skelux.root.sx - ROM Hacking

How do you replace compressed textures and edit the text in Star Fox 64?

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:02:36 +1100

So I want to make a hack of Star Fox 64 with custom sounds replacing every voice clip in the game. Sound editing with the N64SoundListTool is simple enough for me. But to go with the new voice clips, I need to change the in-game text to actually reflect what the characters are saying and I need to replace the radio-chatter character portraits as well.

I can replace the non-compressed textures with Texture64 just fine and I know how to find the compressed texture files by using GEDecompress and then using Texture64 on the .bin files. But I don't know what to do after I replace a texture within the .bin file. If I try to just inject the new .bin file into the rom, the game crashes when the textures associated with that .bin file appear. If I use GEDecompress to compress that .bin file before injecting it into the rom, those textures are glitched out. And I made sure that my new textures were smaller in file size compared to the originals as well. So I'm guessing I'm supposed to use some other program to compress the .bin files after I edit them?

Edit: I know why changing the textures in the .bin doesn't work. The modified .bin doesn't have the same compression size as the original and I have no idea how to change it.

N64 assembly editor

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 20:28:48 +1100

Hi guys. I've been working on this assembly editor for n64. My aim with this one was to have an easy interface. As in easy, I mean as to eliminate the small repetitive tasks (such as navigating the assembly, calculating addresses or moving/NOPing a section of assembly).

I don't think it's finished yet as I am slowly finding small updates to add, but it is currently usable. Any feedback for bugs or features it should have is welcome!

It's current features are:

Game offset mode: Jumps/branches/addresses and navigation will be treated with the appropriate memory region offset
Memory region calculation: Main and Boot regions automatically calculated and supports additional memory regions
Hex/Binary mode
Assembly search engine: Search particular phrases to locate some code
Highlighting for jumps/branches and selected register
Text boxes containing original assembly, hacked assembly and comments/notes which are constantly aligned
Easy address translation from memory editor to emulator
Checksum calculation (should work for most games)
CRC bypass (works for some games)
Jump/branch mapping which allows highlighting of "branch/jump targets" and "jumps to function" lookup
Changeable colour scheme
Hacking notes are always output to a negotiable text document in order of address they are aligned with
Generate a script from a script template to apply to a batch of addresses for use in other programs
Float/Double <--> Hex translation

It's currently functional spaghetti source code. If you would like to give it a whirl and you're on linux or mac, you will need a Python 3.5 or 3.6 interpreter, also need to install Python's tkinter module. If you're on Windows, there is a download link to a snapshot of my Python environment and also the disassembler and a batch file to run it.

If you haven't dabbled in python before, you likely won't have the interpreter on your machine. I'd suggest Anaconda (a Python virtual environment manager) as when you make an environment, you can specify "Anaconda" at the end of the command when creating a virtual environment in the command prompt, and it will create the python installation with a whole heap of commonly used modules, including tkinter. Anaconda might chew up to 1gb of data to install, as a forewarning.

Anaconda for OSX: https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/install/macos.html
Anaconda for Linux: https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/install/linux.html
**Don't choose miniconda, from what I understand, you can get stuck in "dependency hell" while trying to obtain tkinter, which is not a place you want to be in

Source on Git: https://github.com/mitchasdf/N64-Rom-Disassembler
Download for Windows** (includes python and tkinter): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lqW6q5WkfurMnpScZ-QOvbcM4oap0gpS
**You may need to disable any ad or popup blockers or add the page to the blocker's exclusion list. If you don't, you will get "failed to start action" and http errors when attempting to download. The download button is located at the top-right of the page.

Usage

In the main window, there are 4 tall text boxes. Respectively, they represent: Addresses, base file, hack file, hacking notes/comments.

When you open a rom initially, you can choose "start new" in the file menu to select the base file and then the name and location for the hack file. If you already have a hack file you wish to open, you can "open existing" and then associate it with the base file in the 2nd file navigation window.

They might feel like normal text boxes, but they have heavily modified behaviour so as to keep the code and comments aligned. You can copy/paste or backspace multiple lines of code or comments and it will be safe.

The text boxes are bound with a few hotkeys which make life a bit easier. I'll list them all here:

Return: Move to end of next line
Shift+Return: Move to end of previous line
Shift+Backspace or Shift+Delete: Remove line of code
Ctrl+B: Insert branch template (BEQ R0, R0, $)
Ctrl+R: Restore line of code, or selection of lines of code
Ctrl+F: Follow jump or branch
Ctrl+G: Find all J or JAL which target any address inside the current function
Ctrl+Comma (< key): Undo
Ctrl+Fullstop (> key): Redo

The rest of the hotkeys which don't affect the text boxes can be found scattered in the Menu.

Extra text box behaviours:

NOP will be automatically removed when typing on that line
Blank lines will be replaced with and treated as NOP
Multi-line selections will be extended to the bounds of the start and end lines you select when you attempt to action the selection
Hack text box will always input as upper case letters

For address translation from memory editor RAM to emulator RAM, you may use an option to set the memory editor offset for the current game, and from there you can either type in addresses manually, or, if you leave the input text box blank and just click the translate button, it will try to convert your clipboard contents instead.

The comments navigator has a "filter" option to search for comments with particular phrases. It will filter out any comment that doesn't contain each word you type in, separated by spaces. You can see an example of that in the comments navigator image below.

If you group your addresses by adding hashtags (#group name) to the end of their comments, you can then add those groups to the batch with the click of a button in the script generator window.

To use additional memory region offsets, its as simple as setting the parameters using the option in the options menu, then all jumps to that region will appear with the offset applied. All additional jumps made to that region will be encoded accordingly. Setting memory regions has no affect on the layout or placement of the code, only how it appears. The addresses list on the left side of the main window (and addresses in all other windows) will also have the offset applied during game offset mode.
Every navigation task which shifts your view will only have the region offset applied to your input during game offset mode.

Screenshots

Main window

Comments navigator

Jumps navigator

Script generator

Assembly search

All newer versions will be compatible with old config files

*** I have moved a few menu items around so that Tools isn't so crowded any more. Some buttons which cause time-consuming work to begin were too easy to accidentally click, so they have been moved and encased in separators

Latest update: 12/02/2018

Ogre Battle 64 Help

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 19:43:12 +1100

Hello from the forum.
I'm new here, I'm Brazilian and I've been trying to make the translation into the game Ogre Battle 64 more apparently the same with the dialogs compressed, I would like to know if anyone here in the forum could help me with this. or at least tells me where I could find help.

Mario Kart DS: GameCube Grand Prix

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 13:07:24 +1100

Mario Kart DS: GameCube Grand Prix, or GCGP for short is basically a port of MKDD using MKDS as a base,
now you might be wondering "Wasn't someone else making this before?", and you'd be right,
but that version was made by MKDS3, a.k.a Gericom, and his version will never be finished as far as I know.
So, I decided to make my own version, and remaking most things.
Every Kart, and Track is being simplified to work on real DS Hardware to bring you the best possible experiance.
This hack aims the capture the art style, and look, and sound of MKDD, it will also contain 16 Extra entierly new Extra Tracks,
based on the style of the course design in MKDD.

I have been hard at work since 2014 so far, porting every MKDD track, and making it work on DS Hardware.
GCGP's main ROM started being worked on only earlier this year, and since then, I've had some help making it.
When you talk about who makes GCGP, it's not only me, it's many people.
The main GCGP Team is:
Myself = Director, founder, modeler, designer, sound design, ect.
Zacky = modeler, Kart designer.
Louisinsky = Graphic Designer, Mission Mode Designer, Course Designer.
Ambiance69 = Main Sound Designer.

Special Thanks:
MKGirlism for a few of the preview videos, and such.
Ermelber for ASM Hacks, technical support, help with Peach Beach, and Rainbow Road ect.
Gericom for ASM Hacks, technical support, ect.
Yoshimaster for a number of is MKDD midis.
xXChainChomp01 for a few music hacks.
Yawshi for a few Battle Courses, help with Peach Beach.
EKDS Team in general, for allowing me to use some of their assets.
Davidgen/UltimateARHacker for helping with a few graphics, and his work on GCN Mario Circuit
Cyber for Title Screen Design.
SuperML for Logo Design.
SuperStarXAlien for Logo Design.

Disclaimer: Anyone who claims to have a version of GCGP is lying, unless they are listed in the main GCGP Team,
they do NOT have a GCGP ROM, and are lying/stealing assets.

