ROM Hack Spa Files

[Gericom]

Does someone know how to open spa files or what compression they use?

The only thing I know is that the files contain particles (effects like snow and rain). And when I open the file with crystal tile, I can see a little bit the textures.

Download: http://florian.nouwt...ssionEffect.spa

 

[Ray =D]

I think thats unknown for now. I already tried myself to open them

 

[Auryn]

Does someone know how to open spa files or what compression they use?

The only thing I know is that the files contain particles (effects like snow and rain). And when I open the file with crystal tile, I can see a little bit the textures.

Download: http://florian.nouwt...ssionEffect.spa

If you open them with CT2, why you not take a look at the icon before the file that tells you if it's compressed or not??

 

[rastsan]

Okay there is multiple file headers so for sure there could be compression. I am sure I am seeing a palette at the end of that file. What might be nice is if you screen shot-ed/uploaded another file of the same type for comparison sake.
I would recommend grabbing a memory snapshot also of the file from an emulator. So you might possibly find it decompressed.

While playing the game on your computer attach crytaltile2 to the emulator, then search for the file name. you might hit the fat file but you will also get results for the file as it is in memory (hopefully decompressed). It will be a simple matter to copy paste that from the memory snapshot and compare it to the other file that is (possibly) compressed. The differences, if their are any, are what you base a decompressor off of.

Also might be nice if you told us the name of the game you are looking into. So anyone interested could take a look...

 

[jjjewel]

The file is not compressed. You can view Tile and see pictures. The only problem is to figure out the offset for the palettes and each picture.
(From my experience, if you see a bunch of value 00 in the file, it's less likely that the file is compressed. Most compression method eliminates the repetitive values, so you wouldn't see a lot of the same values in there.)

By the way, you said that the files contain particles (effects like snow and rain). I wonder why you want to do anything with it. (Usually, it's something nobody would edit. Except you want to make the rain drop looks different or change the snowflake's shapes, etc. )

Edited: You can look for " TPS" (20 54 50 53) in the file. I think it's related to where each picture is located.

Spoiler

(This one used CrystalTile2's default palette, the color is off. But you can see a picture perfectly.

 

[andibad]

yeah is not compressed i think, after i test spa file on pokemon BW (a/0/0/6)

Spoiler

well is interesting XD

 

[Gericom]

Here is another:
http://florian.nouwt.com/ds/RaceEffectFogOff.spa

The files are from mario kart ds.

 

[Gericom]

I have got something:
The file starts with:
offset - length - comment
0x00 - 0x04 - APS - 0x20415053 (Standard Particle Assignment)
0x04 - 0x04 - Unknown
0x08 - 0x02 - Unknown
0x0A - 0x02 - TPS count
0x0C - 0x0C - Unknown
0x18 - 0x04 - Offset to start of first TPS

The TPS starts with a 0x20 long header (it is little endian):
offset - length - comment
0x00 - 0x04 - TPS - 0x20545053 (Standard Particle Texture)
0x04 - 0x04 - Unknown
0x08 - 0x04 - Number of bytes in image
0x0C - 0x04 - Unknown
0x10 - 0x04 - BPP
0x14 - 0x08 - Unknown
0x1C - 0x04 - Total size


Then there is the image.

 

[Gericom]

Some process: