Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Harry97
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:29 pm

Injecting custom textures into PS2 NCAAs is obviously extremely difficult. I did manage to make some progress over the years though, and given that I created this topic way back I'll let you know how far I've come and where I've hit a wall. As you may know, you can decompress a compressed NCAA PS2 uniform (from the .DAT on the ps2 disc) by loading the compressed uni file in a team's uniform slot in the uniform DAT of Madden 08 PC. M08 decompresses it and when you try to go into a game with the team who's slot you put the file into in the DAT and you can use MUER to export the decompressed uni. The NCAA uniform will crash Madden 08 PC but if you switch to MUER before closing Madden 08 it will allow you to export the decompressed .uni file. I think this was known already, however that was as far as we got since the decompressed file was still in a different format, so we couldn't view or edit the uniform once decompressed.

So we have a decompressed NCAA PS2 uniform file that's in a different format than the Madden 08 PC uniforms, and due to this different format, as far as I know, it can't be edited by any of the ways that you can edit Madden 08 PC uniforms externally due to the file being in this unknown PS2 format, even after M08 decompresses it and MUER extracts it. However through the use of a quickbms script I was able to take the decompressed NCAA PS2 .uni and split it into its parts, the various parts of the uniform (helmet, jersey, pants, shoes, etc) as separate files, as individual textures. There's a program that allows you to view these PS2 extracted textures, but it doesn't feature an editor, so the only way to edit them is to basically through trial and error, hex edit these texture files and keep opening them in this program to see what changes.

As it pertains to the jerseys and pants of an NCAA PS2 uniform, the stock jerseys and pants are "colored" on a pixel by pixel basis. Anotherwords, every pixel of the pant or jersey has its own piece of hex data with a specific color code, which creates the look of the uniform. So if you hex edit a piece of hex data within this extracted pant or jersey texture file, you can change the color of a single pixel on the pant or jersey. But since there's no editor to work with here, it would be painstaking work to actually take a stock pant or jersey texture and edit it to create a custom uniform with custom logos or something since you can only make changes one pixel at a time via hex editing the file.

However when viewing the helmet texture, I have found some color codes in some team's helmets that do allow you to change the main color of the helmet. (i.e. the area of the helmet that isn't covered by logos or other pixel by pixel data) Since every helmet is formatted differently, these color codes are not in the same location for each team's helmet, not only that but each team's color codes are not the same. (i.e. one team's "red" would even have a different color code than another team's "red") So finding the main color code of one team's helmet doesn't translate to finding the main color code in another team's helmet. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, since it's in a different location for each helmet, and some team's helmets have bigger logos which cover the main color of the helmet more than other helmets with smaller logos. So in some cases you might be able to find the main color code of a team's helmet, but depending on the team's helmet, it might only color a portion of the helmet as some team's helmets have pixel by pixel textures all over the helmet that cover the base color even if you find the main color code and edit it.

A part of me wonders if the pants and jersey textures actually have an underlying main color that's covered by the pixel by pixel hex data that make up the look of stock uniform. If this were correct, and I'm making an educated guess here based on examining the helmets, then the difference between the pants / jerseys and the helmets might just be that the pixel by pixel hex data that make up the look of the stock uniform just doesn't cover the whole of the helmet as they do for the pants and jerseys. If that were the case, then my idea would be to try and figure out how to delete the hex data related to the pixel by pixel coloring of the pants and jerseys so we'd have one single code that would color the whole of the pant / jersey. This process of deleting all this pixel by pixel hex data that covers the main color of the texture would lower the file size of the pants and jerseys quite a bit, perhaps enough so that when rebuilt into a .uni, its file size decompressed may be smaller than the compressed uniform file that it would be replacing so it wouldn't crash when you import it into the DAT. This is just an idea, and it would take a lot of time and effort to even attempt this, but through trial and error deleting of hex data in these pant / jersey texture parts and then coloring the whole of the pant or jersey with just a single color code might accomplish the goal of reducing the decompressed .uni file enough to fit into the .DAT slot without crashing due to the file size limit. Given how the helmets seem to have a main color code beneath the logo that gets hidden by the pixel by pixel logo data, I wonder if pants and jerseys do too only this main color is completely covered by all this pixel by pixel hex data that create the look of the stock pants / jerseys.

I have no idea if this would even work, delete all this hex data without messing up the texture file is easier said than done. And even if successful, I don't know if it would be enough to reduce the file size enough to be smaller than the stock compressed file so it would fit into the DAT slot. But after separating the parts of the decompressed .uni, and examining these PS2 NCAA textures, this is the only thing that I can think of that would allow us to successfully inject a custom uniform texture into a DAT given the file size limits and with the files being compressed in an unknown format. The idea I've outlined may be worth trying, through bare bones trial and error / careful deleting of hex data of the pant and jersey textures without compromising file integrity, and trying to find an overall color code of the pant / jersey texture underneath all the pixel by pixel data. Then trying to rebuild the .uni with another quickbms script with texture parts of a much smaller file size without all that pixel by pixel hexdata. If we can delete the pixel by pixel color codes in the hex data, surely having the whole of a pant / jersey be colored by a single color code would make the pant / jersey look cleaner and less "pixelly". And unless you were able to isolate the pixel by pixel hex data of any logos on the jersey and pants you'd probably lose the logos and you'd have a completely basic, plain and untextured pants / jersey. Perhaps though we could isolate the hex data of the logos that are on the jersey / pants as those would probably be in a different area in hex. If we could successfully delete most of the pixel by pixel data in hex, the file size of these uniform parts would greatly be reduced without having all the hex data and color codes for every single pixel, maybe that would get it low enough in file size once rebuilt to fit into the .DAT without causing a crash due to increased file size.