F.A.Q:

Q: When will it be released?
A: When it's done.

Q: Can I have it now?
A: No.

Q: Can I beta test?
A: No.

Q: Can I help?
A: Contact me through PM, and we'll see.

Here's a little preview image:

Here's an example of some of the in game music:

Here's a few videos of some of the courses:
(Please Note that these videos have been made during various different development phases).

[NSMB] Editing Mario's head and cap

Sun, 30 Jul 2017 23:08:34 +1000

A problem regarding NSMBDS Hacking.

There's a lot of *.bin files in the \player folder of NSMB, but I'm now only talking about these two: "mario_model_LZ.bin", which contains the body of Mario, and "mario_head_cap_LZ.bin" which only contains Mario's head and cap (you don't say).

When looking at the bitmaps and palettes inside "mario_model_LZ.bin", you'll see this:

Image

These are all Mario's costumes. In order: Normal-Fire-unused-Starman.

I can just export these bitmaps as one big image, edit it in some image editing program, and import it back in NSMB without any problems. However, when I try to edit "mario_head_cap_LZ.bin", I can only see three bitmaps for Mario's blinking, and this:

Image

There's only one palette for this image, and that's the one for "normal" Mario. I can't find the white Fireman-cap.

When editing this bitmap - I just tried to recolour Mario's hat, it'll be changed to this colour in-game, but as soon as you grab a Fire Flower, Mario's head and cap will glitch (this "glitch" will disappear again when becoming normal Mario once again).

Image

It also happens when I only edit "mario_head_cap_LZ.bin" (and not "mario_model_LZ.bin"), so the problem must be in the head-cap model. However I really wouldn't know how to fix this, since I seem not to be able to access the palette (and maybe bitmap also) of Fire Mario.

EDIT: Images wouldn't load for some reason, so I've put links to the images instead.

Pokemon Snap

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 06:52:10 +1000

I just wanted to show off some stuff I was messing with.

New Level:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6okXiPHrBs4

Visual View:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilhWRpw6eg

Beach level with new Pokemon arrangement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX7V_jBu_4U

Play it yourself here and show me a video of your high score:
http://goldeneyevault.com/priv/PokemonSnapFilledBeach.xdelta

Bk64ie (Banjo Kazooie M64 Total conversion)

Fri, 14 Jul 2017 05:37:00 +1000

Hello everyone, for the past months i have been working on a Banjo Kazooie Total Conversion for the past couple months. with both 1st floor ans basement floor levels shaded and imported with the 3rd floor levels being *W.I.P*

The whole castle hub is traversable "the basement door warp has since been fixed as seen in the video being a bit broken "

With Banjo kazooie only having 8 worlds the last half of Mario 64 worlds are a bit jarring to implement properly without making them part of the hub world which doesnt save Notes or Jiggies, or having them set as "Cutscenes" which allows you to collect items and leave the world but if you shut down the game they will not be saved, or if you die in the cutscene area then the beginning cutscene from BK will start and you will be thrown into Spiral mountain.

Texture64 v0.1.1 - N64 Texture Ripper and Editor

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 05:49:08 +1000

Texture64 is a tool used to extract and insert textures into ROMs and related binary data. It supports most N64 texture formats including the CI palette modes. I created this tool to help me find and extract textures from Mario Kart 64 and it essentially merges some of the ideas of N64Rip and Tile Molester. It is built using .Net and runs under Windows and mono on Linux.

Download
Download Texture64 0.1.1
Source Code and Project Page

Features

Export or import N64 textures of the following formats:
- RGBA16
- RGBA32
- IA16
- IA8
- IA4
- I8
- I4
- CI8
- CI4
- 1bpp
Load palette from separate file
Split palette mode to point part of palette to non-contiguous area
Multiplatform. Tested under Windows 7 and under mono on Linux

Usage

Right-click image to bring up context menu
- Export to image file (.png, .jpg, .bmp)
- Assign palette offset relative to current texture view
Left-click to change offset to clicked pixel
Mouse wheel to scroll up/down by four rows of image
- Hold Ctrl modifier to scroll by entire image
- Hold Alt modifier to scroll by one row
- Hold Shift modifier to scroll by one pixel
Click "Open..." [Ctrl-O] or drag and drop to open a binary file
Click "Insert..." [Ctrl-I] to import image at current offset (does not overwrite file)
Click "Save" [Ctrl-S] to overwrite opened file
Enable "Split Palette" to point end of palette to different offset
Enable "External Palette" to use different file for CI palette

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post them here or on the github project page. Since it is MIT licensed, I welcome you to include the source or binaries in your projects - just include a copy of the license file.

error logging in project 64?

