Hacking VCFE Wip...

[dritz]

Here is a template that I made and it has worked perfect for all mt tg16 games. All files are uncompressed.

00000000.app Template

Also how did you compress the iso file to inject into Dracula X?

 

[dritz]

Should work. I didn't test it.

Edited 00000000.app for Monster Land

 

[marioxb]

I didn't. Monster Land is a card (not CD) game. I just replaced the syscard3p.pce bios file.

 

[marioxb]

Thanks! That worked great! I don't know why I never had any luck. I tried the template from the original banner editing thread (Bomberman) and a few I ripped from wads. Always came out "blurry". The game still only plays once until you delete the save file. Will try injecting into a Japanese card (non-CD) game.

 

[HowardC]

Icon Generator 6.0 has been released. This fixes all the sega naming issues, the palette issues already addressed and adds Super Famicom (And Famicom) support!

Brlyt Editor 5.0 has been released. Fixes a few bugs (hopefully all of them) and adds the super famicom color scheme as well as the beginnings of Japaneese support!

Btw... It's great you guys are using the tools, but please leave the chatter that doesn't involve bug reports to a minimum. If we don't this thread is going to get longer than the original!

 

[HowardC]

Well I dumped ALESTE for the MSX today and started looking threw the files.

The banner.bin has decided to be an oddball as the logo doesn't appear on the bottom half upside down in the channel.

Also it doesn't display correctly if the files are extracted and packaged. That problem should be able to get fixed once the brlty tool gets an update.

The good news is, the MSX Channel is set up in the same way as a Mega Drive/Master System Channel so the 05.app data uses the .ccf compression.

The save banner is set up the same way so there are 6 icon save images and 1 banner save image stored in the 'misc.ccf.zlib' file. However, the images are displayed using Nintendo's set up:

01.wte = 100% VC-Pic
02.wte = 100% VC-Pic
03.wte = 75% VC-Pic, 25% MSX
04.wte = 25% VC-Pic, 75% MSX
05.wte = 100% MSX
06.wte = 100% MSX
banner.cfg = Contains the Save Name
banner.wte = Save Banner

The config file has a few more settings than the Mega Drive/Master System:

country="jp"
romfile="Aleste_D4.ccf"
player.0.bindings_override="(core b=A)(classic x=A,y=C)(gamecube y=A,b=C)"
player.0.mapping_keyboard="A=SPCE,S=FK09,X=AD05,Z=ESC"
machine_msx.enable_opll="1"
config_menu.disable_staff-credit="1"
config_menu.disable_ds-controller="1"

The interesting thing is, it might be possible to modify the control settings for the Keyboard. The last three options I think have to do with the Option that comes up if you press the '-' button on the WiiMote and you get two options, one to use enhanced music and the other to swap around the two button actions.


Now the important part, the location of the rom. Well it's stored in a file called 'Aleste_D4.ccf.zlib' along with four other files:

aleste_D4.meg (This is the rom the Wii Emulator loads)
arch
fmpac.rom
init
msx_aleste_D4.rom (not sure what this is for)

Haven't got round to trying a custom rom let. I also think this Emulator only runs MSX1 roms but it might be set up to run the other types.



There is also a small bug in the ccftool2.0 tool. It doesn't seem to extract the 'patch' file stored in the 'data.ccf' file correctly in the 'ALESTE MSX' and 'Puyo Puyo MEGA DRIVE' wads (both which I dumped myself).

As the image shows, it extracts the file, but there is no data inside the file.

I wish I had noticed this one before I updated the icon generator!

It's not a bug in the cff tool that makes an empty patch file, the patch file is empty. If you look at the header data for patch in a hex editor, you'll notice that the file size section is empty. That's why it comes out with nothing inside. Why it's there I dunno.

 

[badboy08]

Thank you very much HowardC your Programms are Awesome but can you make a Programm where we can change the sound of a VC channel ?

 

[HowardC]

It's already possible to do this. Make a wav file (must be under 10 seconds) and then run md5 sign on it. They aren't my tools and I haven't done it personally, so I don't know the specifics beyond that.

Also read my pervious post... please keep chatter to a minimum. This wasn't a bug report so it shouldn't have been posted here.

 

[HowardC]

I quickly updated the icon generator to 6.1, just to add msx support.

 

[RadioShadow]

It's not a bug in the cff tool that makes an empty patch file, the patch file is empty. If you look at the header data for patch in a hex editor, you'll notice that the file size section is empty. That's why it comes out with nothing inside. Why it's there I dunno.

Thanks for confirming that. Thanks for doing an update to support MSX for the Icon Generator.

I'll upload the 00.app for the MSX some when today.

 

[dritz]

When I run the new icon generator I get these errors

error running 'tpl_converter.exe single.tcs ""file location" File name_ScreenShot101.tpl"
file not found

error running 'tpl_converter.exe single.tcs ""file location" File name_ScreenShot1IconVCPic.tpl"
file not found

error running 'tpl_converter.exe single.tcs ""file location" File name_ScreenShot1banner.tpl"
file not found

error running 'tpl_converter.exe single.tcs ""file location" File name_ScreenShot1VCPic.tpl"
file not found


Then is states everything was created successfully, but nothing is.

Ibelieve its missing some files from the rar file.

 

[RadioShadow]

Yeah, HowardC has seem to removed the important files.

