Metroid Prime hacking research

2015-07-09 02:51:43 pm

I watch the simpsons movie I come back when it is finished !

2015-07-09 02:55:40 pm

http://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/5.5/5.5.0/qt-opensource-windows-x86-mingw492-5.5.0.exe

This might work for you.. it's a gcc compiler with C++11 support. I've read reports of people being able to use it on Windows XP.. None of us use XP to develop, so we can't objectively help you with build issues.

MrHostille

2015-07-09 03:26:37 pm

Okay, so I need to transfer to Windows 7.
Thank you for your help.

MrHostille

2015-07-09 06:50:29 pm

I find TortoiseGit and Git for windows xp, for those who would be on xp

Antidote

Edit history:

Antidote: 2015-07-09 08:02:06 pm

2015-07-09 08:01:48 pm

Please note that due to driver issues beyond our control RetroView DOES NOT support XP officially.

Baby Sheegoth

2015-07-09 11:48:44 pm

Also stop using XP please holy crap lol

Antidote

2015-07-10 12:03:07 am

Oh, for the time being, when cloning RetroView DO NOT pull the latest Athena, we've removed all of the Qt requirements and have switched to CMake as our build system. Pulling the latest will cause all levels of fail.

MrHostille

2015-07-10 12:46:42 pm

Okay, Xp is a crap lol, I take Cmake, not Qt is that?

Antidote

2015-07-10 02:47:55 pm

RetroView still uses qmake, which is why you CAN'T pull the latest Athena revision, which uses cmake.

MrHostille

Edit history:

MrHostille: 2015-07-11 08:25:49 am

2015-07-11 08:24:57 am

Ok, but I have a problem with the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if my computer is compatible.

The programe .Net framework 2.0 is not compatible with XP I think.
So I do not know how to fend me lol

jackoalan

2015-07-11 05:28:31 pm

Windows 7 is effectively no longer being sold; Windows 10 is the big push now. I thought you already had it on a different machine or something.

You'll need to find an .iso of Win7, actually boot into it and follow the instructions (definitely backup your data first). A simple software application like Upgrade Advisor won't do any good.

MrHostille

2015-07-12 07:15:00 am

I have windows 7 iso, I also have windows loader, daemon tools.

jackoalan

Edit history:

jackoalan: 2015-07-14 04:14:53 am

2015-07-14 04:08:52 am

Let us know when you're booted into Windows 7.. You're on your own for this step (although Google should prove useful). Different machines may handle the install process differently, kinda tricky to give you a step-by-step

MrHostille

2015-07-15 09:09:56 am

I buy a computer that runs win7, I'll switch everything over.

Gunert

2015-07-19 03:28:46 pm

west furnace access why

does anyone know which PAK file the item sound effect is stored? (The sound you hear when close to a pickup, idk how to describe it)

Aruki

2015-07-19 06:31:14 pm

It's in the Misc AGSC file in AusioGrp.pak. Don't remember which file ID that is, not at my PC so can't check. You can use Prime Audio Decoder (in the first post) to extract it to wav.

MrSinistar

Edit history:

MrSinistar: 2015-07-20 04:46:12 am

2015-07-20 04:45:29 am

The pickup drone sound is number 15 in the Misc AGSC, sound id is 00BF

Tanks

2015-07-20 11:33:51 pm

So with Prime hacks on the horizon I was wondering just how the community would go about releasing? If we're looking to expand/cut content beyond the original capacity of the ISO I don't think we can look towards the traditional patch methods like xdelta. I've been toying around with Prime since a few years back and have been using Crediar's GCReEx tool to recompile the ISO. A GCReEx compiled ISO compared to the original are two very different things, especially considering that GCReEx will cut the excess padding off the ISO, making xdelta patching pointless (You'd basically end up with a file the same size as Prime 1's 1.37GB).

If MPT hacking picks up I can see Riivolution SD loading being an option, with people uploading their loose files for loading, but its a huge pain in the ass since I last tried it. If I remember correctly I had to force Riivolution to load Prime 1's boot.dol to boot directly into the Prime game I wanted to play if I wanted to load custom files. It basically kicked me directly into Prime 1's intro sequence, skipping the Trilogy menu, and would crash the game if I wanted to exit back to it. Prime 1 and 2 New Play Control (the Wii Japan releases) COULD technically work, but unfortunately these SD loader tools require a physical disc for verification so that option is pretty much out (no one wants to import just to play a hack).

I've just been thinking about this the past couple of days as I've been working on finishing up a little project and was debating how I would go about releasing it. Any thoughts? Maybe patching is still a possibility and I haven't realized it yet?

So with Prime hacks on the horizon I was wondering just how the community would go about releasing? If we're looking to expand/cut content beyond the original capacity of the ISO I don't think we can look towards the traditional patch methods like xdelta. I've been toying around with Prime since a few years back and have been using [url=http://www.maxconsole.com/maxcon_forums/threads/190256-GCReEx-v0-3-now-available]Crediar's GCReEx tool[/url] to recompile the ISO. A GCReEx compiled ISO compared to the original are two very different things, especially considering that GCReEx will cut the excess padding off the ISO, making xdelta patching pointless (You'd basically end up with a file the same size as Prime 1's 1.37GB).