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 13:31:15 +1000

I have a rom hack I was testing using project64 and have found it to crash seemingly randomly when playing. The error message is non-descriptive and says just "fatal error". Is anyone aware of a log file that I could look at to see what was executed prior to the error occurring? It may allow me to backtrack and see what exactly is wrong with the rom.

n64sym - N64 symbol identification tool

Tue, 30 May 2017 03:22:41 +1000

This tool can be used to identify common symbols by comparing ELF libraries and objects against RAM dumps. The output is compatible with Project64d's symbol format.

Download: https://github.com/shygoo/n64sym/releases
Source: https://github.com/shygoo/n64sym

Usage:

n64sym  [options]

Options:

-l   scan for symbols from library or object file(s)

-v                           enable verbose logging

Example:

> n64sym dumps/paper_mario.bin -l libs

80069840,code,__osPfsRWInode

80069090,code,osPfsNumFiles

80069190,code,osPfsInitPak

80069388,code,pfsinitpak_o_0050

80069460,code,osPfsRepairId

800694C0,code,__osPfsGetStatus

...

SDK libraries are available here:
http://level42.ca/projects/nintendo-64-development/
https://sites.google.com/site/n64devkitsdkintrofunctions/

Smw Codename: Reborn

Sun, 14 May 2017 13:34:54 +1000

Reborn is now here in a demo Most of it is undone at this point and some emulator's
may not work:

Patch notes:

1v The demo update.

Added-
New over world
One new level
And a mario hack demo.

Size: 338.99 KB / Downloads: 62 Codename Reborn.rar

Uncompiled Source Code & Dev Stuff in N64 ROMs

Mon, 01 May 2017 05:54:47 +1000

For whatever reason, a handful of N64 ROMs have uncompiled source code in them! Here's everything I could find by scanning for C keywords:

File	Size
Chameleon Twist 000F4B6C.c	3,738 B
Fighting Force 64 (Europe) 00356000.c	28,709 B
Fighting Force 64 (Europe) 00361003.c	4,093 B
Fighting Force 64 (Europe) 003BB000.c	8,181 B
NBA Live 2000 (defines) 004E4978.c	22,064 B
NFL Quarterback Club 98 (defines) 003EABF8.c	13,011 B
NHL Breakaway 99 000B35E6.c	23,066 B
NHL Breakaway 99 000D9018.c	28,728 B
NHL Breakaway 99 000F3F60.c	8,215 B
NHL Breakaway 99 000F7000.c	12,168 B
NHL Breakaway 99 001227D2.c	2,094 B
NHL Breakaway 99 00133000.c	19,013 B
NHL Breakaway 99 00153080.c	12,312 B
NHL Breakaway 99 0015C090.c	8,192 B
NHL Breakaway 99 001600A8.c	4,096 B
NHL Breakaway 99 00162F62.c	158 B
Powerpuff Girls Chemical X-Traction (defines) 005DCA30.c	10,400 B
Premier Manager 64 (Europe) 00003844.c	60 B
Shadow Man (Brazil) 0004B230.c	3,536 B
Tom and Jerry Fists of Furry (defines) 00BC4910.c	17,392 B
Wayne Gretsky's 3D Hockey '98 007E1000.c	126,976 B
Yoshi Story (Japan) 000B7568.c	281 B
Yoshi Story (Japan) 000B76C8.c	138 B

(See attached zip at the bottom to download all the files.)

Oddly, almost all of these files are cut off or overlapped by other data. In one instance, there is even a snippit of C code randomly sitting between two compiled assembly routines!

In the Chameleon Twist code, it looks like there may be a bunch of strings in Japanese but I don't know how they're encoded. I tried viewing the file as Shift-JIS and EUC-JP, but neither of those looked right (I wouldn't know for sure though).

