ROM Hack [Release] msbt editor

[exelix11]

Hey everyone (especially @exelix11),

Just chiming in with my own heavily modified version of @exelix11's excellent tool. If I should start a new thread for this, please have this post moved.

I've only tested with MSBT files from one game, which I am translating. Can you guys guess which one? ;P

Bug reports are welcome of course.

Download

GIT Hub Fork
Enjoy!

Nice !
You can keep using this thread, i tested this with a super mario 3d land msbt and it worked, but one from mario kart 7 didn't, while when i run the app from the source both file worked, also, when compiling i had to delete the 141th line of MSBT.cs because it's incomplete, update the compiled version

 

[IcySon55]

@exelix11 I just finished pushing the update to my fork. In the previous commit, I was in the middle of working on it and went home from work. The most current commit should compile no problem.

There are a few oddities with this file format though. If I open certain files using the null terminated string method, bunches of text get ignored/removed upon saving.

If I use the strings offset to read in as much text as possible, I can replicate the original file but then editing some of the strings becomes impossible as they have null bytes right smack in the middle.

Thoughts?

 

[exelix11]

@exelix11 I just finished pushing the update to my fork. In the previous commit, I was in the middle of working on it and went home from work. The most current commit should compile no problem.

There are a few oddities with this file format though. If I open certain files using the null terminated string method, bunches of text get ignored/removed upon saving.

If I use the strings offset to read in as much text as possible, I can replicate the original file but then editing some of the strings becomes impossible as they have null bytes right smack in the middle.

Thoughts?

i'm looking at the code, the first thing i noticed is this:

Here it loads the TSY1 section like it was a TXT2, so:

It thinks that the file has 2 TXT2 sections, when saving the TSY1 will be replaced by 2 TXT2 sections (i didn't test but i think that the game won't load the file anymore)
Looking for sections only for the first letter isn't a good idea if we still don't know exactly how the file works, that's why i used to convert the whole file in a string and then search for the string headers

i'll keep checking the code

 

[IcySon55]

I guess I'll write a small Peek function to return 4 characters for comparison.

We can also add new sections as they are discovered.

I currently busy trying to prevent certain string data from being ignored. Check your PM for an example file where some strings get ignored and effectively deleted upon save by v0.3 as well as my v0.4.

 

[exelix11]

I guess I'll write a small Peek function to return 4 characters for comparison.

We can also add new sections as they are discovered.

Of course, when i made this, i couldn't find any documentation about the LBL1 section, i made the code by trial and error with an hex editor.

also, saving the offset for every section is useless, when saving the file is better rewrite the offsets every time, because editing the text will change the offests in every section after the TXT2, one good thing would be to save the TXT2 section always at the end, so we should avoid the problem

 

[IcySon55]

I keep the offsets but don't actually use them when saving the files.

 

[exelix11]

I keep the offsets but don't actually use them when saving the files.

I'm still looking at the code for reading, that was just one thing i noticed.

 

[exelix11]

@IcySon55

Now i'm having again problems with mario kart 7 files, i can't open the file attached to this post, it doesn't find the TXT2 section, i don't know why.
Now i must go, in the next days i'll try to understand better the MSBT class

 

[IcySon55]

@IcySon55

Now i'm having again problems with mario kart 7 files, i can't open the file attached to this post, it doesn't find the TXT2 section, i don't know why.
Now i must go, in the next days i'll try to understand better the MSBT class

Thanks for the file actually. I can take a look at it and try to support it with the MSBT class.

Edit: Ah I see what's happening here. I don't have the NLI1 section defined. Do we know what it's for?

Edit 2: I've released v0.4 Beta which now supports Mario Kart 7 MSBT files (NLI1 section support added). I've also started a new thread to give the project more exposure here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-msbt-editor-reloaded.406208/

 

[Hiccup]

Could you add support for MSBP files? I can give you a bunch of example files.

 

[I pwned U!]

Could you add support for MSBP files? I can give you a bunch of example files.

Out of curiosity, what makes them different from MSBT files? I remember looking at one from a NSMBU update in a hex editor, and saw a lot of color settings, so is it a type of palette file (hence the "P" at the end) to adjust the colors of the text from a MSBT file?

 

[Hiccup]

That they have a different extension is all I know. But I can presume that they are related to the MSBT files.

EDIT: Missing word added.

 

[Deleted User]

Yesh. Thank you very much!

 

[IcySon55]

Could you add support for MSBP files? I can give you a bunch of example files.

It may be possible to support those files, but currently, I have no idea what they're for. If I find some time I'll take a look and see what I can discover.

Also, if I do add any support, it will be in the MSBT Editor Reloaded thread.

Edit: MSBP files seem to be project files that would be used by the text creation tool to manage all of the individual MSBT files. They contain several sections full of unknown data along with a list of the MSBT files that it manages with their original MSTXT extensions.

I don't think there is any reason to pursue editing MSBP files. They don't seem to be needed by the game.

 

[Afd777]

Please add support for the game Paper Mario: Color Splash.

It uses LZ compression

 

[IcySon55]

Please add support for the game Paper Mario: Color Splash.

It uses LZ compression

Please try MSBT Editor Reloaded

 

[Afd777]

Please try MSBT Editor Reloaded

 

[IcySon55]

View attachment 65394

The game is using an unsupported compression type. This is a problem with a few other games that have 0x64 LZ compression. Color Splash appears to have another new type. 0xDD... We don't have an LZ compression expert to help with this part. I didn't write the LZ11 compression in the editor. @exelix11 Did you write it? It looks like we need to RE some more compressions.

 

[exelix11]

The game is using an unsupported compression type. This is a problem with a few other games that have 0x64 LZ compression. Color Splash appears to have another new type. 0xDD... We don't have an LZ compression expert to help with this part. I didn't write the LZ11 compression in the editor. @exelix11 Did you write it? It looks like we need to RE some more compressions.

No i didn't made lz11.cs, that's from dsdecmp, also, the file he posted starts with 0x30 not with 0xDD, anyway, i don't know what compression they could be i never seen them.
If the first byte is different between the game's .lz files is possible that it's a custom compression unique to that game (without a magic number).
I'm not so expert with compressions, i don't think i'm able to re it, someone other must figure it out.

 

[IcySon55]

No i didn't made lz11.cs, that's from dsdecmp, also, the file he posted starts with 0x30 not with 0xDD, anyway, i don't know what compression they could be i never seen them.
If the first byte is different between the game's .lz files is possible that it's a custom compression unique to that game (without a magic number).
I'm not so expert with compressions, i don't think i'm able to re it, someone other must figure it out.

Seems like we need a compression expert.

Any takers?