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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: [N64] A question about locating textures within a rom

« on: September 02, 2015, 01:12:14 pm »

That's most of it. There's more palettes at E2340 (actually the primary kart palettes are there). I think there might be some other unused stuff floating around in the bank. Screenshot looks great! Thanks for the link

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: [N64] A question about locating textures within a rom

« on: September 01, 2015, 10:44:05 pm »

Haven't forgotten about this thread

There is a separate kart data bank located at $145470 in the US rom that contains all of the kart textures and palettes. I'm working on documenting all of the tables that reference it as I work on writing code to relocate it so I can modify the kart textures. Any interested parties can find the documentation so far at http://pastebin.com/08LRvtEf. Please note that it's a work in progress, so it will be changing frequently in the coming weeks. Comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome and appreciated.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: [N64] A question about locating textures within a rom

« on: August 17, 2015, 10:39:28 pm »

I see. Excellent. Well, thank you again for your help. I will keep the community abreast of progress on the importer / exporter and I'll be sure to give you proper credit in the final release
August 23, 2015, 01:16:53 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)For anyone who is interested / following this thread. Found a good thread on Origami64 on MK64 hacking, too. Also, some links on MIO0. The decompression routine is located at 0x800400D0 in RAM. The decompression is simple, I've written some C code to do it.

I'm current attempting to track down the texture dimensions. They make their way onto the display list somehow. Any pointers on how this happens would be great, otherwise I'll post back when I figure it out.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: [N64] A question about locating textures within a rom

« on: August 16, 2015, 05:52:17 pm »

@Zoinkity: Wow! Thanks a lot for your comprehensive reply. This will probably save me a week's worth of effort (at least). What strategy did you use to locate these tables? Just tracing through code? Is it sensible to use my aforementioned strategy to locate decompressed textures in RAM and set breakpoints to find the decompression routines and work backwards from there? (I'm spending this evening trying to track down the decompression routines). More to the point, you have given me the fish, and now I am seeking the rod.

I realize the answer might be as simple as just, "Trace through code till you find it" 

Edit: Just to add a little more clarification, I've had a lot of experience with locating in-game variables. My end goal is to write a kart editor and I've managed to locate most of the tables within the rom that specify various kart properties (e.g. mass, acceleration, turning speed, etc.) But what I do not have experience with is the graphical side of things. I would like to develop a method to locate textures for other games as well that I work on in the future, similar to the way that I have developed a method for locating in-game variables.

Hopefully I am making sense. Again, thanks for your time.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / [N64] A question about locating textures within a rom

« on: August 16, 2015, 02:18:27 am »

Hello All,

I want to write a texture importer / exporter for Mario Kart 64. I would like to find a way to systematically locate textures within the rom. This question might be more geared toward an emulator writer.

I am using Nemu64. My understanding is that the address of a texture in RDRAM has to somehow be DMAed into DMEM within the RSP (either the display list can be constructed by the CPU and DMAed over or constructed within RSP, not sure which). From there the RDP takes the texture address and copies the texture to TMEM (please correct me if my understanding is wrong).

My first thought was to place a write breakpoint on the SP_DRAM_ADDR_REG (0xA4040004) and trace all of the DMAs to DMEM under the assumption that I could find a pointer to the texture in RDRAM in the data that is being DMAed. Unfortunately this has not been fruitful. Is this a theoretically sound approach?

I am trying to avoid the Tile Molester approach as I don't know if there are any compressed images in the rom (and it would take entirely too long to locate most of the relevant textures this way). Is there anyone who has written a texture importer for an N64 game who could chime in?

Thanks!

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: PCE/TG16: Moto Roader

« on: May 16, 2011, 10:33:04 pm »

Cool, thank you for the reference.  I wouldn't exactly call it a serious hack... the track format is essentially a table of pointers to track sections which are recycled throughout the game.  I'm still working on the format of the track sections, I think it uses some weird RLE that I haven't figured out yet.  I'll keep the thread updated as I get some work done.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / PCE/TG16: Moto Roader

« on: May 16, 2011, 09:56:06 pm »

I fell in love with this game as a young person.  Recently I revisited it and decided to begin work on a track editor.  A few questions for the community at large:

1. Is anyone else doing any PCE/TG16 hacks?  I've been using Mednafen and the debugger is quite nice!

2. Is there any interest in this game?  Most reviews I've read were quite negative, though I think its mostly a result of the strange controls.

3. Well, I guess that's it.  I only really had 2 questions.

I have the track format all worked out (for the most part) and will probably start coding up the editor in the next week or two.  If there is any interest, I might release a document outlining the format.

Bob