There are a few humorous developer comments that can be found in the NHL Breakaway 99 code:

// Kill all children task of the main hockey task. This kills

// a shit load of junk (cameras, ai tasks, track tasks, etc etc etc)

// void Kill_hockey(void)

//

// Kill the whole damm thing.

On a somewhat related note, I found a leftover path to an audio file in Michael Owen's World League Soccer 2000 (Europe) that suggests the developer was frustrated with the ~~Nin-shitfuck~~ Nintendo 64:

And heaps of Windows trash that somehow made its way into Fighting Force 64 (Europe):

I also came across this large SYLK file near the end of the CyberTiger ROM: CyberTiger 00D96DB6.slk
It can be viewed with spreadsheet software like Excel or gnumeric. (Thanks queueRAM for identifying the format!)

Size: 93.8 KB / Downloads: 86 N64 Uncompiled.zip

Mario Golf 64 Hacking

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:43:46 +1000

Just posting this because I've gotten enough information that it'll be helpful to anyone who's wanting to do in-depth hacking of Mario Golf 64. I've decoded the compression used on both 3d models & surface mapping for levels, and found a resource table that lists all level data and other unknown goodies. Just look here if you're interested.

https://wiki.origami64.net/mario_golf_64

Also, if anyone has questions about the Mario Golf 64 rom, I can try to answer them here.

What to do with my amazing condition DS (Not 3ds/2ds)

Sun, 16 Apr 2017 03:38:22 +1000

Anyway, I have a soft-modded Wii, 3ds (Luma CFW man...) and I use loadiine on my WiiU. Is there anything useful I should/could do with my DS? Thanks.

World Driver Championship

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 15:12:27 +1100

I've been working on a car/track modifier for WDC. Got car importing/exporting working now, and some basic track viewing but I feel like a break so I'm putting out a first release.
You can view cars and untextured tracks in the program currently, also export cars to obj files and replace cars with your own obj files.
It's fully compatible with real hardware.
Release is here: http://www.jaytheham.com/code/data/WDCB_1.zip
Source here: https://bitbucket.org/jaytheham/wdc-viewer
I've put some of my notes up here: World Driver hack notes

Tases

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 11:09:17 +1100

If anyone has a T.A.S to share post it here.

https://goo.gl/photos/nBEkzuUh4cWs71nFA
TTYD Softlock tas. (Mario floats because I did not disable idle skipping and dual core)

Jumping from a function to the beginning of another

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 06:11:28 +1100

I'm working on a hack where when a cheat is entered, it loads in some data. I have a question about the registers in doing so: when I'm in the original function (the one that looks to see if the cheat is entered), all the registers are full with values relative to this function. I want to jump from this function once the cheat is triggered to another function that loads in data at a different part of the game. Initially I was just going to add a JAL or J to go to the new function but I realized once in the new func, it will start writing new values to the Regs that are necessary for it to work.

is this correct? Will the reg values for the original function be gone if I JAL out of it to the new function, go through that code, then JR RA back to the original one?
.

Misc. Documentation Downloads

Thu, 17 Nov 2016 02:57:15 +1100

In this thread you may provide any miscellaneous documentation resources which don't fit anywhere else.
If you have the time, it is recommended to add your documentation to the Wiki instead.

Size: 1.8 KB / Downloads: 89 Chameleon Twist 2 - levels (U).txt

Size: 1.74 KB / Downloads: 107 Yoshis Story - levels (U).txt

New Super Mario Bros DS Beta Revival Project!

Wed, 16 Nov 2016 08:16:43 +1100

Hello, I am here with a Beta Revival Project, For New Super Mario Bros DS! Since I haven't seen anyone making a full on beta revival project for this game, I want to make it! I will keep posting updates as time progresses!

Spoiler: Screenshots

Spoiler: Updates

Work In Progress Pokemon Fangame(Name is currently Pokemon Mezzenra)

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 04:15:52 +1100

Hello! I am PKMN03 and I am working on making a new Pokemon fangame! It is in a VERY early stage don't expect anything Picasso. I am making this thread to advertise this game AND to (hopefully) start putting together a team! I hope that you guys like this and I hope to look forward to maybe working with some of you all!

~PKMN03

Sneak Peek at first town. Sorry if it looks bad. I am pretty new to this.

Size: 14.03 KB / Downloads: 179 First Town.PNG