If MPT hacking picks up I can see [url=http://rvlution.net/wiki/Riivolution]Riivolution SD loading being an option[/url], with people uploading their loose files for loading, but its a huge pain in the ass since I last tried it. If I remember correctly I had to force Riivolution to load Prime 1's boot.dol to boot directly into the Prime game I wanted to play if I wanted to load custom files. It basically kicked me directly into Prime 1's intro sequence, skipping the Trilogy menu, and would crash the game if I wanted to exit back to it. Prime 1 and 2 New Play Control (the Wii Japan releases) COULD technically work, but unfortunately these SD loader tools require a physical disc for verification so that option is pretty much out (no one wants to import just to play a hack).

I've just been thinking about this the past couple of days as I've been working on finishing up a little project and was debating how I would go about releasing it. Any thoughts? Maybe patching is still a possibility and I haven't realized it yet?

Aruki

Edit history:

Aruki: 2015-07-21 12:03:49 am

2015-07-20 11:58:41 pm

I brought up this subject some pages back and there was some discussion on it. If you wanna go back and read it, this is the link: https://m2k2.taigaforum.com/post/metroid_prime_hacking_research_1267.html

Basically IIRC I was thinking a customized tool would probably work best rather than something general. The reason is because a custom tool would have the ability to replace individual resources within paks, which would easily sort out things like file duplication even if the mod download only has one copy of the file. Of course, it also needs to be able to include new resources from scratch since we might be dealing with an entirely new pak rather than a modified version of one of the old ones. So a mixture of patching and including entire new resources might be the way to go, depending on how significantly the file was changed. The advantages of patching files is minimizing the amount of copyrighted content we distribute, and keeping download size down. (For the former, I don't really think distributing mods without including any copyrighted materials at all is really feasible, but we should still try to keep it down where possible.)

It's still very much up in the air, but that's kind of where my thinking was.

Unrelatedly, I'm trying to get some SCLY docs up on the wiki since it's kinda way overdue. This is what I have up so far: http://www.metroid2002.com/retromodding/wiki/Scriptable_Layers_(File_Format)

edit: oh.. forgot to specify that this approach would involve rebuilding a new ISO from scratch using the modified files.

I brought up this subject some pages back and there was some discussion on it. If you wanna go back and read it, this is the link: https://m2k2.taigaforum.com/post/metroid_prime_hacking_research_1267.html

Basically IIRC I was thinking a customized tool would probably work best rather than something general. The reason is because a custom tool would have the ability to replace individual resources within paks, which would easily sort out things like file duplication even if the mod download only has one copy of the file. Of course, it also needs to be able to include new resources from scratch since we might be dealing with an entirely new pak rather than a modified version of one of the old ones. So a mixture of patching and including entire new resources might be the way to go, depending on how significantly the file was changed. The advantages of patching files is minimizing the amount of copyrighted content we distribute, and keeping download size down. (For the former, I don't really think distributing mods without including any copyrighted materials at all is really feasible, but we should still try to keep it down where possible.)

It's still very much up in the air, but that's kind of where my thinking was.

Unrelatedly, I'm trying to get some SCLY docs up on the wiki since it's kinda way overdue. This is what I have up so far: http://www.metroid2002.com/retromodding/wiki/Scriptable_Layers_(File_Format)

edit: oh.. forgot to specify that this approach would involve rebuilding a new ISO from scratch using the modified files.

Tanks

2015-07-21 08:56:35 pm

I actually stumbled upon that convo while toying around with your widescreen hack haha. I think that makes the most sense tbh. I can see a full fledged program somewhere along the lines of Mod Organizer which breaks down the ISO and paks in a nice clean UI, allowing you to patch in various game modifications. Heck, it could even be connected to an online mod database like Nexus (maybe a bit much, but hey, I can dream, right?). My project just deals with audio so I'm not really worried about distribution issues at the moment. Its easy enough to just upload an archive of the loose files and provide a guide for de/recompiling an iso.

On the subject of the widescreen hack, I was wondering if you have any intention of including a hardcoded fix for the graphical culling problem? The AR codes don't seem to work on modified ISOs. I was reading up in the old thread and have main.dol and default.dol open in HXD to see if I can manually edit the functions, but I'm afraid I'm not as savvy in this area of rom hacking as I'd like to be...

I actually stumbled upon that convo while toying around with your widescreen hack haha. I think that makes the most sense tbh. I can see a full fledged program somewhere along the lines of Mod Organizer which breaks down the ISO and paks in a nice clean UI, allowing you to patch in various game modifications. Heck, it could even be connected to an online mod database like Nexus (maybe a bit much, but hey, I can dream, right?). My project just deals with audio so I'm not really worried about distribution issues at the moment. Its easy enough to just upload an archive of the loose files and provide a guide for de/recompiling an iso.

