Community Projects Random Thoughts

[Peter]

Other Shenmue sub-forums have them, so makes sense to have this floating around in here. Like the others, this is just a casual topic to chat about any miscellaneous Community Project related topics. Have an idea? Need some help? Wanna bounce something off the wall and talk? Well here you go!

With the recent Shenmue explosion, i will be looking closer at this forum and try to contribute more to it. I can remember the days this didnt even exist, and im so happy we have progressed this far to see the home-brew projects and ideas flow from the community. First port of call was to start stickying important community topics, for reference and assistance. The first that came to mind was Master Chens emulator topics for NullDC and Demul. Of course the issue of copyright and legalities aside, these are the closest things we have to Shenmue HD thus far and deserve an easy reference here at the Dojo.

Perhaps we can also have sub-forums/topics in here for the other Shenmue Community sites, such as 500K, Team Yu etc. Any ideas folks, let us know.

[shengoro86]

Random thought:

Check out my Youtube channel! Lots of Shenmue content you wont find else where.

www.youtube.com/lordcanti

[Peter]

James, do you have any topics you can think of that have been made by yourself in the past? Maybe not every mod, but a guide to some of the bigger ones?Mods people can do at home on their Dreamcasts (I remembwr the walking through walls video tutorial?)

Maybe post them in a fresh topic and then we can stick them to the forum? Even if you just wanna link the video to one of your YouTube videos for example, or perhaps have a short write up guide? Think it would be awesome!

[Giorgio]

The topic "Shenmue Modding Knowledge" was a sticky before. Maybe you want to stick it again.

[ReeceKun]

the website needs a new Header image .. Ryo's plaster is on the wrong side of his face ^

[NeoShredder]

While working on a long project, make back-ups!

[Giorgio]

About Shenmue I modding/reverse-engineering: I wonder if (or have a hunch that) MAPINFO.BIN files have compressed data in some parts of them; specifically the part/information about the structure of the area [(buildings, floors, roads etc) models and their coordinates, textures etc). Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. If so, one has to find out which compression/decompression algorithm has been used.

[ReeceKun]

About Shenmue I modding/reverse-engineering: I wonder if (or have a hunch that) MAPINFO.BIN files have compressed data in some parts of them; specifically the part/information about the structure of the area [(buildings, floors, roads etc) models and their coordinates, textures etc). Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. If so, one has to find out which compression/decompression algorithm has been used.

My Guess is yes parts are compressed , but the information should relate to where models coordinates are and where doors and interactive objects are triggered Lamp Lights & meshswap on evening windows etc (texture coordinate location is stored within the MT5s and Im colision data is stored in the col files)


I realised that the PKS/PKF were compressed when looking at the files in HEX data visualiser (very useful) I was just lucky that they could be extracted with winrar , later the new MT5 Converter and Unpacker were released which decompresses perfectly with names n such.

I really havent looked into mapinfo files because at the moment they are stored in my 'useless folder' having said that if winrar can open the compressed PKS/PKF I cant imagine the compression used is that difficult , If i didnt have so much to do my next step would be to look into existing QuickBMS scripts and Xentax chatter
x

ALSO I dunno if its new but I just Extracted a COLD.Bin with the MT5Unpacker .. has more bins inside

[shengoro86]

James, do you have any topics you can think of that have been made by yourself in the past? Maybe not every mod, but a guide to some of the bigger ones?Mods people can do at home on their Dreamcasts (I remembwr the walking through walls video tutorial?)

Maybe post them in a fresh topic and then we can stick them to the forum? Even if you just wanna link the video to one of your YouTube videos for example, or perhaps have a short write up guide? Think it would be awesome!

Almost every video I have ever uploaded, I put into a thread here. No one comments and it doesn't boost views so I stopped wasting my time. I only post them to 500K now.

[shengoro86]

About Shenmue I modding/reverse-engineering: I wonder if (or have a hunch that) MAPINFO.BIN files have compressed data in some parts of them; specifically the part/information about the structure of the area [(buildings, floors, roads etc) models and their coordinates, textures etc). Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. If so, one has to find out which compression/decompression algorithm has been used.

Wouldn't surprise me as Suzuki is known to use compression tools to do some awesome game stuff.

Shenmue taxes the hardware so much that it doesn't surprise me that he would compress binaries in some form and just run them through algos.

[ShenSun]

Hey, we never requested it, but thanks for sticking Shenmue Gaiden.

Personally, i think the community section is too clustered. I think we need more forums to archive and promote projects/videos/interviews etc properly.

