Hacking RawkSD

[Szalkow]

what i'd really like to see, using this app, the underlying tech it utilizes, or via some other method, is a way to slipstream customs and/or dlc into the game iso, as a viable alternative to swapping sd cards and such.

is this a possibility, or are the boundaries put in place by the game and the wii itself to strict to overcome?

There's no way of modifying the game image on the fly - nothing yet has been developed that can alter the disc's data or the cached version of what was read.

If you're talking about making and loading a custom iso, that kind of thing has been done on Guitar Hero 3, but never in Rock Band 2. That would also be much more time-consuming than swapping cards.

And if it's some sort of network custom loading that you're talking about, that would require Rock Band 2 to work very differently - a much bigger change than just saying "Hey Wii, when Rock Band looks for DLC, I have some extra songs in the cRBA folder" and probably impossible due to hardware limitations.

 

[nano351]

I'm confused why is it that vocal animations are gone but all other animations are there? You'd figure there'd be none at all since rb1 wii engine used pre-rendered video.

 

[Szalkow]

I'm confused why is it that vocal animations are gone but all other animations are there? You'd figure there'd be none at all since rb1 wii engine used pre-rendered video.

Guitar and bass are done real-time by the game based on the notes (which leads to real guitarists finding the in-game guitarists' tendency to pick every note and only use the first five frets rather funny). RawkSD/RB2 still assign them random stage animations, such as walking around, smiling, tackling the camera guy, etc. but these are not as obvious as the singer's animation shortcomings.

Drums normally require their own animations for each drum hit, but apparently RB1 and the track packs include some fragments of drum animation which were enough to import full animations into RawkSD. You'll notice that importing any non-RB game or a custom without manually animating drums will result in your drummer sitting on his ass for the duration of the song. These animations have to be pre-coded because the drum animations include a variety of different drum uses (toms, cymbals, variations on hi-hat usage, double bass kicks, additional flourishes with the sticks, etc). It might be possible in the future for RawkSD to auto-animate based on drum notes, but it would also be pretty plain.

Vocals are more or less in the same boat as drums, except that whatever animations they had in other ports of RB1 didn't make it into the Wii version. To compensate, RawkSD/RB2 assign random animations, which can lead to interesting results wherein singers lipsynch to nothing during solos or stagedive six times in a row. Hopefully these will get some sort of filler animations and a manual animation process in the future, but at present the crew hasn't figured out how they work.

 

[wiimanizer]

do you think you could make a better/clearer explanation of the installation stuff? it seems a bit complicated and ive never gotten any of this DLC stuff even by now.

 

[SFenton]

Would there be a fix for the vocal animations in your future releases since every single RB1/TP imports have their vocal de-synced with animations.

It's not a fix considering that they're not broken in the first place; they're just nonexistent so we use a standard template. The main issue is that they would have to be made from scratch. Not to mention the fact that we don't have very much info on the lipsync format in the first place...

So unless we do some research into lipsync, you won't see it happen. And even if we do, we have three options, none of which are ideal:
1) Someone will have to go and "chart" the lipsync for all those songs.
2) We make a converter from the XBox versions of the lipsync. (and who knows if it's even similar)
3) We just do a generic mouth-open mouth-close thing based on the vocal note chart. It won't look that great, but it'll at least be in sync.

The bottom line is that it's a lot of work and we've barely started to look into how it would be done.

Trust me when I say that option 3 would look no worse than Guitar Hero 3.

 

[DaFees]

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but with the release of waninkoko's cios rev14 will customs now work with USB loaders or no?

 

[Szalkow]

do you think you could make a better/clearer explanation of the installation stuff? it seems a bit complicated and ive never gotten any of this DLC stuff even by now.
It's pretty simple.
1. Run the RawkSD Patcher in HBC to patch IOS37.
2. Get some songs in RawkSD on your PC. You can download custom .rwk files or you can import a Rock Band/Guitar Hero iso.
3. Run the RawkSD Installer on your Wii. When it pauses and says "Install songs" take your SD card out and put it in your computer's card reader.
4. In the RawkSD computer program, click Open SD Card and tell it where your card is.
5. Click Install Customs and choose what songs to install. Wait while it installs.
6. When it's done, take the SD card out and put it back in your Wii. The RawkSD Installer should still be paused.
7. NOW select Continue. RawkSD will mod the savefile.
8. Done! Go play some Rock Band 2.

Trust me when I say that option 3 would look no worse than Guitar Hero 3.Probably. But it would still require AerialX to figure out how the animations are coded.

QUOTE(DaFees @ Aug 10 2009, 07:01 AM)

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but with the release of waninkoko's cios rev14 will customs now work with USB loaders or no?

No. The cIOSes still load games from a different IOS which has issues reading the SD card. Waninkoko has not yet addressed this.

