Hacking VCFE Wip...

[Tichinde925]

I had a working TurboGrafx-16 injected wad. Then I used your programs in the first post in this thread to change the banner. Everything installed properly, but then when the Wii rebooted, it had the message, "The system files have been corrupted...". That was last night. I left the Wii unplugged all night to see if that might fix it. No luck. My Wii is not modded (just Zelda hacked) and I have no way to fix it, do I? I really don't wanna pay to have it fixed and I also don't want Nintendo to see what I have on it anyway.

Has anyone else had similar problems? I assume it was just a coincidence, but I don't know what to do now....

If your going to be creating/editing banners, and you dont have a modchip, at least install Starfall before you do.

That way, if something goes wrong, you can use starfire to autoboot Twilight Princess to remove the bad wad.

I guess its too late and you didnt take the necessary safety precautions. Your either going to have to send it in or get a modchip.

 

[RadioShadow]

Well, thanks to loes help I've finished the modifications needed to add esrb support and I'm ready for a release!

VC brlyt Editor 4.1

Because the brlyt's seem to be changing around a bit, I went ahead and added the option to search for any text entry and manually change it (no fancy gui to help you). This should future-proof the app a little and it should also allow me to poke around in the japaneese brlyt's a little easier when I'm ready to tackle them.

This is what was the info editor in the old thread, but it's been overhauled so much I changed the name. You can now change all the text entries, as well as change their length, edit/change the color scheme of the banner, and replace the logo.

But here is the catch:

THIS APP HAS NOT BEEN THOUROUGHLY TESTED!!!!

That's where you guys come in.

Don't worry though, there's nothing in a brlyt that can brick your wii... worst possible case is when you click on the game your wii locks up and you have to reboot. Please let me know how it works!

If the tool suppose to freak out when it locates the file?

EDIT: It freaks out if it can't locate the ENG in the file. I was trying to use a Japanese SNES brlty.

It works fine on Mega Man , US NES.

 

[masud]

Can anyone explain to me how to inject a new rom into the super mario rpg pal wad? I would like to try the Tales of Phantasia which didn't work with Mario Picross or Gradius III. Now that we have a third snes wad with 60hz support it would be great to test some new games!
If anyone would check this one for me it would be great!

 

[lolsjoel]

masud - I just detailed a few posts ago how to do that.

1. Unpack host WAD
2. Unpack 05.app
3. Run gbalzss as such: gbalzss.exe e yourrom.smc LZ77JCBP.rom
4. Overwrite LZ77JCBP.rom in the 05.app with the newly created LZ77JCBP.rom
5. Pack with U8 Cous

Of course, there's still the hurdle to get around that everything else is LZ77 compressed. I haven't figured out how to HEX edit the save icon text into the 01.app even after attempting to decompress it.

 

[RadioShadow]

masud - I just detailed a few posts ago how to do that.

1. Unpack host WAD
2. Unpack 05.app
3. Run gbalzss as such: gbalzss.exe e yourrom.smc LZ77JCBP.rom
4. Overwrite LZ77JCBP.rom in the 05.app with the newly created LZ77JCBP.rom
5. Pack with U8 Cous

Of course, there's still the hurdle to get around that everything else is LZ77 compressed. I haven't figured out how to HEX edit the save icon text into the 01.app even after attempting to decompress it.

Once you decompress the 01.app, search for JCBP (or JCBE or JCBJ) in a hex editor. Below that is the Save name.

 

[HowardC]

I had a working TurboGrafx-16 injected wad. Then I used your programs in the first post in this thread to change the banner. Everything installed properly, but then when the Wii rebooted, it had the message, "The system files have been corrupted...". That was last night. I left the Wii unplugged all night to see if that might fix it. No luck. My Wii is not modded (just Zelda hacked) and I have no way to fix it, do I? I really don't wanna pay to have it fixed and I also don't want Nintendo to see what I have on it anyway.

Has anyone else had similar problems? I assume it was just a coincidence, but I don't know what to do now....

I'm sorry to hear that man. For the record though, I've screwed up the banners pretty bad and never had something like that happen before. I have gotten the message once or twice when installing funky wads (wads I didn't make) but when I rebooted my wii everything was fine, so I dunno. Afaik there's no way to un-brick it without a mod-chip unfortuantely. I don't have a modchip myself, but I have the money set aside for one for when (note I didn't say if) I brick my wii.
I don't know of any way you can hard-brick a wii from using my tools barring a huge bug I haven't found yet. You didn't install it using wanikoko's new version of his wad manager did you? Just trying to eliminate possibilities.

 

[HowardC]

Well, thanks to loes help I've finished the modifications needed to add esrb support and I'm ready for a release!

VC brlyt Editor 4.1

Because the brlyt's seem to be changing around a bit, I went ahead and added the option to search for any text entry and manually change it (no fancy gui to help you). This should future-proof the app a little and it should also allow me to poke around in the japaneese brlyt's a little easier when I'm ready to tackle them.