I'd personally have as the following

Shenmue 1
Shenmue 2
Shenmue 3
Community Projects

Other forums

Shenmue Mods (Bike mod, Unreal mod, Isos)
Shenmue Fan games/apps (Shenmue Gaiden, Gang edition rpg, android apps, etc)
Shenmue Podcasts (Axm, James, seganerds, segabits)
Shenmue Events (Monaico, Hyper Japan, Meet ups)
Shenmue Video Series (Adam Koralik, James, External Dragon, HC Gamer, etc)
Shenmue art/renders (Wallpapers, Esspiral, Riken Productions)
Shenmue interviews, etc (David Deville, Gaming media etc, Biscay, Suzuki etc)

That may seem like a lot and maybe it could be compressed more, but the point is it would uncluster all the great content that is lost in the community project section and other shenmue forums. Jame's / Adam koralik's videos are a perfect example of this. Im sure more people would comment and a discussion would form when they release new content, but as soon as their thread gets knocked off the top, it gets lost in the 100's of other shenmue related topics.

Only specific topics continue to get exposure. Shenmue 3 Kickstarter, Shenmue 1080p, Shenmue Gaiden, ISO Threads, etc. Everything should be fully embraced in my opinion. So much great content, but too much congestion to enjoy it all.

I personally would love to visit the dojo, press on a "Shenmue Video series" forum, click on a Adam koralik thread or Shengoro thread and enjoy all their videos in one place, rather than searching the forums for individual pieces of content. Same goes for everything else i mentioned. (interviews, games, mods, Events etc)

It would also make it easier for guests and newcomers to have a more enjoyable experience.

Just my thoughts. Would love to hear you guys opinion on the matter.

[NeoShredder]

NullDC 1.04 and 1.00b confirmed to run under Ubuntu (Linux) loaded through WINE. Haven't seen it mentioned here before. Near 1:1 performance (minus shitty hardware).



As long as d3dx9_36.dll is downloaded and put in the root folder.

Texmod and Umod also work as well.

[NeoShredder]

Seems the reason why 8 (August) is on the calender in the HUD when you don't even play in August is a reference to the name 'Hazuki' (as in 葉月 'falling leaves') which also means August. Huh

Could be a day depicted instead, but this seems more likely.

[IlDucci]

About Shenmue I modding/reverse-engineering: I wonder if (or have a hunch that) MAPINFO.BIN files have compressed data in some parts of them; specifically the part/information about the structure of the area [(buildings, floors, roads etc) models and their coordinates, textures etc). Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. If so, one has to find out which compression/decompression algorithm has been used.

My Guess is yes parts are compressed , but the information should relate to where models coordinates are and where doors and interactive objects are triggered Lamp Lights & meshswap on evening windows etc (texture coordinate location is stored within the MT5s and Im colision data is stored in the col files)

I realised that the PKS/PKF were compressed when looking at the files in HEX data visualiser (very useful) I was just lucky that they could be extracted with winrar , later the new MT5 Converter and Unpacker were released which decompresses perfectly with names n such.

I really havent looked into mapinfo files because at the moment they are stored in my 'useless folder' having said that if winrar can open the compressed PKS/PKF I cant imagine the compression used is that difficult , If i didnt have so much to do my next step would be to look into existing QuickBMS scripts and Xentax chatter
x

ALSO I dunno if its new but I just Extracted a COLD.Bin with the MT5Unpacker .. has more bins inside

Shenmue normally uses GZIP compression for packing Sprite files and PKS/PKF. That's a very common one, found in also lots of Dreamcast games (AITD4 would be the first that comes to my mind).

As for my thoughts... I still have Yuan's Revenge pending, but I realized... Not only I need translation help for the de-censoring (Even if I have a full guide), but I'd need someone with sound engineering skills to change the conversations. Kinda like what's done with YouTube Poops and the like.

I even thought on two translations: the Japanese one would be the most detailed one, while the English one would need to fit with what we have on the audios.

[Giorgio]

I wish there was some kind of documentation/manual that listed the SH-4 assembly code instructions for the Dreamcast's PowerVR chip to draw on the screen. You can find one for the SH-4 CPU (programming and hardware), but nothing helpful about PowerVR. Like, how could you make it draw an image via assembly? Et cetera. There is some source code, but it does not explain sufficiently why it writes this or that.

I read there is an option to read the source code of KallistiOS and see how it handles the drawing functions and thus everything related to the PowerVR chip (and how it communicates with the CPU, SDRAM, data busses etc), but I'm not sure or don't know how helpful would that be. I'm in interested in low level programming.

One day I would also like to learn how to add code into the 1st_read.bin of a game. For example, load code before the game starts and selects cheats to enable via graphical user interface. Et cetera. Like, imagine enabling cheats for Shenmue I via a GUI, before the actual game starts.