot of people. Please keep at it.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm currently in the process of making the ultimate viewer/inserter for all kind of data... You'll start by taking a file, it show up the hex dump, and then you decide what could be the data : a narc, an image with some packing info, ect... At the end when you have fully found the structure, it generates and xml. You could embeed in this file some python script for specific encoding/decoding, for example with pokemon there's some encryption that would fit there. Then to extract or insert data it will be straightforward.

These are not some ideas thrown in the air, I'm really makin this... In fact I needed to make a common program for working on the last phoenix wright and ffxii:rw. I will call it Narc-o-matic, if you have a better name... It should be up within the next two centuries (or replace centuries by weeks if you are optimistic).

 

[Flam9]

I would call it nARCotics or something...
that's just me though

 

[111111111]

narcotic is good, or narcolepsy.

 

[Zidapi]

I vote nARCotic too, sounds cool and i think once it's released alot of people will be addicted to going through all the releases looking for goodies

 

[Dirtie]

Just wanted to say that http://tahaxan.arcnor.com/index.php?option...id=29&Itemid=36 has a bit of a format description on NARC files and might also be of interest (I don't know if this information is already in those other documents or not).

I think you guys should collaborate to be honest, we could end up with something really awesome

 

[Deleted User]

Dirtie : I got a lot more than this. It seems people started to get interested into narc with pokemon, I got the structures of at least 3 games , the last phoenix wright, the last ff and of course pokemon...

For the name, narcotics will not show up directly on google, and narctool is the name of natrium tool.

I'll soon start an alpha testing with interested tempers. You can go there http://deufeufeu.free.fr/wiki/index.php?title=NARC-O-MATIC

 

[Lick]

Could someone send me the NARC archives of a few games, I'm interested in writing my own loader on the DS.

Thanks!