This is what was the info editor in the old thread, but it's been overhauled so much I changed the name. You can now change all the text entries, as well as change their length, edit/change the color scheme of the banner, and replace the logo.

But here is the catch:

THIS APP HAS NOT BEEN THOUROUGHLY TESTED!!!!

That's where you guys come in.

Don't worry though, there's nothing in a brlyt that can brick your wii... worst possible case is when you click on the game your wii locks up and you have to reboot. Please let me know how it works!

If the tool suppose to freak out when it locates the file?

EDIT: It freaks out if it can't locate the ENG in the file. I was trying to use a Japanese SNES brlty.

It works fine on Mega Man , US NES.

It's something else I think (I've put in checks to ignore missing entries). Send me the brlyt and I'll take a quick look.

 

[WiiCrazy]

I successfully banner bricked my wii

Now dumping the zelda game to make it autoboot to fix it.

Probably because of the headers in the archives of either 0.app or banner.bin or because of the tpl file I used.
For banner.bin I selected IMET (Banner Info)
For the 0.app I selected Regular (??)
I replaced the VCPic.tpl with this one (http://www.tepetaklak.com/data/VCPic.rar) (256x192)

It seems like a full brick

It doesn't boot any of the autoboot dvds, after the health and warning screen it displays "...system files corrupted.." white on black screen...

like the case here : http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=101434&st=15

FGOD now you are not alone

My wii is modded yet I'm stuck... How foolish to think that having the tp hack, being on 3.2 and having a modded wii is enough reason to play with the banners.

 

[RadioShadow]

It's something else I think (I've put in checks to ignore missing entries). Send me the brlyt and I'll take a quick look.

I've just sent it.

 

[Rockman GFF]

You are going to have to be a little less vague. Is it freezing when you try to run the actual game, or when you click on the channel?

I'm getting the same problem even in 4.1, if his freezes when he clicks the channel. I've tried two different NES brlyts, even an Official one and I seem to get that error for NES.

I really like the Program so far though, keep up the good work. =P

 

[lolsjoel]

You've noticed, HowardC, that your GENESIS save icons aren't exactly complete? They have weird pixels in them. I just tried my first GEN save icon with your tools and found that while it worked, the image is definitely messed up. Here's a YouTube video showing the issue. You could just check the original save icons, too, to see what the issue is.



EDIT: That video really doesn't do it justice. All I'm trying to demonstrate is that the color palette is messed up. But other than that, it works great! I'll look forward to the next release for the GEN icons though.

 

[RadioShadow]

Talking a picture would have been a quicker option. *sigh*

^ The Banner didn't display.

 

[lolsjoel]

You know, you can actually see in the "save icons" folder that most of the template images are bad/corrupt/pixelated. Do any systems work when creating save icons with the new Icon Generator?

 

[Tichinde925]

When recording from a TV / Monitor, you need to wave your hand infront of the camera so that the black bars (refresh rate) doesnt appear on screen anymore.

 

[HowardC]

I successfully banner bricked my wii

Now dumping the zelda game to make it autoboot to fix it.

Probably because of the headers in the archives of either 0.app or banner.bin or because of the tpl file I used.
For banner.bin I selected IMET (Banner Info)
For the 0.app I selected Regular (??)
I replaced the VCPic.tpl with this one (http://www.tepetaklak.com/data/VCPic.rar) (256x192)

It seems like a full brick

It doesn't boot any of the autoboot dvds, after the health and warning screen it displays "...system files corrupted.." white on black screen...

like the case here : http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=101434&st=15

FGOD now you are not alone

My wii is modded yet I'm stuck... How foolish to think that having the tp hack, being on 3.2 and having a modded wii is enough reason to play with the banners.

UGH... I feel for you guys, but this is definately user error. For 0.app you use the IMET and for the banner.bin/icon.bin you use IMD5. I refer you to this tutorial:

Original Banner Editing tutorial

Screwing up the headers on a 0.app is pretty much the only way to brick your wii via a vc game and unfortunately you guys have done it.

 

[HowardC]

You know, you can actually see in the "save icons" folder that most of the template images are bad/corrupt/pixelated. Do any systems work when creating save icons with the new Icon Generator?

NONE of the images in the save icons folder are bad/corrupt/pixelated. Maybe the rar you downloaded got corrupted somehow? Also I'm not seeing the color pallette issues you guys are talking about. I don't mean I don't see them on my wii (genesis stuff was never thoroughally tested), I mean I can't see them in the pics you guys posted... they are just too tiny.

The wte headers are made from scratch, so there is the possibility that they got screwed up somehow, but the pallette info isn't in there, so I dunno.

Radio Shadow, I know your issue..... The genesis/megadrive save banner is named differently depending upon the release (I guess.. I have no clue why they keep changing it.) There is a chance the outputted banner isn't named properly.... check that and let me know... I can double-check my naming conventions.