That's as far as I've got, and that's my idea. It would be great to get custom uniforms into the NCAA 06 DAT but the file size slot limit of the DAT prevents that, unless we can reduce the file size of a decompressed uniform file enough to make it fit.

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

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Hype
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Hype » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:17 am

grabursock55 wrote:
Hype wrote:Just wanted to bump this to see if anyone was still doing any work on this?


I would like to say I have had success with injecting custom textures into NCAA ps2 games but I haven’t. I have continued texture mods for NCAA 05 on GameCube though. Curious if anyone else’s has had success


Dumping and loading textures seems to be a very easy process on Dolphin. Wish I had the chops to replace these jersey textures with updated uniforms to give NCAA 04 it's own "revamp".

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grabursock55
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby grabursock55 » Sat May 08, 2021 9:35 am

Hype wrote:
grabursock55 wrote:
Hype wrote:Just wanted to bump this to see if anyone was still doing any work on this?


I would like to say I have had success with injecting custom textures into NCAA ps2 games but I haven’t. I have continued texture mods for NCAA 05 on GameCube though. Curious if anyone else’s has had success


Dumping and loading textures seems to be a very easy process on Dolphin. Wish I had the chops to replace these jersey textures with updated uniforms to give NCAA 04 it's own "revamp".


Its honestly REALLY easy. Easier than modding uniforms in M08 on PC in my opinion. have you tried it?
Making tpf mods and tpf mod accessories.

RobotDebris
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby RobotDebris » Tue Oct 05, 2021 5:05 pm

So there's a forked version of PCSX2 with texture replacements. I've had some success with it so far, but there's an issue with replacing certain textures (seems to be based on the algorithm that's pulling textures), so you can't change numbers, or things like the Big Ten logo.
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esayem
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby esayem » Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:04 am

Thought I’d share mine here as well. Thanks to RobotDebris for the guidance!
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J Roq Sim Football
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby J Roq Sim Football » Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:02 am

Man these unis are fire. Wish they could be done for PCSX2

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minotauri
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby minotauri » Mon May 30, 2022 12:45 am

A few test of trying to get a chrome purple helmet for my huskies

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Harry97
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Mon May 30, 2022 1:07 am

Now you're just showin off @minotauri lol. I like those black Washington Unis, excellent helmet color and shoulder stripes to match the black unis in that first pic.

But wait till I start showin off, you ain't seen nothing yet. 8-)

Harry97
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:55 am

WOW!! So with this newfound freedom of DAT editing I've been doing a lot of testing. I did a test to see if I can get the Uniforms from another PS2 NCAA game into NCAA 06. And to my delight you CAN!! I rebuilt the NCAA 06 disc with the UNIFORM.DAT from NCAA 08 and IT WORKED!! The game loaded without a problem, I could go into games and there didn't appear to be any glaring issues. Now I have NCAA 08 Uniforms in NCAA 06! This is AWESOME!! :D Not only Uniforms but Helmets too.

And that's not all. I also tried the same thing with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT. Now with the stadiums, there are some issues, but it does get into game with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT and there are changes. But it doesn't appear to change the stadium architecture, only the crowd models it seems. What happens is that the crowd looks different with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, the crowd becomes a little glitchy like it doesn't quite match up with the stadium the way it should. You'll see if you test it. Some stadiums look better than others with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there. Like the Rose Bowl has a really glitchy looking crowd. But USC's stadium looks pretty cool, you'll notice at USC's stadium, there's a section of crowd empty in the upper deck in NCAA 06 that gets filled with crowd with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there. When you go to Stanford's stadium though with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT, it doesn't load the smaller Stanford stadium from NCAA 07 and NCAA 08, it's still the Old Stanford stadium from NCAA 06. But the crowd looks different. It's as if the crowd models become smaller so it looks like there's more people in the stands. At the same time the crowd doesn't quite matchup with the stadium as well. In some stadiums with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, they'll be additional rows of crowd that go beyond the end of the stands. You'll see if you test it, but it's pretty cool regardless. Just the fact that we can get NCAA 06 to load and play games with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, glitchy as it is, is fantastic. The same can't be said for the STADATA.DAT. You put the STADATA.DAT into NCAA 06 and rebuild, it crashes when you load the game before you even get to the main menu.

I did some work with the STADATA.DAT and what I observed is that the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 08 has more slots than the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 06. When looking at them inside DFR, it's apparent that some of the files are different sizes. Most are the same size though. I imported the files that are different sizes from the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 08 and put them into NCAA 06's STADATA.DAT and I ended up with even more crowd issues than I did with NCAA 06's STADATA.DAT and NCAA 08's STADIUMS.DAT in there. What happens is when they stand up and cheer there are more glitches, but I did notice that the crowd models changed color and got bigger when I did that.

