Hacking VCFE Wip...

[HowardC]

Yeah I've already figured all of that out. I've actually already made a save injector that supports all the consoles, but I haven't tested it yet so I'm afraid to release it.

 

[lolsjoel]

Desperately looking forward to trying out your brlyt editor. I'm in need of longer titles!

 

[stev418]

Thanks muchly for the news tools HowardC, especially interested in the ccfTool. Just having a few problems getting the tga files extracted properly, i can get a 128x96 tga from banner.wte but it comes out garbeled (can only just recognise sonic is in the tga)

Any advise? have a missed something in my tpl header maybe? The 'best' i can get the tpl converted is by using texture format 5 in the header

UPDATE: Fixed! can extract the tpl files, so can finally edit some genesis injects, simply remove wte header (32 bytes/2 lines of hex) and add the tpl headers below

for info --> use texture format 5 in tpl header

tpl Header to use for banner.wte

00000000h: 00 20 AF 30 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 14
00000010h: 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 C0 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 40
00000020h: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01
00000030h: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

tpl header to use for 0x.wte files

00000000h: 00 20 AF 30 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 14
00000010h: 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 30 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 40
00000020h: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01
00000030h: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hhm, I converted all the tga to tpl, and added back the proper wte headers, but upon repacking the data.ccf file back to the 00000005.app file i am getting a not booting wad install

I noticed the repacked data.ccf file is only 3.68mb but the original was 4.92mb ? does that sound a bit strange ? (all i edited was the misc.ccf.zlib file (no rom swaps) and it remained at 52kb :\

maybe its this ? :\ --> "I haven't implement this method of sort, so a re-packed file will NOT have the same file order. This shouldn't matter, but it's something to keep in mind
if you run into trouble." ??

EDIT: Ok, i got a custom save working, but the only way i could do it was by hexing the misc.cff file back into the original data.ccf

 

[HowardC]

I went ahead and went over the code in the ccf tool and while I found nothing particularly wrong to cause the error, I did go ahead and clean up the interface, fix some minor bugs (the filters were off... a message box pops up when you click the folder browse button...ect) and added "old-school" sort. When I run a ccf file through now, extract it and then re-pack it, my hex comparator tells me the two files are now identical! I tried this on both a data.ccf and a misc.ccf.

The new version will be up within the next few minutes, along with a new version of the u8 tool with some similar minor bugs (again, filtering issues ect...).

Update:

The new versions are up.

Also if you notice the first post, you'll see a wip log. I figured this thread is shortly gonna get longer than the other banner editing one so if you just want to find out about new releases, check the log, as it will be kept updated. Also note that I'm an American, so the date format is in US order.

 

[lolsjoel]

May I make a suggestion for your injector?

When you make your random ticket generator, remove the letters E J P M and L from the possible choices for the last character. This would effectively eliminate the chance of a custom WAD ever overwriting an official Wii Shop WAD. Right now, AutoInjectuWAD allows those letters to remain in the last position of the ticket ID, so when that happens, the chance of the random ID matching an official ID is relatively high.

Of course, this suggestion is only valid if the Wii will still play a channel that doesn't have a proper country code at the end of the ticket ID. If those letters are required, then we'll just hope for the best!

 

[HowardC]

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go:




In case you haven't figured it out, what this is a picture of is a Sega Master System rom with a neogeo color scheme applied! I created this using my new brlyt editor. You'll notice that I left the system name as "master system" and the master system logo in place (to prove I just didn't edit a neogeo one) but those can be swapped out as well. The editor is now also capable of editing the text names and LENGTHENING them, but I didn't include a new title in the pic because I'm currently testing the app and it's a pain in the butt to install and uninstall a wad 300 times.

What this means is we can now eliminate the use of templates for most systems and with systems in which editing the brlyt corrupts the banner (neogeo, tg16, ect...) we can fully modify a snes banner to make it look EXACTLY like the original!

There's still a little cleaning up to do on the app and the custom color editor still needs a tad more work, but other than that the app is running fine and you can expect a release within the next few days.

 

[HowardC]

May I make a suggestion for your injector?

When you make your random ticket generator, remove the letters E J P M and L from the possible choices for the last character. This would effectively eliminate the chance of a custom WAD ever overwriting an official Wii Shop WAD. Right now, AutoInjectuWAD allows those letters to remain in the last position of the ticket ID, so when that happens, the chance of the random ID matching an official ID is relatively high.

Of course, this suggestion is only valid if the Wii will still play a channel that doesn't have a proper country code at the end of the ticket ID. If those letters are required, then we'll just hope for the best!

I've aleady looked into this, and although I haven't explored it fully, the last character DOES count when it comes to certain systems/wiiware apps. There is a universal character that can be used instead, but it only works half of the time. (This is what freethewads uses I think).

Keep in mind though that I'm NOT making an injector. I'm making a front-end for the various tools out there so that injection is a one-step process. For most of the vc systems my fe will simply call injectuwad. (I can, however, make a utility, similar to freethewads, that edits the ticket numbers after the fact though.)