ATM my priority has switched to adding more user-protection to the u8tool. I said explicitly in the readme in step 2 of extraction that the settings are set for you for re-packing and to use those settings, but apparently that wasn't enough as we have two bricks already. It could be the lz77 compression as well.... the fact that gbalzss is something I didn't write makes me leery of it, although I personally haven't had any trouble.

 

[lolsjoel]

Huh. Well, I take it back. I blew up the Genesis and Master System save icons to take a closer look at what I thought looked like bad images, but it turns out that's just how they're supposed to be. The four little fingers, if you will, that come out towards the center on the sides just look bad, in my opinion, but that's how it's supposed to be!

I suppose it still doesn't change the fact that the save icon was still messed up with its colors. I'll actually go ahead and try another one here in a bit to see if I get the same result.

EDIT: And if I haven't said it about the new VC Icon Generator before, it's brilliant!

EDIT2: Ok, here's a better look at the problem I'm having with GEN save icons

Spoiler

 

[WiiCrazy]

I successfully banner bricked my wii

Now dumping the zelda game to make it autoboot to fix it.

Probably because of the headers in the archives of either 0.app or banner.bin or because of the tpl file I used.
For banner.bin I selected IMET (Banner Info)
For the 0.app I selected Regular (??)
I replaced the VCPic.tpl with this one (http://www.tepetaklak.com/data/VCPic.rar) (256x192)

It seems like a full brick

It doesn't boot any of the autoboot dvds, after the health and warning screen it displays "...system files corrupted.." white on black screen...

like the case here : http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=101434&st=15

FGOD now you are not alone

My wii is modded yet I'm stuck... How foolish to think that having the tp hack, being on 3.2 and having a modded wii is enough reason to play with the banners.

UGH... I feel for you guys, but this is definately user error. For 0.app you use the IMET and for the banner.bin/icon.bin you use IMD5. I refer you to this tutorial:

Original Banner Editing tutorial

Screwing up the headers on a 0.app is pretty much the only way to brick your wii via a vc game and unfortunately you guys have done it.

In the current state of the tools it's of course seem to be a user error. But these programs can be made so that those user errors prevented. I myself is a software engineer too and worked in the area for 10 years but I don't remember I've ever said "you did this so program crashed" type of thing. My reaction always was "you did this so program crashed, and this is a bug".

In it's current form I think u8tool is not safe. To make it safe program should know the headers of the archives it extracts (pointing to the original app file could be used like u8coes tool) and when packing it should disallow the user for packing with the wrong header type.

My mistake was I truested too much on my modchip. Now I'm fully bricked.

 

[RadioShadow]

You know, you can actually see in the "save icons" folder that most of the template images are bad/corrupt/pixelated. Do any systems work when creating save icons with the new Icon Generator?

NONE of the images in the save icons folder are bad/corrupt/pixelated. Maybe the rar you downloaded got corrupted somehow? Also I'm not seeing the color pallette issues you guys are talking about. I don't mean I don't see them on my wii (genesis stuff was never thoroughally tested), I mean I can't see them in the pics you guys posted... they are just too tiny.

The wte headers are made from scratch, so there is the possibility that they got screwed up somehow, but the pallette info isn't in there, so I dunno.

Radio Shadow, I know your issue..... The genesis/megadrive save banner is named differently depending upon the release (I guess.. I have no clue why they keep changing it.) There is a chance the outputted banner isn't named properly.... check that and let me know... I can double-check my naming conventions.

ATM my priority has switched to adding more user-protection to the u8tool. I said explicitly in the readme in step 2 of extraction that the settings are set for you for re-packing and to use those settings, but apparently that wasn't enough as we have two bricks already. It could be the lz77 compression as well.... the fact that gbalzss is something I didn't write makes me leery of it, although I personally haven't had any trouble.

Basically the custom icon colours are diffrent to the orginal. It could be a compression issue when the Sega Packing tool was repacking them.

The save banner issue was correct that I didn't rename that file correctly. ^^'

 

[RadioShadow]

HowardC, I think your Icon Generator Tool is using the wrong type of palette set. According to Image to tpl converter.

Below is what the generated icon (SNES) shows:

Notice it is using the RGB565 Palette (the tool selected that option when I loaded the image).


Now this is what an official one uses with the custom images inserted:

Notice it uses the RGB5A3 Palette (the tool selected that option when I loaded the image).



What happening is, if you use the wrong Palette type, the colours will be slightly off which will explain the Genesis issue that we have been having (same with the SNES which I mentioned in the PM). Your Icon Generator is using the wrong palette type in the banners basically.


EDIT: In the header information for the SNES, you will have something like for the first pointer:

04 00 00 01 00

The 04 indicates the save banner to use the the first palette. Change it to 05 to use the second palette. The 01 00 indicates the start offset of the first image being at address: 000100.

Simply, replace the five 04 00 00 in the save banner header to 05 00 00.


EDIT 2:

Changing 04 to 05 does make it use the correct palette. But it seems the tool has made the icon use a Alpha Colour (Purple) which has cause the images to be slightly purple.

Just looking into how to fix that problem.