Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Modifying Textures in Super Smash Brothers Melee

R

Retex

New member
Hi everyone,

My friend and I are trying to edit the textures of Smash Bros Melee characters, and we came across this forum which is full of knowledgable and helpful people, so we figured we'd try our luck asking you guys for some info.

We have the ISO of SSBM on our computers, and can extract individual files. We know that the textures we're looking for are contained in the Pl files, but they're paired with model and other data as well. Does anyone know how to extract the texture data to convert it into an editable format (bmp?) and put it back in?

We'd be happy to show you guys our progress (with pictures and videos) as soon as we're able to actually make some progress. ^^;

Many thanks to you all!

P.S. We tried searching around, but weren't able to find out what we were looking for. Sorry if the info was already available.
 
OP
R

Retex

New member
Just an update:

We've been sniffing through some Pl files and found that the string:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3F 80 00 00 3F 80 00 00
3F 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Is special in that it is occurs 1 or few times per Pl file (in the files we searched), and if you search for the last occurance of it across any file for the same character (eg: PlFxLa, PlFxGr, PlFxOr, PlFxNr - Fox lavender, Fox green, Fox orange, Fox neutral/natural) the code is the same before it, but different after it.

We suspect that this is the location within the file where the texture data begins.
 
Sercio

Sercio

New member
use my ripper ;)
There are alot textures more you can get!
You can also use nthe internal dumper from dolphin^^
 
BlueFalcon7

BlueFalcon7

New member
He wants to edit the textures not extract them ;) I would recommend looking at Jahra!n's viewer beta source. Its BASIC programming language, but it might help. heres Jahra!n's beta.

Saraharp is working on a Metroid Prime model viewer, and said that metroid prime models are close to SSBM models. But Metroid Prime models have the mesh in one file, and all the textures in seperate files. If the textures are closely related, Thakis has lots of information on the Metroid Prime texture formats.
 
M

mariokart64n

New member
Retex said:
Just an update:

We've been sniffing through some Pl files and found that the string:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3F 80 00 00 3F 80 00 00
3F 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Is special in that it is occurs 1 or few times per Pl file (in the files we searched), and if you search for the last occurance of it across any file for the same character (eg: PlFxLa, PlFxGr, PlFxOr, PlFxNr - Fox lavender, Fox green, Fox orange, Fox neutral/natural) the code is the same before it, but different after it.

We suspect that this is the location within the file where the texture data begins.
Click to expand...


:) I think you hit the nail right on the head with that assumtion. the PL**.dat files seem to be the in-game character files. They fit the right size.. just enough to carry texture data.

So I poped it in the hex editor, did some poking, and modified one of fox's texures. sure enough there in there same old tpl format, which is a tga container.
all we need is a good programmer to create a file praser.. i haven't figuredout the header, so don't ask

pulled this texture out from the PlFxGr.dat file at offset "0x00047440" and replaced it with the one beside it
foxgr04pc7.jpg
foxgr04testst9.jpg



below is the result, if you wish i can disclose the new PlFxGr.dat file if you'd like to test it yourself....
testshotfoxgrpi9.jpg


also, ssmb's has an insane amount of files located in its root.. very sloppy
 
BlueFalcon7

BlueFalcon7

New member
Nice Job :)

now make Master hand look emo, with knife marks :p
and give samus the phazon suit.

I will think of more later...
 
M

mariokart64n

New member
well that wouldn't be hard, just byteswap the area of the texture data, and that'll invert the colours. its very simple, you just have to reconize where the image data starts, which isn't hard.... the problem is ssmb has 1000's of files to go through :(
 
M

Miles Lombardi

New member
Wow, nice job.
At last, a retexture job on GCN, instead of N64! I wish you luck... but why exactly are you doing this? I mean, it'll be hard to replace all the textures, and why do you want to when all you can do is play a retextured game at 13-18 fps?
 
Sercio

Sercio

New member
because we all are bored ;)
Can someone build a special tool that can modify each texture?
Like the one tool for gta3 (i dont know the name anymore)
You can view the image and ex/import them !
That would be cool^^
Well coders, anyone able to do that?
 
M

mariokart64n

New member
Miles Lombardi said:
Wow, nice job.
At last, a retexture job on GCN, instead of N64! I wish you luck... but why exactly are you doing this? I mean, it'll be hard to replace all the textures, and why do you want to when all you can do is play a retextured game at 13-18 fps?
Click to expand...

Q: why exactly are you doing this?
A: Retro proposed it, in order to costumize his version of melee. and i injected textures to prove it possible and present a proof of concept

Q: why do you want to when all you can do is play a retextured game at 13-18 fps?
A: >_< in order to take screenshots of melee i had to use the emulator. the new textures will work fine in melee, via softmod or chip on a retail gamecube

Anyway it be really cool if somebody made a tpl extractor / injector, so full body re-skins can be made.
 
Last edited:
Sercio

Sercio

New member
like the one tool for gta3 ;)

Edit: dam it really worked!!! Shit mariokart you did it!:drool: i proof it !
 
Last edited:
OP
R

Retex

New member
Woa! Dude, that's awesome!

My friend and I had given up on this when we weren't able to piece things together, but we just checked today again.

Thanks so much for this massive help! We're gonna pick up work on this once again and make some awesome stuff to show you guys! ^^


Some questions though:
We can handle parsing with little difficulty, but how in the world did you manage to find the beginning and end locations of the texture file? Also, could you explain the process of how you modified the data?

I think that's the only info we need, then we can write up a tool that extracts the texture files and post it here.



Miles Lombardi said:
Wow, nice job.
At last, a retexture job on GCN, instead of N64! I wish you luck... but why exactly are you doing this? I mean, it'll be hard to replace all the textures, and why do you want to when all you can do is play a retextured game at 13-18 fps?
Click to expand...
Or you can stream it to your gamecube and play at near-max speed. =)
 
Last edited:
M

mariokart64n

New member
o_O what, noo... no it doesn't matter your modifying the gcm.. the disc data doesn't matter you can burn it, stream it, it will work on what ever. the emu was just used to take a screenshot.

meh and YOU, you now just check this after a month, meh hahaha **laughing at u :bouncy:

my procedure isn't very formal, i just ripped out a section of the file, of course it had other textures along with it, i cropped it in paint, then edited, then saved back and popped the modified data back in. sorta difficult for me to explain.but if you guys don't know how to extract the tpl's then i can't help you, cause that was my problem as well, or i would have programmed my own ssbm extractor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top