Hacking VCFE Wip...

[gundalf]

Hmm i get it fuzzy as well.
Will make an new one

But for now, try Howards VCbrlyt editor and put in the padding the size which International Karate's brlyt file has.
Maybe this will fix the fuzzy Banner.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Ok dudes, fixed the garbled image by aligning the size of the brlyt to 12 bytes!

Actually it doesn't matter much but there is another problem... In the save image, c64's blue parts gets transparent... In the tpl converter transparency set to white, can't see why it does that...

Gundalf you had the same problem I guess previously...

Next time I'll use the howard's tools, first I wanted to do along with a guide so I chose the other packers...

Cheers

ps: by the way Gundalf, can we use looped sounds along with these?

 

[gundalf]

Ah yes you can use put in some nice looping 8bit music

I dont remenber anymore how i have fixed the problem with the save icon... hmm anyway using Howards tool its all fine

@FGOD
Something for your signature

Oh yeah, Wiicrazy, if you make for the future something nice to make C64 injects, feel free to use this as icon for the .exe

 

[WiiCrazy]

Ah yes you can use put in some nice looping 8bit music

I dont remenber anymore how i have fixed the problem with the save icon... hmm anyway using Howards tool its all fine

@FGOD
Something for your signature

Oh yeah, Wiicrazy, if you make for the future something nice to make C64 injects, feel free to use this as icon for the .exe

Well actually injection is not trivial, the trivial part is the banner making... I wish I had more time to spare for these projects

 

[gundalf]

Good things take time. As long you dont loose interest in your projects, its fine

 

[RadioShadow]

hey guys, the 12000bytes on banner.brlyt is that on disc 12000bytes or just 12000bytes? and even on disc, is it the size between the () or just the size it says?

and if so, then what if the size was original over 12000bytes?

Then you will have to find a size above 12000KB that doesn't cause the distortion. HowardC did sort of find a pattern but it was just easy to make the file 12000KB in size. Although I've let to see the need for banner.brylt file to be over 12000KB.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Using this formula may help :
pad byte count = 12 - (filesize - truncate(filesize/12)*12)

or simply

pad byte count = 12 - (filesize mod 12)

for example, if banner.blyt is 11792 bytes

11792/12 = 982,67.... we truncate the number it becomes 982... multiply by 12 we get 11784
11792-11784 = 8... 12-8 = 4... hence we should add 4 bytes...

or simply use the mod on the calculator... 11792 mod 12 = 8... substract it from 12, you get 4...

ps: though it's all around the assumption that actually aligning the size to 12 bytes works all the time

 

[FGOD]

i tried it with howardc4S tool and there was standard 12000 bytes edit, didn't help me... i have 2 versions now, one with working icon, one with working banner. i might try to combine them...

 

[FGOD]

the combining did work for me and i still don't know what was the problem, but what the hell, it works :-) but thanks for the info (again :-) )

ps gundalf: i don't own a c64 anymore, it stayed at my mothers house when i moved out and my little brother is taking care of it now... too bad cause i really want it back again

but that is the reason i don't have the C64 in my signature, and i really need to get the SNES out of it too as i sold it with all my SNES games to pay for a new floor so my little man has a good floor to crawl over

 

[gundalf]

I sold my SNES aswell. I miss it

 

[marioxb]

I sold my SNES aswell. I miss it

I find it funny that the Japanese and PAL SNES/ Super Famicom systems and cartridges look the same, and the US version is the oddball.

And then US and PAL NES systems and cartridges look the same, this time Japanese Famicom being the oddball.

 

[FGOD]

I sold my SNES aswell. I miss it

i feel your pain gundalf, i truly do...

 

[FGOD]

i just don't understand it, i never had any problems with blurry banners, and for some reason on C64 injection i got them almost always, while i never had them on any other injections... and the strange part is that the vcbrlyt from howard isn't fixing it... although in increases the size to 12000bytes... any crazy ideas on why this is? i mean the fact that even the vcbrlyt isn't helping... while it is made to get those strange banner fixed...

btw, the leaderboard golf banner is good now after combining the icon good and the one with the good banner... but i'm doing one for comic bakery now...