 

[OncleJulien]

There's no way of modifying the game image on the fly - nothing yet has been developed that can alter the disc's data or the cached version of what was read.
i wasnt thinking specifically of on the fly, more of a "here's all my dlc, here's all my customs, here's my original rb2 iso, run some newly created amalgamation app" - presto! rb2 with a massively extended tracklist.

but, as you say, nothing has been developed which can alter the disc's data, so thats a no go - thanks!

If you're talking about making and loading a custom iso, that kind of thing has been done on Guitar Hero 3, but never in Rock Band 2. That would also be much more time-consuming than swapping cards.

thats precisely what i was getting at - and would it be more time consuming? i suspect it would, if you wanted to keep it constantly updated, but i was thinking more along the lines of what i proposed above, more one shots than making a new iso every time theres new dlc.

QUOTE(Szalkow @ Aug 9 2009, 06:03 PM)

And if it's some sort of network custom loading that you're talking about, that would require Rock Band 2 to work very differently - a much bigger change than just saying "Hey Wii, when Rock Band looks for DLC, I have some extra songs in the cRBA folder" and probably impossible due to hardware limitations.

no, i wasnt thinking along those lines, just inserting files into a modified iso, but i appreciate you taking the time and cerebral cycles on my questions!

 

[Szalkow]

Well, presumably RB2 could be modified for custom setlists as GH3 can, but there are a couple of provisos:
1. You can't add more songs, only overwrite the ones on the disc.
2. You can't exceed the disc's total space of 4.37 GB (and RB2 hovers around 3.4 GB already).
3. You won't be able to overwrite the song titles and properties so have fun figuring out which song you're playing.
4. This will overwrite your highscores for genuine RB2, unless you mark this game as a different region or hack its titleID, both of which create their own set of problems.

All in all, RawkSD is a portable and efficient alternative to GH3 customs. Let's stick with this.

 

[Posh1227]

Great work! I have successfully gotten RawkSD to work on my windows laptop but was hoping to run it on my Linux desktop. Everything works using mono except for importing. I get this message when I try to import a disc after selecting the songs to import.

CODEUnhandled Exception: System.DllNotFoundException: RawkAudio
at (wrapper managed-to-native) lolwutbp:b (lolwutbp/b&,int&,int&,long&,intptr&)
at lolwutbs.a (System.Object A_0) [0x00000]


I copied the customs folder from my windows machine and was able to save to the SD card no problem. Just importing doesn't seem to work for me.

Seems like maybe it is complaining about a DLL not found that RawkAudio is trying to use?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[KidFlash]

Whenever I try to get run the IOS patch, it says exception DSI occurred and shows a whole bunch of numbers. What's causing this and how do I get fix it?

This is what I get everytime I try to run the patch:

 

[SFenton]

try installing cIOSBUGFIX37.wad... you can find it in a SoftMii package.

 

[SFenton]

Heads up guys, I created a Facebook group. If anyone's interested in joining, search RawkSD on Facebook!

 

[honeypa]

I'm not sure when this happened but whenever I prepare the SD card with the RawkSD app it says that there is an error that occurred after I attempt to finish the installation. Furthermore, my SD card becomes unusable in Rock Band 2 after using the application. I've tried using different SD cards to see if it was my SD card's problem, but in the end the results are the same. If you can help me shed some light on this, I would be grateful

Specs:
System Menu 4.0
cIOSCORP v3.3
BootMii
cIOS38 rev14

 

[jjahuja]

the rawksd patcher isn't working. It just says can't installl shit and then installer fail. WTf?

 

[jjahuja]

any help?

 

[YayMii]

I have a suggestion. What about making the tags [RB1] as suffixes instead of prefixes?

How you have it right now: [RB1] Green Grass and High Tides
How I would like it to be: Green Grass and High Tides [RB1]

This way, sorting the songs works normally.

 

[YayMii]

Will it work if I use the ps2 version of rockband1? And BTW THANK YOU!!! THIS IS
AMAZING!!!!

No it doesn't, it only supports:
Wii Rock Band 1
Wii Rock Band Track Packs
Wii Guitar Hero 3
Wii Guitar Hero Aerosmith
PS2 Guitar Hero 1
PS2 Guitar Hero 2
PS2 Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's

EDIT: WHAT am I doing replying to a post on the 1st page?? I'm on Page 43!

 

[OncleJulien]

I have a suggestion. What about making the tags [RB1] as suffixes instead of prefixes?

How you have it right now: [RB1] Green Grass and High Tides
How I would like it to be: Green Grass and High Tides [RB1]

This way, sorting the songs works normally.

a feature i'd very much like as well.

 

[vitamina]

I'm getting an error on the Rawksd APP Installer on the wii. It says 'An error has ocurred when installing the customs DLC"
The software of the PC says I havent prepared my Rock Band APP for Instaling customs, but I mean, how to prepare (I am following exactally the guide, which means I first open it on the wii, but it DOESNT PREPARE ANYTHING) Anyway of getting it prepared, cause I think this is the problem? It just doesnt, help pls