On the subject of the widescreen hack, I was wondering if you have any intention of including a hardcoded fix for the graphical culling problem? The AR codes don't seem to work on modified ISOs. I was reading up in the old thread and have main.dol and default.dol open in HXD to see if I can manually edit the functions, but I'm afraid I'm not as savvy in this area of rom hacking as I'd like to be...

Aruki

2015-07-21 09:26:12 pm

The readme has instructions for how to patch the .dol directly to fix the culling. I didn't want to distribute the file directly since it's such a minor tweak, but if you know the bare basics of how to use a hex editor you shouldn't have much trouble implementing the fix. (That's assuming you're using 0-00, but I don't think the mod supports other versions of the game anyway.)

Lord Fredrik

2015-07-21 09:41:58 pm

I need a life. XD I check this thread every freakin' day for my Tropical Freeze hacking fix. lol I'm interested in learning to hack Retro games too. ^^

Aruki

Edit history:

Aruki: 2015-07-21 10:10:07 pm

2015-07-21 10:08:44 pm

So I spent today reverse engineering the pause menu in MP2. This is a crappy little program I wrote to view it:

The pause menu tree is controlled by 95b61279.DUMB in LogBook.pak. I'm not totally sure where this goes on the wiki, so for now this is the gist of how it works:

* The first value is the "TREE" magic, the second value is the root node instance ID, and the third is the node count.
* The TREE file works by embedding script objects. It is the same format as SCLY.
* There are a few common parameters. For some reason every object has EditorProperties (position/rotation/scale, instance name, "active" flag), even though none of that is really applicable to the pause menu stuff. Every object also has a STRG ID for the file that contains the node name, and the name of the node name string.
* There's five object/node types:
- SCND: Category - No extra parameters, and sends an Attach message to all of its child nodes.
- SCSN: Scan - Used for logbook scan entries. It has a SCAN file ID.
- SCIN: Inventory - Used for inventory item entries. It also has a SCAN file ID that contains the item description and it also contains a pickup type flag, which is used so the game knows when to enable this node in the pause menu.
- SCSL: Slider - This is a slider widget used for changing settings in the options menu. It has an extra integer parameter; I didn't look into what it is, but my guess is it's an enum for which option it modifies.
- SCMN: Menu - This is a menu dialog for the options menu. It's mostly used for "Restore Defaults" yes/no menus. It's also used for changing the sound mode (Mono/Stereo/Surround). It seems to support up to four options per menu.
* I tried changing the root node to the Sandbat scan and it was pretty goofy - it made pausing the game on a new file instantly unlock every scan in the game :P

I don't think I'm really gonna go much further with this program for now since I mostly just wanted to see how the pause menu works, and I'm relatively satisfied now. I don't think writing an editor for it would be all that hard, though!

So I spent today reverse engineering the pause menu in MP2. This is a crappy little program I wrote to view it:

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKe9thGUkAA8Duc.png:large[/img]

The pause menu tree is controlled by 95b61279.DUMB in LogBook.pak. I'm not totally sure where this goes on the wiki, so for now this is the gist of how it works:

* The first value is the "TREE" magic, the second value is the root node instance ID, and the third is the node count.
* The TREE file works by embedding script objects. It is the same format as SCLY.
* There are a few common parameters. For some reason every object has EditorProperties (position/rotation/scale, instance name, "active" flag), even though none of that is really applicable to the pause menu stuff. Every object also has a STRG ID for the file that contains the node name, and the name of the node name string.
* There's five object/node types:
- SCND: Category - No extra parameters, and sends an Attach message to all of its child nodes.
- SCSN: Scan - Used for logbook scan entries. It has a SCAN file ID.
- SCIN: Inventory - Used for inventory item entries. It also has a SCAN file ID that contains the item description and it also contains a pickup type flag, which is used so the game knows when to enable this node in the pause menu.
- SCSL: Slider - This is a slider widget used for changing settings in the options menu. It has an extra integer parameter; I didn't look into what it is, but my guess is it's an enum for which option it modifies.
- SCMN: Menu - This is a menu dialog for the options menu. It's mostly used for "Restore Defaults" yes/no menus. It's also used for changing the sound mode (Mono/Stereo/Surround). It seems to support up to four options per menu.
* I tried changing the root node to the Sandbat scan and it was pretty goofy - it made pausing the game on a new file instantly unlock every scan in the game :P

I don't think I'm really gonna go much further with this program for now since I mostly just wanted to see how the pause menu works, and I'm relatively satisfied now. I don't think writing an editor for it would be all that hard, though!

Tanks

2015-07-21 11:09:44 pm

Well now I just feel fucking stupid. I was working with my 0-02 iso and not my 0-00... Got it working and just FYI to anyone looking to do the Widescreen hard-patch for 0-01 or 0-02, the offsets do not match up at all. Better off just ripping your 0-00 one (or finding one. I'm an internet poster, not a cop...)

ZobmieRules

2015-07-21 11:15:10 pm

I feel as though I'm watching history in the making. You guys are awesome. I don't really have the know-how to contribute to your efforts however, so I'll go back to lurking now. Applause