 

[LWares87]

I have had a few scrambled VC banners as well. As i had this for the Nes, N64 (even though there isn't that many) and Genesis Injections

I took a picture on my phone, sorry for the quailty.

Goldeneye 007 (N64) Banner injected into Super Troll Islands (Snes) wad

 

[nanook]

I've just finished reading all 35 pages... heh. I was in search of the solution to the blurry / distorted icons.

Great work and dedication HowardC, kodos. I particularly liked your vent of frustration at the poor bug reports, I know your pain.

I started trying to make a banner for a Wii ISO (opening.bnr). The banners crash the Wii if they are over about ~500k, so compression is very important. The first issue I had was that decompressing and banner and recreating it always made the image very dark and distorted. I finally found a solution to this issue on another thread. The solution was to use the c.exe from "Easy Banner Maker - BETA2 (PARADOX)". This fixed my issue straight away. Then I noticed that when changing the images that the icon was always distorted. I tried not compressing the icon as it was small enough to keep the banner under 500k. Same issue.

This thread appeared to be the only source of detailed information regarding banners etc, so I read it through.

I read about the 12K padding. I had already experimented with padding the compressed file to the next 4 byte boundary etc. I seriously didn't think it would work as it was padding the icon.brlyt which I had never changed, but it did.

The original size was 428 = corrupt icon.
I padded it to the next 12 byte boundary, making it 432 (also a 16 byte boundary) = corrupt icon
Padded the file to 12288 in total = worked.

This is all with compression (using c.exe).

If you check the other thread (above) you'll see I made an exe to replace gbalzss.exe that allows you to choose to use gbalszz or c.exe to do the compression.

Hope this helps and you keep up the good work.

Thanks to all who have tested and pushed this project this far.

Cheers,
Nanook

 

[RadioShadow]

So using that tool you can compress the banner and icon (and the sound) bin files and pad them to 12K, it fixes the compression problem? Sweet!

Now we just have to wait for HowardC to return.

 

[nanook]

The sound.bin isn't compressed, but yes using a folder structure like the one below makes it work:


aamd532.dll
c.exe (Compressor from Easy Banner Maker - BETA2, called by the replacement)
comdlg32.ocx
gbalzss.exe (My replacement exe)
gbalzss readme.txt
gbalzss_orig.exe (Original gbalzss.exe, called by the replacement)
If you don't have Office, you must click here!.url
U8Tool.exe
U8tool Readme.txt

I have coded an LZSS de/compressor for another application I wrote called Queen Bee. I took the compressor to test if it could decompress the part of the banner that is compressed with LZ77 (before the header is added etc) and although gbalzss can do it, my algorithm wasn't compatible. The algorithm I implemented was is binary equal to that used by Guitar Hero III and Aerosmith.

The algorithm in c.exe is very very close to that used in the banners. The hex is the same in some parts.

I hope to reduce the amount of padding over coming tests (not today though). I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Nanook

 

[nanook]

Ok, I found some time today and got a good result first time.

I padded the icon.brlyt to the next 32 byte boundary making it 448 bytes. I guess this gives the null padding line that HowardC mentions. One of the formats in Guitar Hero is like this (always padded to a 32 byte boundary), it sometimes has a null line (16 nulls) sometimes not. Just depends on the 32 byte boundary.

I may make some banners from other files, if I do I'll see how this theory goes. At least it's not always 12k...

Cheers,
Nanook

 

[stev418]

hm, sorry wrong thread

 

[nanook]

After a few experiments I conclude that you only need pad the icon.brlyt to a 16 byte boundary, then add a further 16 bytes. I'm sure this is the blank line of nulls HowardC talked about. Every Icon.brlyt I have tried (4 of them) has required this (and has had distorted graphics without it).

I have only tested with ISO opening.bnr files no channels (wiiware/vc)

Cheers,
Nanook