NCAA 06 NEXT '23 - 2022/23 Season Mod - Now with CFB Playoff BUILT-IN!

minotauri · Postby **minotauri** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 1:35 am

NCAA NEXT 23 Released!

NCAA NEXT 23 mod is fully released now:

https://download.ncaanext.com

The previous versions were all graphics/textures updates using PCSX2/AtherSX2's texture loading feature which has enabled us to upgrade over 1000 uniforms, and over 10,000 texture files within the game including all new uniforms, stadiums graphics, gears/accessories, menu art, controller art, broadcast enhancements, and a lot more.

We also released 3 beta tests over the summer that tested out new features we brought to the games internal databases that unlocked and enabled us to create new teams into the database, reconfigure the league structure, add rosters and coaches, and re-build schedules and more. After a lot of feedback and more discoveries, we have gone even further down the rabbit hole and modified more game databases, DAT files, and the game's actual structure.

The following list are things we've already added for our NCAA NEXT 23 update that'll come in the next week or two. We hopefully will try to add more if we can fit them in or will add patches in the future.
Features include:

(Updated 02/19/2023)

Game PS2 Executable (ELF) Updates:

Internal League Database Updates:

Other In-Game Updates:

Of course, the graphics team has still been busy as well, and we've already made new uniforms/alternatives for the 2022 season literally on a week by week basis as teams unveil new uniforms for their weekly matchups. We are working on another release to add in more uniforms.

In the future, we are planning a major UNIFORM.DAT upgrade that'll expand the uniform database to 6250 uniform options, giving each team 20-30 uniforms slots built-into the game. This is possible, we just haven't dont the logistical nightmare of starting it yet, but its slowly being made.

The Madden 08 PC FF/FI mod is also doing something similar based on the discoveries from NCAA NEXT, and we're sharing a ton of info back and forth.

**Sponsor**

Postby **RevanFan** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:41 am

minotauri wrote:Modern Database of 8192 First and 8192 Last names for recruits

Now that is something I'd love to see in the FF/FI mod some day too haha. Any chance you guys might be willing to share?

Harry97 · Postby **Harry97** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:14 am

minotauri wrote:Game PS2 Executable (ELF) Updates:
De-Interlacing Built-In to improve visual quality
2022 Starting Year
In-Game Text Updates
Transfer Waiting Period Removal
Increased Transfer Portal Activity
Allows Duplicate Jersey Numbers
Permanent PAC-12/CUSA Championship Stadium
Added 1 and 2 Star Recruits to In-Season Recruiting Phase

I'm pretty sure I was able to get duplicate jersey #s just by editing the roster. Does it not save properly when doing that or something, that it needs an ELF edit?

minotauri wrote:Outdoor Stadiums for teams that used to play in domes

Is that how you gave Tulane and Minnesota outdoor stadiums? By editing LEAGUE.DAT? Would like to know more details about what to edit to make their stadiums outdoor.

And as far as stadium editing in general, are you optimistic that you will be able to get 07-11 PS2 stadiums into NCAA 06 or do you need help in this area?

minotauri wrote:Updated Recruit 3D Model Body Shapes

Did you improve values for the Body Size % slider (PSSH values?) for recruits? If so, are you planning on applying that to the roster? Or are you referring to some other kind of Body Shape edit?

minotauri wrote:Upgraded Music Soundtrack (16 original + 16 new tracks)

Cool! Sounds like you figured out whatever was preventing you from getting custom tracks in there initially.

minotauri wrote:Of course, the graphics team has still been busy as well, and we've already made new uniforms/alternatives for the 2022 season literally on a week by week basis as teams unveil new uniforms for their weekly matchups. We are working on another release to add in more uniforms.

The uniforms look amazing. Great work on that.

minotauri wrote:In the future, we are planning a major UNIFORM.DAT upgrade that'll expand the uniform database to 6250 uniform options, giving each team 20-30 uniforms slots built-into the game. This is possible, we just haven't dont the logistical nightmare of starting it yet, but its slowly being made.

This is what I'm interested in. Being able to give each team 20-30 is awesome lol. Is it as simple as just adding more entries and UFIDs to the bottom of the TUNI table, then adding more uniform files to empty slots at the end of the UNIFORM.DAT?

Very proud of what you guys have been able to achieve. If there's anything that you are struggling with and need help on, let me know. Stadium editing and importing NCAA 07-11 stadiums into 06 might be something that we can work together on, unless you can figure that out on your own.

minotauri · Postby **minotauri** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:00 am

RevanFan wrote:
minotauri wrote:Modern Database of 8192 First and 8192 Last names for recruits

Now that is something I'd love to see in the FF/FI mod some day too haha. Any chance you guys might be willing to share?

Yep I can share with you the databases on Discord.

For the Streamdata for NCAA, the field names are in VarChar format, so we had to convert them to String, and it still took. This is to allow us to change it via DB Editor.

minotauri · Postby **minotauri** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:19 am

Harry97 wrote:Is that how you gave Tulane and Minnesota outdoor stadiums? By editing LEAGUE.DAT? Would like to know more details about what to edit to make their stadiums outdoor.

And as far as stadium editing in general, are you optimistic that you will be able to get 07-11 PS2 stadiums into NCAA 06 or do you need help in this area?

I decompressed STADIUM.DAT and pulled out some generic stadiums for Tulane and Minnesota (and the other created teams in the mod), and then used a Stadium Model patching tool that JDHalfrack made to give each stadium a unique set of hex values into each individual texture asset in the stadium. This allows us to use the texture loading feature in the emulator to dump out unique textures for the patched stadiums, so we can give them a team-specific graphical upgrade. The files were then re-loaded into the STADIUM.DAT file in their existing slots.

Did you improve values for the Body Size % slider (PSSH values?) for recruits? If so, are you planning on applying that to the roster? Or are you referring to some other kind of Body Shape edit?

Yes I used my body size tables I created a long time ago and implemented them to the RCAT table in STRMDATA to give the recruits the new body shapes to make them look more realistic.

Cool! Sounds like you figured out whatever was preventing you from getting custom tracks in there initially.

Yea its not super hard. There was a tool EA released to the public in the early 2000s for the NHL community called DittyImport that creates ASF audio files but it is a newer version than what was used for PS2, so while the format was 99% the same and it played back correctly on computer, it didnt play back on PS2. Luckily, JDHalfrack found an old tool in his archives that EA Sports released in the late 90s called SX.exe. It converts to the same format as the PS2 games, and so he was able to create the soundtrack using that tool, along with importing them into Dat File Replacer and updating the soundtrack in STRMDATA.DB

The uniforms look amazing. Great work on that.

Yes, I'm super happy with the recent releases. JD637 (the other JD), created a 4K-Res template for us to use that has all the major brands stitchings and features built-in to the template that makes it really easy to create uniforms from that look spectacular.

This is what I'm interested in. Being able to give each team 20-30 is awesome lol. Is it as simple as just adding more entries and UFIDs to the bottom of the TUNI table, then adding more uniform files to empty slots at the end of the UNIFORM.DAT?

Yes, it pretty much is this. Adding more entries into UFID, and TUNI, and adding more to UNIFORM.DAT. They are in sequential order for TUNI/UNIF UFID values. But, again, we are using the texture loading feature for emulation, and so like I mentioned for Stadiums above, JDHalfrack created a patching tool to uniform kit files that give a simple hex value modifier to each little part of the uniform that makes them "unique" to the emulator, hence dumping a unique texture for us to modify. If you were to load this into PS2 or emulation without texture loading, every team will show up as Air Force home/away uniforms. haha.

Very proud of what you guys have been able to achieve. If there's anything that you are struggling with and need help on, let me know. Stadium editing and importing NCAA 07-11 stadiums into 06 might be something that we can work together on, unless you can figure that out on your own.

I'd love to get your input and discussion to help us! JDHalfrack, h4wduk3n, myself, RevanFan, StingRay, and a few others discuss these mod ideas and try to implement them on our Discord NCAA NEXT server. If you ever want to join in our discussions and see what else we've done or tested, feel free to join and let me know!

As far as stadium imports from NCAA 07-11, the main issue is the crowds dont animate correctly, and look really flat and sharp. It's quite distracting in-game and so we decided not to use them even though some are more accurate. It would be nice to figure out if we can fix that, but it does seem how it looks like in their respective games. Those games have sharper looking crowds, even if they are the same exact texture (according to PCSX2 emulation dumping).

We also tried to import Madden stadiums from PS2 and it also worked, except in this case, there was no crowds at all.

Harry97 · Postby **Harry97** » Thu Sep 22, 2022 6:31 pm

minotauri wrote:I decompressed STADIUM.DAT and pulled out some generic stadiums for Tulane and Minnesota (and the other created teams in the mod), and then used a Stadium Model patching tool that JDHalfrack made to give each stadium a unique set of hex values into each individual texture asset in the stadium. This allows us to use the texture loading feature in the emulator to dump out unique textures for the patched stadiums, so we can give them a team-specific graphical upgrade. The files were then re-loaded into the STADIUM.DAT file in their existing slots.

Sounds complicated. I wouldn't even know the first thing about how to do that. Do you know what Files in NCAA 06's STADIUMS.DAT are the generic stadiums? Is it possible to (without PCSX2 texture mods) replace the Tulane and Minnesota with the generic stadiums, then use the SRES swap to get Minnesota and Tulane's field art and stuff on the generic stadiums? Remember we originally tried to do this but we couldn't edit the created stadiums by the SRES swap. But wasn't that because those created stadiums weren't in the correct (regular team's) slot inside STADIUMS.DAT. What if we could import the generic stadiums in STADIUMS.DAT into Tulane and Minnesota's stadiums slot? Perhaps with those in there, we can get the generic stadiums with Tulane and Minnesota's field art? Do you think that would work?

Update: I have been decompressing of the STADIUM files and will attempt to do what I'm asking you about here. I'm guessing you don't know if that would work. I know you said something about that you had a full list of all the files in STADIUMS.DAT. There must be a .csv somewhere that has a list of all the files inside STADIUMS.DAT, sort of like how the TUNI table tells us which UFIDs are associated with each Team ID, which are the slot #s in UNIFORM.DAT with zero byte arrays checked,UNIFORMS.DAT. Surely there's something like that for STADIUMS.DAT, and I did notice that when you decompress a STADIUMS.DAT file, if you open it up in a hex editor, it shows the name of the team. If only I can find those generic (create-a-school) stadiums, decompress them, then put them into Minneosta's and Tulane's slot. That might allow me to get an outdoor Minneosta and Tulane stadium with their field art, without having to use texture replacement. Only one way to find out!

minotauri wrote:Yes, I'm super happy with the recent releases. JD637 (the other JD), created a 4K-Res template for us to use that has all the major brands stitchings and features built-in to the template that makes it really easy to create uniforms from that look spectacular.

Will that 4K-Res template work in UNIFORM.DAT as a decompressed uniform file without being tied to PCSX2 texture replacement? Are you optimistic that you will eventually be able to convert all your uniform textures to UNIFORM.DAT files? Or do you think uniforms will only be able to look that good in-game with help from PCSX2 texture replacement?

minotauri wrote:Yes, it pretty much is this. Adding more entries into UFID, and TUNI, and adding more to UNIFORM.DAT. They are in sequential order for TUNI/UNIF UFID values. But, again, we are using the texture loading feature for emulation, and so like I mentioned for Stadiums above, JDHalfrack created a patching tool to uniform kit files that give a simple hex value modifier to each little part of the uniform that makes them "unique" to the emulator, hence dumping a unique texture for us to modify. If you were to load this into PS2 or emulation without texture loading, every team will show up as Air Force home/away uniforms. haha.

It would be useful if somehow your uniforms could be converted to decompressed UNIFORM.DAT files to work without the need to be tied to PCSX2 texture replacement. I know you've developed an excellent method through PCSX2 texture replacement, but you started on that road before you discovered that the .DATs could be edited. I just wonder if you could actually import the kinds of high quality uniforms through UNIFORM.DAT without needing to do it through PCSX2 texture replacement anymore. Of course you still can, and it's probably easier this way now that you are down this road, but if it's possible to do it all through the .DATs perhaps that can be explored. And I would be more than willing to do some testing if are interesting in going down this road.

Of course there may be certain things that may only be able to be done through texture replacement. For example, I have no clue how to edit the crowd colors through the .DATs, but I have managed to edit them through "cheat engine" texture codes. But for Uniforms, maybe there's a way for your high quality uniforms to be converted to a UNIFORM.DAT file without the need to be referenced into the PCSX2 texture replacement feature. Just an idea.

What I noticed about the stock uniforms in NCAA 06 is that while the default jerseys and pants look pretty low quality, the stock helmets look pretty high quality. As you know, the pants and jerseys have the same memory addresses for all teams, whereas the helmet addresses change per team. So all that would need to be upgraded in the uniform file for the uniforms to look much better is the pants and jerseys.

minotauri wrote:I'd love to get your input and discussion to help us! JDHalfrack, h4wduk3n, myself, RevanFan, StingRay, and a few others discuss these mod ideas and try to implement them on our Discord NCAA NEXT server. If you ever want to join in our discussions and see what else we've done or tested, feel free to join and let me know!

You guys have done a wonderful job. Very cool to see your progress.

minotauri wrote:As far as stadium imports from NCAA 07-11, the main issue is the crowds dont animate correctly, and look really flat and sharp. It's quite distracting in-game and so we decided not to use them even though some are more accurate. It would be nice to figure out if we can fix that, but it does seem how it looks like in their respective games. Those games have sharper looking crowds, even if they are the same exact texture (according to PCSX2 emulation dumping).

We also tried to import Madden stadiums from PS2 and it also worked, except in this case, there was no crowds at all.

Yeah there's something going on with the crowds, seems like a complicated problem to diagnose. Still, if there were a way to edit the stadium files in NCAA 06, at least, that would very useful. It would be cool to be able to edit stadiums and import custom stadiums into NCAA 06 like they do for Madden 08 PC.

minotauri · Postby **minotauri** » Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:27 am

Here is the preview initial test release with updated 2022 rosters and some heavy tweaking of my porting tool that Harry97 has helped me recommendations and guidance over the years.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tR1rJz ... sp=sharing

This works with the NCAA 06 Next Textures pack which can be found at https://www.ncaanext.com

Instructions https://wiki.ncaanext.com and in the readme in the zip file link.

I plan on releasing this as a formal release when I get some feedback and bugs squashed, if any are found. It'll be released in conjunction with an updated texture pack with several more 2022 season uniform updates and fixes.

esayem · Postby **esayem** » Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:29 am

minotauri wrote:
As far as stadium imports from NCAA 07-11, the main issue is the crowds dont animate correctly, and look really flat and sharp. It's quite distracting in-game and so we decided not to use them even though some are more accurate. It would be nice to figure out if we can fix that, but it does seem how it looks like in their respective games. Those games have sharper looking crowds, even if they are the same exact texture (according to PCSX2 emulation dumping).

We also tried to import Madden stadiums from PS2 and it also worked, except in this case, there was no crowds at all.

I played 08 last night and noticed that the Cardinals stadium was added for the Fiesta Bowl. The crowd looked flat, I'm not sure about what you mean by sharp. Are we sure this isn't how they always look? Do you have a screen shot of it?

Have you tried importing stadiums from older games? NCAA 2005 for instance has Arrowhead for the Big XII title game (should be in 07 as well). Maybe Madden 05 stadiums would be compatible?

minotauri · Postby **minotauri** » Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:58 pm

esayem wrote:
minotauri wrote:
As far as stadium imports from NCAA 07-11, the main issue is the crowds dont animate correctly, and look really flat and sharp. It's quite distracting in-game and so we decided not to use them even though some are more accurate. It would be nice to figure out if we can fix that, but it does seem how it looks like in their respective games. Those games have sharper looking crowds, even if they are the same exact texture (according to PCSX2 emulation dumping).

