Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

[minotauri]

Also I have implemented edits to the turf/grass through codes, that look way different than the texture mods seen in NCAA NEXT. It just gives the grass and turfs a unique look. Another thing I found was some codes that control the "lighting" in stadiums that can be adjusted on the fly. So for night games, dramatic lighting that makes it look like there's a spotlight on the field with the crowd in darkness. It's really cool. It gives night games an epic feel. I apply it to evening games, since I can adjust the "darkness" in real-time, to turn "Evening" games into "Night". So I can start a game with "Evening" then in the 2nd or 3rd quarter progressively make it darker and stuff so it becomes night by the end. I'll put together a preview of what I can do at some point. I've also done a ton of edits to the camera angles, both for the standard classic cameras and for the demo cam. And also in other areas. And there's some other camera related stuff stuff that I'm still trying to figure out. Further, there's a .csv in the GAMEDATA.DAT that appears to control some of the camera mods that I already implemented through cheat engine, which is something that I need to look more into, as thus far I have only modded it through cheat engine. So there's a lot of stuff that need to be researched. This .csv needs to be tested thoroughly, and anything that can't be done to the cameras through the .csv (which would be preferred) that I've been able to do with cheat engine codes, I can provide whichever codes I have that you may be interested in.

Okay sir, you need to spill the beans on lighting effects and camera changes. h4wduk3n and I, and to some extend JDHalfrack, have been discussing this on Discord about how we find this for a while. Looks like you may have found some of it already!

The last time I tried doing things, I got this:

Untitled.png (2.14 MiB) Viewed 1627 times

Slight embellished for emphasis.

I mostly want to see how to make night games look brighter, because they are quite dark sometimes. I can adjust the lighting using PCSX2's brightness/contrast settings, but I prefer to have it built-in to the game.

[h4wduk3n]

Harry id LOVE to know how you modded the game cam! I wanna do this at least for my own use.

[esayem]

I need to dig into that playbook editor. What's interesting is EA actually got rid of plays from the earlier PS2 games. I remember formations like the Veer and maybe Near and some others. I know there is a lot of work being done to get the newer features in 06, but I'm also curious about getting some old plays and stadiums. I know uniforms won't work because they're a different template prior to 06.

Stadium crowds seem to be different from 07 and beyond. This makes sense because the stadium is always at visual capacity from 07 on, whereas 06 and previous games might be half full in dynasty if the team is struggling. Maybe the 04-06 stadiums are the same. I'd have to double check.

It seems 2002 and 2003 might be similar and then 04-06 have the newly designed stadiums with different generics. I'm not positive about 2004, but 2002 and 2003 definitely have the old generic stadiums vs 2005's generics.

[Harry97]

Okay sir, you need to spill the beans on lighting effects and camera changes. h4wduk3n and I, and to some extend JDHalfrack, have been discussing this on Discord about how we find this for a while. Looks like you may have found some of it already!

The last time I tried doing things, I got this:

Untitled.png

Slight embellished for emphasis.

I mostly want to see how to make night games look brighter, because they are quite dark sometimes. I can adjust the lighting using PCSX2's brightness/contrast settings, but I prefer to have it built-in to the game.

Looks like you're on the right track. But I can make it so only the field is lit up and the background crowd is in darkness. And it's adjustable in-game. Also you can make the dynamic "darkness" any color, like that neon purple color. But I keep it black to make it look night. I'm gonna put together a video preview of my game running when I get a chance so you guys can see.

[h4wduk3n]

Hi Harry can you send me or us your camera view cheats. I'm really trying to change them myself.

[Harry97]

Harry id LOVE to know how you modded the game cam! I wanna do this at least for my own use.

For sure bud, I got a lot of cool stuff going on. I've completely hacked the demo cam, to make the "broadcast" demo cam more playable, so it's not as zoomed in and stuff, but that requires hotkeys, and I've discovered adjustments to the normal camera angles. But as I said, there's a .csv in GAMEDATA.DAT that appears to control a lot of what I've hacked through cheat engine. So if I can "formalize" some of my camera hacks that way, that would be preferred, so I wouldn't need as many hotkeys.

[Harry97]

Hi Harry can you send me or us your camera view cheats. I'm really trying to change them myself.