Here's an unofficial fix: IconGen 6.1


Here are the Save Images for the MEGA DRIVE (JP) (same style as the GENESIS/MEGA DRIVE (EU)):

The only Save Banner images left to rip are:

- Famicom Computer
- Master System (JP)
- PC Engine

 

[dritz]

The Brlyt Editor 5.0 still locks up the channel when I try to use it.

 

[blazingwolf]

Is there a program that allows you to inject MSX roms into MSX wads. I checked the latest version of AutoInjectWad and it doesn't support MSX games, I really wanted to make a Metal Gear 2 MSX Channel that had Snake saying "Metal Gear?!" when you selected it. But it seems you can't even inject the rom without doing it manually.

 

[badboy08]

I Want also this programm for the MSX wads

 

[RadioShadow]

Is there a program that allows you to inject MSX roms into MSX wads. I checked the latest version of AutoInjectWad and it doesn't support MSX games, I really wanted to make a Metal Gear 2 MSX Channel that had Snake saying "Metal Gear?!" when you selected it. But it seems you can't even inject the rom without doing it manually.

You might only be able to inject MSX1 roms. Metal Gear is a MSX2 rom and unless they added MSX2 support to the emulator, it most likely won't work.

The reason AutoIjectWad doesn't have the MSX option is because noone has dumped the two of the MSX Wads (the only dump I got is ALESTE which I dumped myself) so they haven't had to chance to see how the MSX is packed.

 

[HowardC]

Thanks for the feedback guys... I'll wait until RS has finished ripping images before I do another icon generator release.

At long last I've figured out the brlyt issues and I need to post it here due to the important info I discovered.

Bascially, believe it or not, the reason my brlyt editor freezes some games (read MANY games) is because the original brlyt files themselves are improperly written!!!! Yes it seems that the value that denotes the text length is pretty much ignored by the wii and because of that many text entries in the brlyt (particularly the spanish entries for some reason) are flat out wrong, generally being two characters too long. Because of this, and the fact that I used to strip off the original text using this value, my brlyt editor would get to the spanish entries, strip two characters too many, and thus when the next text was added back in the text portion would start in the wrong place, thus freezing the wii!!

I have compensated for these errors by hard-coding the start position based on the header type (I dunno what half of the text headers mean still, but I do know there are two... one has 9 empty characters after the header before the text starts and the other has 7). This means that if the brlyt format is ever drastically changed this editor might stop working BUT for the time being it should work just fine. I will release a new version within the next day or so. I just need to make sure I can read back the hacked-up text headers I had to fudge without error.

btw rs... the megadrive and famicom icons are as good as added.

--Edit--
Guys, believe it or not, rom injection is on the bottom of the priority list atm. I will release my own rom editor in time, but right now I am concentrating on the hard stuff nobody bothers to work on, namely the icons, the brlyt, and the save titles. Once that is done, I can go back and concentrate on the realitively easy task of editing roms, which we already know how to do with all of the systems except the tg cd and msx. As you can see we are moving right along though, with the icon generator only needing a few more images before it's complete and (hopefully) a fully bug-free brlyt editor, I can move on to the testing phase of the save icon injector/editor, which is aleady fairly complete (just needs cleaned up and it needs tested by you guys).

 

[RadioShadow]

Here are all the Famicom Save Banner images:

EDIT: *RS Swears* The TP Tool saved the images as JPEG so the quality is 100% accurate. *goes back and rips them again*

 

[HowardC]

Thanks for the images RS... I've added them all and whipped up the appropriate default images. I wouldn't spend wii points on games just for this though.... the images we need will come in eventually.

It might be a day or so before I release the new brlyt editor (this time a fully working one, no less) and the icon generator. The radio button selection of the icon generator is getting uber long, so it's time to switch to another control and I might as well re-organize the order of the consoles while I'm at it. I'm going to go ahead and add slots for the two remaining systems and then the images can simply be dropped in when they become available.

As for the brlyt.... well I never get any feedback beyond "I tried it once and it frooze" which means I have to do the bug testing myself to make sure this new one works.

Then we can get to the save editor this weekend.

 

[HowardC]

Well it looks like the Mega Drive Japan brlyt has added yet another set of interesting "additions"......

Normally the color (and text value) for text in a brlyt for the title, year and number of players are stored in "T_Play_ENG", "T_Year_ENG" and "TVC_Title_ENG", where "eng" is replaced by the region for the entry. Well in the case of mega drive japan, the region section has been removed completely, leaving the titles simple "T_Play" and ect... Not a huge deal, I added a "NONE" region to the brlyt editor and aside from some minor tweaks it seems to have done the trick. Even though we can't edit the japaneese brlyts yet, I'm guessing this style of entry will become more popular now that brlyts don't contain all 7 regions in them anymore, so I went ahead and added it in to "future proof" things.

The msx one, as RS perdicted, is interesting. Background swatches 2 and 3 are outright missing (due to the lack of a logo reflection). This isn't a big deal either. In the color templates section I made a normal MSX one, with those swatches black, and then a "MSX_MOD" with those colors the same colors as swatches 1 and 4. When we start to use these templates it will become clear which one looks best. Also I can probably use the color editor to make the reflection logos invisible by tinting them the same color as the background, but again, actual testing will be needed.