There is a much easier way to ensure that roms don't overlap though. .....

The second and third characters are actually the release number converted to characters. You've got 26 groups (a-z) and 26 positions in said group (again a-z), which gives us a grand-total of 676 slots. So you can take the number of releases for a system, add a healthy buffer (lets say 100) and then ensure that for said-system the random number generated is always greater than this number. Also it is speculated that values 0-9 can also be used as slot/group numbers, increasing the number of available slots to 1296. And of course a third option would be to make a list of all the current releases and their ticket numbers and have the program parse this list after making a ticket to ensure it doesn't overlap.

So no, it's not that simple, but we do have options.

 

[dritz]

I actually use numbers for the 2nd and third characters. And it works perfectly.
So as long as they use letters I should never have that problem.


Thanks for the U8 Tool HowardC. I was able to make my own template and redo all my tg16 games with no blurry pics.

 

[WiiCrazy]

May I make a suggestion for your injector?

When you make your random ticket generator, remove the letters E J P M and L from the possible choices for the last character. This would effectively eliminate the chance of a custom WAD ever overwriting an official Wii Shop WAD. Right now, AutoInjectuWAD allows those letters to remain in the last position of the ticket ID, so when that happens, the chance of the random ID matching an official ID is relatively high.

Of course, this suggestion is only valid if the Wii will still play a channel that doesn't have a proper country code at the end of the ticket ID. If those letters are required, then we'll just hope for the best!

I've aleady looked into this, and although I haven't explored it fully, the last character DOES count when it comes to certain systems/wiiware apps. There is a universal character that can be used instead, but it only works half of the time. (This is what freethewads uses I think).

Keep in mind though that I'm NOT making an injector. I'm making a front-end for the various tools out there so that injection is a one-step process. For most of the vc systems my fe will simply call injectuwad. (I can, however, make a utility, similar to freethewads, that edits the ticket numbers after the fact though.)


There is a much easier way to ensure that roms don't overlap though. .....

The second and third characters are actually the release number converted to characters. You've got 26 groups (a-z) and 26 positions in said group (again a-z), which gives us a grand-total of 676 slots. So you can take the number of releases for a system, add a healthy buffer (lets say 100) and then ensure that for said-system the random number generated is always greater than this number. Also it is speculated that values 0-9 can also be used as slot/group numbers, increasing the number of available slots to 1296. And of course a third option would be to make a list of all the current releases and their ticket numbers and have the program parse this list after making a ticket to ensure it doesn't overlap.

So no, it's not that simple, but we do have options.

I think it's best to leave it user controlled since they seem not to be incremental. Since you need to uninstall already installed game upon clashing, it shouldn't cause a great problem.

 

[RadioShadow]

The tool won't let me compress the 00000000.app. It uncompresses it fine.

I keep getting a message: File not found: aamd532.dll

 

[fiveighteen]

I just notified him of that in a PM, as well.

Just copy/paste aamd532.dll from u8Tool2.0 until he re-uploads 3.0 with it included.

 

[HowardC]

U8 Tool is fixed. Updated Accordingly.

 

[HowardC]

Ok, I have plenty of time to waste today so time for some coding, and time for a wip!

Right now I'm making quite possibly the ugliest color scheme ever devised. Why? Well I need to figure out what color values go to what objects on a banner so I can make the gui easier to use.

Here's a Snapshot of the color editor in the latest build of the brlyt editor:



Pretty nasty huh?

Well look at the end result:



Poor Wonder Boy... he's gonna need therapy by the time I'm done with him.

Anyway, notice how the previews colors don't match? That's because many of the color swatches at the top of the editor aren't "hooked up" to the preview. With this screenshot, I should be able to sort it out.


What I've determined so far is pretty intresting:

Back1 - Back4 represent the logo colors (obviously) but what is interesting is how they are ordered. First off, regardless of how many logos you see on the screen, there are really only 4 logo objects (cloned to make more) You have a set of logos scrolling from left to right... a set scrolling from right to left, and then shadows/reflections for each at the bottom. Back1 is the reflection for Back4? And Back 3 is the reflection for Back 2??? That ordering doesn't make any sense!

BackMask1 and 2 seem to reveal more about the banner as well. Apparently the floor gradient is a false one and it's actually "built" by taking a small transparent fade(backmask1) and then a large band of solid, but translucent color underneath (backmask2). Also it appears that translucency might be color-keyed by one of the other swatches, because if you'll notice from the snapshot, the large bottom band disappeared when I set it to white. (A common mask color). The secondary colors for these two seem to be what tints the text that is behind the "gradient".

Back0 appers to set the translucency of the logos, but this will require further testing.

So that's it.... I'll keep working on it, but things are moving right along!

 

[lolsjoel]

Good lord that's complicated. I have a question about what you're putting into the editor. Will we be able to choose the system logo that moves across the back? I'm needing a PCE brlyt and haven't found a good template, so I'm hoping I can make one with your tool.

 

[HowardC]

Yes..... for now it will be limited to copying and replacing the logo tpl in the img folder, but eventually I plan to figure out the positioning data as well.