We also tried to import Madden stadiums from PS2 and it also worked, except in this case, there was no crowds at all.

I played 08 last night and noticed that the Cardinals stadium was added for the Fiesta Bowl. The crowd looked flat, I'm not sure about what you mean by sharp. Are we sure this isn't how they always look? Do you have a screen shot of it?

Have you tried importing stadiums from older games? NCAA 2005 for instance has Arrowhead for the Big XII title game (should be in 07 as well). Maybe Madden 05 stadiums would be compatible?

I also pinged you on discord, but here's some screenshots

NCAA 06

: 06-crowd.png (849.36 KiB) Viewed 3954 times

NCAA 07/11 Stadiums

: 07-crowd.png (1.84 MiB) Viewed 3954 times

: 11-crowd-imported.png (697.16 KiB) Viewed 3954 times

Harry97 · Postby **Harry97** » Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:06 am

minotauri wrote:Here is the preview initial test release with updated 2022 rosters and some heavy tweaking of my porting tool that Harry97 has helped me recommendations and guidance over the years.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tR1rJz ... sp=sharing

This works with the NCAA 06 Next Textures pack which can be found at https://www.ncaanext.com

Instructions https://wiki.ncaanext.com and in the readme in the zip file link.

I plan on releasing this as a formal release when I get some feedback and bugs squashed, if any are found. It'll be released in conjunction with an updated texture pack with several more 2022 season uniform updates and fixes.

I tested this out, rebuilt the disc with your files and your ELF. I can tell you've done a ton of work to get that functional. I'm just testing the rebuilt disc itself, with no PCSX2 texture mods. I deleted all my rosters (backed them up of course) from the virtual memory card then started it up on PCSX2.

Some bugs : For Minnesota and Tulane, in Play Now, there is no selection for Noon, Afternoon, Evening and Night even though those are now outdoor stadiums. Stadium Select still treats those as Domes it seems. You got the Minnesota and Tulane Field art down in those generic stadium, but the banners in those stadiums are still Harvard for Minnesota and Portland State for Tulane. I want to achieve this on a barebones NCAA 06 disc. I'm gonna take a look into your STADIUMS.DAT to see if I can understand how you did that. I'm guessing you either swapped the custom stadiums into the Minnesota and Tulane stadium slots or you did some DB editing, probably both. If you have a complete list of what team's stadium in STADIUMS.DAT each slot refers to, that would help.

For all the other added teams you put into 1A like Liberty, they all have Air Force's uniforms. I know this is something that needs PCSX2 texture replacement to work properly with their actual uniforms. But without texture replacement, they just have Air Force's uniform.

Purdue and Vanderbilt hasn't been updated with player names on the back of their jerseys. I know you said you know how to put names on their jerseys with a tool you guys use, but you haven't implemented it into your mod yet. I can share with you my edited uniform files for Purdue and Vanderbilt that have names on when I have those finished. I'm still working on them. I also plan on updating Washington State's and the other teams who should have names. It sounds like you're planning on adding names to those teams uniforms yourself with the tool you guys have. I should have a bunch of edited UNIFORM.DAT files soon so more teams like Purdue have player names.

Coastal Carolina in Play Now has Hofstra's logo. The other added teams seem to have generic directional (Midwest, Southeast, etc) logos.

I like what you did with deleting the impact players. Though oddly in Play Now when you select teams, some teams are listed as having only 1 impact player instead of none. Though even those teams that are listed as having 1 impact player instead of zero, they correctly don't seem to have any when you get into the game. I really like that no impact players look. Good job for figuring that out.

All in all, it's very cool to see what you've achieved here. Going into a New Dynasty everything seems to work well. You obviously took it upon yourself to work at this until until you could get everything working properly. I know you said there were some bugs, but getting all that functional is pretty amazing to be honest.