Yes I can send you some of them, or release them at some point. But we need to look into the camera .csv in GAMEDATA.DAT to understand what kind of camera changes we can make permanent. I have cheat engine camera mods also for the playcall screen, which I think can be made permanent through the PLCM.csv. I know this because if you put in the GAMEDATA.DAT master file from NCAA 07-11 into 06, you'll notice that the camera angles are a little different at the playcall screen.

Let me explain more about this. So the camera codes that I found in Cheat Engine (at least some of them) appear to be just references to the PLCM.csv within GAMEDATA.DAT. It's this PLCM.csv that seems to allow us to make changes to the camera angles, to the camera angles themselves and to the camera angles at the playcall screen. We need to take a deep dive into this .csv to see what camera changes we can make.

Before I send you any of my camera codes, lets take a look at PLCM.csv because I suspect that my Cheat engine camera codes can be done simply by editing the PLCM.csv. There's changes to the demo cam, changes to the regular cameras, changes to the camera at the playcall screen (different views of the stadium), and maybe even changes to the cutscenes and stuff. I haven't really been able to hack the cutscenes yet but it may be possible. There are subtle changes to the cameras when you put in the GAMEDATA.DAT from 07-11 into 06 and I think it's due to edits to the PLCM.csv. The changes might not be obvious but if you look closely you'll see them. Like the camera angles at the playcall screen, the views of the stadium that change when you are choosing plays they are slightly different with the 07-11 GAMEDATA.DAT in there if you look closely. Also the height and zoom of some of the regular cameras appear to be slightly different, even the cutscenes appear to be a little different. Nothing drastic but enough to notice if you look closely.

I do have codes for those if needed, but they require hotkeys, and it gets tricky through codes because they keep scrolling through different angles everytime you hit the playcall screen. I want to streamline this with permanent fixed camera angles, with unique broadcast style views of the stadium that show the crowd more instead of the field because the players are missing when you are choosing plays. I am researching more codes to make the players and the refs visible at the playcall screen but it's very "involved" and I've only scratched the surface on that. I want to make the changes to these playcall screen camera angles that I've hacked through cheat engine permanent rather than having to switch between camera angles every time I'm at the playcall screen. You know how every time you reach the playcall screen, there's a different view of the stadium right. It scrolls through 8 different pre-set angles, that can be adjusted through codes.

So before I send you any of my camera codes, lets do some work to the PLCM.csv and see what camera changes we make that way. Then if there are any things we can't do that way, that I can do through codes, I'll be happy to send you some codes. I don't think my camera codes are really needed, because I think we can make all the changes through PLCM.csv directly. Lets work on this PLCM.csv and see what we can come up with. Let me know what success you have editing the cameras through PLCM.csv and I'll do the same.

[Harry97]

Here are some screenshots of my lighting, camera and stadium (crowd) mods.

Evening Game with Dynamic Darkness Applied at the Old Stanford Stadium, Crowd as a Sea of Red. Custom playcall screen camera view.

SeaofredatStanford.jpg (192.15 KiB) Viewed 1567 times

Green Color Crowds with some Black and Yellow (ASU fans) at Coin Toss :

greencrowd.jpg (277.9 KiB) Viewed 1567 times

Pink Color Crowd.

pinkishcrowds.jpg (284.07 KiB) Viewed 1567 times

[Harry97]

Dynamic Lighting Demonstration :

Slight Dynamic Darkness at Kickoff :

SlightDynamicLighting.jpg (195.22 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

More Darkness Applied :

MoreDynamicDarknessApplied.jpg (140.43 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

Camera Zoom Out Codes : (note how the Dynamic Lighting is affected by the zoom out)

CameraZoomMod.jpg (136.81 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

[Harry97]

Zoomed out Further at Kickoff :

CameraZoomModMore.jpg (120.6 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

Custom Playcall Screen View with Dynamic Darkness Applied

playcallscreenview.jpg (188.08 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

Custom Playcall Screen View with Dynamic Darkness Applied

CustomPlaycallscreenview.jpg (196.04 KiB) Viewed 1566 times

Note the High-Res "Rain" crowds applied to Clear Weather games. This is not your normal Clear weather crowd models.