Hacking WADs, forwarders and banners

[Weissnix4711]

So, I was told by a redditor that this would be the right place to ask and specifically to look out for a member named mastershoes. Yo, please reply, or anyone really.

Anyway, so I understand that a wad file is like an archive consisting of multiple .app files - 00000000.app (NAND loader), 00000001.app (.dol binary) and 00000002.app (banner) and possibly more. But how would I go about opening the wad files and then opening the wads, as in, what program do I need.

Also, how do I go about making a wad file from scratch. As in, I know you can make simple forwarders and banners from customizeMii, but could I do this by hand, so that I have more options available to me. Is there a tool that can edit wads (or rather the app files) as if they were simple text source files?

And lastly, does a wad need to contain a .dol file or can it simply forward straight to a different dol, say on the SD card.

Thanks.

 

[XFlak]

You can create a forwarder dol using ModMii Classic's advanced downloads to forward to a location in usb and/or SD, or open a particular website, or launch a specific channel/title ID. You can do the same using devkit but it's a lot more work, funny enough the hardest part is getting a stable instance of devkit running because the latest is not the greatest.

Then you can inject the forwarder dol directly into a wad using customize Mii. There are certainly ways to do more advanced manual editing but I can't help u there, I think there's some kind of brlan editor floating around that should be able to help. Note that if you want ahbprot enabled via the channel you'll need to use an ahbprot enabled donar wad (or manually flip the appropriate bit - don't ask which specifically because I couldn't tell you, lol)

If you just want to unpack and repack wads you can use wadmii and libwiisharp, cmd line tools that are bundled in ModMii's support folder. I'm sure there are other tools to pack and unpack wads but this is what I'm familiar with.

 

[Weissnix4711]

You can create a forwarder dol using ModMii Classic's advanced downloads to forward to a location in usb and/or SD, or open a particular website, or launch a specific channel/title ID. You can do the same using devkit but it's a lot more work, funny enough the hardest part is getting a stable instance of devkit running because the latest is not the greatest.

Then you can inject the forwarder dol directly into a wad using customize Mii. There are certainly ways to do more advanced manual editing but I can't help u there, I think there's some kind of brlan editor floating around that should be able to help. Note that if you want ahbprot enabled via the channel you'll need to use an ahbprot enabled donar wad (or manually flip the appropriate bit - don't ask which specifically because I couldn't tell you, lol)

If you just want to unpack and repack wads you can use wadmii and libwiisharp, cmd line tools that are bundled in ModMii's support folder. I'm sure there are other tools to pack and unpack wads but this is what I'm familiar with.

Thanks for the tip about wadmii, I had a search and I came across a Google code site for a program called showmiiwads. Is this the same program, or is wadmii part of this?

Also, what do you recommend as a starting point to get into using devkit? Any good guides to follow? I have previously tried when I only had access to a really slow laptop, but I ran into multiple errors. I can't say if it was a issue with the laptop, but I now have access to a more powerful machine, so I will try again soon.

Thanks again.

 

[Ryccardo]

And lastly, does a wad need to contain a .dol file or can it simply forward straight to a different dol, say on the SD card.

An (executable, as opposed to DLC or the like) title must contain an executable

"Forwarder" is a word conventionally used to describe a program whose main/only feature is to load and run another (possibly from multiple paths if the first one is nonexistant), but as far as the console is concerned, they have absolutely no difference from a "regular" channel where the software that matters is actually built in!

Thanks for the tip about wadmii, I had a search and I came across a Google code site for a program called showmiiwads. Is this the same program, or is wadmii part of this?

I don't think so (although I've never heard of wadmii, and ShowMiiWads does have some extraction/repacking capabilities)

3DS has spoiled us all, while annoying and underdocumented proprietary formats are still there, extracting and repacking a cia (the equivalent of a wad) down to the game's individual files is a pleasure with just 3 tools needed

 

[XFlak]

Wadmii is a separate command line tool from showmiiwads. The latest and greatest version was modified specifically for modmii and I don't think you'll find it anywhere else but in ModMii's support folder. I can't recall if the modified changes were significant or simply to help avoid antivirus false positive alerts for wadmii and libwiisharp.dll (the dll is required for wadmii to work)