All those new schools in 1A and just all the conference balancing you did in Dynasty. For it all to load off the disc, and not crash, and appear on the surface like everything's where it should be. Of course there's gonna be loose ends, bugs and things that need to be addressed. Hopefully you can iron out any bugs you find. I see you changed team colors as well which are noticeable when scrolling through Play Now. Where exactly do you change the team colors like that? I know TCRP changes the team crowd colors in the stadium (minus the "locals"), does TCRP also change the team colors when the team is displayed in the Front End, like when scrolling through Play Now, or is there another way to change those?

As for the rosters, many players have the cornrows hair style (PHED 1) that don't have them in real life. So I would suggest changing those with PHED 1 to one of the other hairstyles, like buzz cut (PHED 4) or close crop (PHED 7). I can tell you've made improvements to your roster to get it closer to 2005 base. The body size % slider are still all over the place (some players 0%, some players 99%, etc). It's not as easy thing to fix, but player models look off in-game if they come up as 0% or 99% when you check a player in Edit Player > Appearance. You'll notice it because when you move the body size % if a player comes up at 0% or 99% when you first check it, they'll "snap" into a normal looking player model when you move the slider. I try to get everyone's PSSH value so so they are either 10% or 20% when you first go into Edit Player > Appearance to check a player's appearance. It requires balancing of the values in PSSH. What seems to work is balancing that PSSH column based on some other rating like the player's weight value. But you don't want a wide variety of values for PSSH. What I've found is that it's best so that all players are within a range of like 1 or 2 values for PSSH, maybe 3 at most.

What the PSSH values should be to keep everyone within like 10% or 20% when you check Edit Player > Appearance depend on unknown factors related to your roster. When you rebalance a roster, it changes what the PSSH need to be to appear as 10% to 20%. The reason why I try to keep the body size % slider at 10% or 20%, it can be higher it's just that if you go into Edit Player- Appearance, if it's higher than 20% the first time, it will skyrocket each time you check it and could exceed 99% if you then save the roster after going into Edit Player. When you check Edit Player > Appearance then save the roster the PSSH value will change for that player, so keep that in mind. As the % slider increases each time you go into Edit Player > Appearance, the PSSH will lower, towards zero, to a maximum % after 2 times accessing it. But you can learn how set the correct the DB values by doing that, setting it to 10%, then saving it, then checking what the value changed to in the DB. Then setting another player to 10%, then exiting, going back into Edit Player > Appearance to see the % increase further, then saving, then you can see what the PSSH value of that player changed to in the DB. Then you can see what all the players PSSH ratings should be for your roster to keep all players within that sweet spot with the body size % slider, the bigger players about 20%, the smaller player about 10%.

The Muscles % slider (PMSH) is not glitchy like the Body size % slider (PSSH) and there can be a wider range of values for PMSH, but it still generally needs balancing, and in my estimation should be based on values like weight and/or strength, or some other player rating. It's just with the muscles %, you can have a wider range of PMSH values without it glitching or reaching beyond the 0% or 99% like it does with certain PSSH values. It's never going to be perfect, but if you want to improve your rosters, follow this advice and you can streamline your Body size % slider and muscles % slider in your rosters and get better looking player models in-game.

If you look at my screenshots of the Purdue and Vandy uniforms with names in the other topic, you see how those player models look. With the thinner waist (but not too thin) and the broad shoulders. That's is how the player models can look, which is what happens if you follow my advice about adjusting your PSSH values. If your body size %s are out of whack and you get 0%s or 99%s, they won't look like that. They'll have too small shoulderpads compared to their midsections which will be too wide, and their bodies look off, or you'll get the opposite your player models will look too exaggerated. Those screenshots give you a sense of how the player models could, or should look if you balance the PSSH values properly. Because the body size % slider is glitched out in NCAA 06, but it can be corrected to get your player models looking much better. But if you like it the way you have it, then that's your call, I'm just saying there's a lot of correction that can be done in the DB to streamline that in your rosters.

FootballIdiot