 

[HowardC]

More Wip today.....

I'm getting prepared to add the logo swap option, which is a simple matter of copying files in theory. In practice though, it isn't that simple. It's obvious when looking at a banner on the wii that the logos are of different dimensions. Replacing the logo with one of a different dimension coudl cause strange results.

Now looking inside the logo tpls is quite a simple task. Get ahold of tpl_viewer.exe and it outputs any tpl to tga(s). I doubt anyone has went to the trouble of comparing them all though....

Upon inspection, nes, n64, c64, master system and genesis all have the same size logo, (512x64) an are compatable with each other. NeoGeo and SNES share the same dimensions as well.(256x128). TG16 is the odd-ball, with a square image. (256x256) The actual logo inside this image, however, seldom takes up the full area. Height-wise the logo is scaled to take up the top-half of the image area, leaving the bottom-half blank (This is so they can overlap in the banner for the scrolling). The logo might take up the entire width of the image, but if it's dimensions differ, it is repeated over and over, until it fills the entire width of the image. Snes is the only exception... the snes logo takes up the entire width of it's image. If we ever figure out the brlyt format fully, it'd make sense to make a banner with a logo of 512x512. then we could essentially fit all the other logos within it (by repeating the logos within the image) and do simple swap.

I'm rambling on I know, but what this means is if you have trouble with corruption upon editing a banner, you can use a nes banner for most consoles as a template, a snes as a template for the neogeo and for tg16, well you are out of luck if you want it to look perfect.


Anyway, I'm going to take all the tpls and include them in a folder along with the utility. Then you can simply select the logo you want and not have to bother with tpl editing. I should be able to add a warning if you try to replace a logo with different dimensions as well.

 

[RadioShadow]

HowardC, are you just talking about the US icons? Because the Japanese and one European use different logos compared to the US version. These are:

NES - Japan uses a Famicon Logo

SNES - Japan uses a Super Famicon Logo

N64 - Same

Master System - Same

Mega Drive - Japan uses a Mega Drive Logo, US uses Genesis Logo, EU uses Mega Drive logo in similar style to US Logo

Turbo Graphix - Must be different as it's called the the PC Engine in Japan

Neo Geo - Same

Commador 64 (sorry if I spelt that wrong XD) - Only released in EU

MSX - Only released in Japan


I can provide the necessary banner.bin, icon.bin and Save banner for the SNES and Mega Drive (all three

) but the rest I'll have to buy one of the JPN VC games in order to dump the stuff. Might as well allow the tool to support the Japanese logos.

 

[HowardC]

HowardC, are you just talking about the US icons? Because the Japanese and one European use different logos compared to the US version. These are:

NES - Japan uses a Famicon Logo

SNES - Japan uses a Super Famicon Logo

N64 - Same

Master System - Same

Mega Drive - Japan uses a Mega Drive Logo, US uses Genesis Logo, EU uses Mega Drive logo in similar style to US Logo

Turbo Graphix - Must be different as it's called the the PC Engine in Japan

Neo Geo - Same

Commador 64 (sorry if I spelt that wrong XD) - Only released in EU

MSX - Only released in Japan


I can provide the necessary banner.bin, icon.bin and Save banner for the SNES and Mega Drive (all three

) but the rest I'll have to buy one of the JPN VC games in order to dump the stuff. Might as well allow the tool to support the Japanese logos.

Actually no... I don't intend to add support for the japaneese systems, at least not yet. They use a totally different brlyt with different materials and as of right now I have no desire to look into it's hardcoded names. Also considering the app is coded in a language that doesn't really support asian characters, it wouldn't be particularly useful anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean though.... the images themselves might be different, but the dimensions of the tpl files are still the same. At least judging by the screenshots I've seen on the net.

 

[HowardC]

Even more wip today!

I'm pretty much done with "serious coding" today so I thought I'd just muck around in some other problem areas to figure things out.

Someone mentioned to me that as of now it's pretty much impossible to inject tg16 CD games. Well I happened to notice that monster lair was recently released and seeing as how it's one of the few tg16 games I've actually heard of I thought I'd give it a go.

Upon close inspection, the various files appear to simply be the cd split up into it's various tracks, with a hcd file acting as the "rom" which actually is a text list of all the tracks and (apparently) their positions in memory. Of course the audio tracks are compressed to ogg format to save space, but other than that.. it's easy! So all we need to do to inject tg16-cd iso's is to find a command-line cd-ripper, let it do it's thing, and then generate a hcd file.

At least that's assuming the tg16 uses a standard cd format... otherwise it will take more effort.

 

[RadioShadow]

I'm not that fuse about Japanese Text support, getting the tool to allow the wad to work on a US and EU Wii is more important.

I just want to be able to use the Mega Drive logo instead of the Genesis one.

Is that such a crime? At least give people a choice which logo to use? I'm sad because I want my Puyo Puyo 2 SNES wad to use the Super Famicom logo ^^'.

I'm happy to dump them so you don't have to worry about them.