Importing all the files in STADATA.DAT one after the other through DFR (while bypassing the added files in NCAA 08's) may be the next step. Long story short, stadium editing does seem possible but it's tricky. It's not as simple as just putting the STADATA.DAT from another PS2 NCAA in there, you have to apparently import the files one by one. And I also need to take a look at STADIUMS.DAT and see if it needs to be done that way as well in STADIUMS.DAT to avoid the glitchy crowd. While putting NCAA 08's STADIUMS.DAT directly in there, it doesn't cause any crashes, but it also has some obvious crowd glitches. Surprisingly though, I haven't seen any indication thus far that either of these DATs change the stadium architecture. Like I haven't seen Stanford's stadium change to the smaller Stanford Stadium from NCAA 08 that replaced the Old Stadium Stadium from NCAA 06 or anything. From what I've seen so far, it seems that STADIUMS.DAT and STADATA.DAT affect the crowd only. What I'm gonna do next I think is to study the MMAPs and even some of the compressed files (that are the same size in both DATs) to see if there's any changes in hex. The goal here would be to get the stadiums from the later PS2 NCAA games that were upgraded and expanded into NCAA 06. But the stadiums that I liked better in NCAA 06 (like Stanford's) I would keep. I know a lot of you guys are working on the NCAA 06 Next mod, so you might be happy with using the texture replacement feature in PCSX2 for uniforms. So you may not have a need to get into UNIFORM.DAT. But my focus is getting custom uniforms and stadiums through the .DATs. So if anyone wants to work with me on this let me know. I'll continue to investigate the situation and see what I can come up with on my own and report any progress that I make.

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minotauri
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Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby minotauri » Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:43 am

Harry97 wrote:WOW!! So with this newfound freedom of DAT editing I've been doing a lot of testing. I did a test to see if I can get the Uniforms from another PS2 NCAA game into NCAA 06. And to my delight you CAN!! I rebuilt the NCAA 06 disc with the UNIFORM.DAT from NCAA 08 and IT WORKED!! The game loaded without a problem, I could go into games and there didn't appear to be any glaring issues. Now I have NCAA 08 Uniforms in NCAA 06! This is AWESOME!! :D Not only Uniforms but Helmets too.

And that's not all. I also tried the same thing with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT. Now with the stadiums, there are some issues, but it does get into game with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT and there are changes. But it doesn't appear to change the stadium architecture, only the crowd models it seems. What happens is that the crowd looks different with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, the crowd becomes a little glitchy like it doesn't quite match up with the stadium the way it should. You'll see if you test it. Some stadiums look better than others with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there. Like the Rose Bowl has a really glitchy looking crowd. But USC's stadium looks pretty cool, you'll notice at USC's stadium, there's a section of crowd empty in the upper deck in NCAA 06 that gets filled with crowd with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there. When you go to Stanford's stadium though with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT, it doesn't load the smaller Stanford stadium from NCAA 07 and NCAA 08, it's still the Old Stanford stadium from NCAA 06. But the crowd looks different. It's as if the crowd models become smaller so it looks like there's more people in the stands. At the same time the crowd doesn't quite matchup with the stadium as well. In some stadiums with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, they'll be additional rows of crowd that go beyond the end of the stands. You'll see if you test it, but it's pretty cool regardless. Just the fact that we can get NCAA 06 to load and play games with the NCAA 08 STADIUMS.DAT in there, glitchy as it is, is fantastic. The same can't be said for the STADATA.DAT. You put the STADATA.DAT into NCAA 06 and rebuild, it crashes when you load the game before you even get to the main menu.

I did some work with the STADATA.DAT and what I observed is that the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 08 has more slots than the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 06. When looking at them inside DFR, it's apparent that some of the files are different sizes. Most are the same size though. I imported the files that are different sizes from the STADATA.DAT from NCAA 08 and put them into NCAA 06's STADATA.DAT and I ended up with even more crowd issues than I did with NCAA 06's STADATA.DAT and NCAA 08's STADIUMS.DAT in there. What happens is when they stand up and cheer there are more glitches, but I did notice that the crowd models changed color and got bigger when I did that.

Importing all the files in STADATA.DAT one after the other through DFR (while bypassing the added files in NCAA 08's) may be the next step. Long story short, stadium editing does seem possible but it's tricky. It's not as simple as just putting the STADATA.DAT from another PS2 NCAA in there, you have to apparently import the files one by one. And I also need to take a look at STADIUMS.DAT and see if it needs to be done that way as well in STADIUMS.DAT to avoid the glitchy crowd. While putting NCAA 08's STADIUMS.DAT directly in there, it doesn't cause any crashes, but it also has some obvious crowd glitches. Surprisingly though, I haven't seen any indication thus far that either of these DATs change the stadium architecture. Like I haven't seen Stanford's stadium change to the smaller Stanford Stadium from NCAA 08 that replaced the Old Stadium Stadium from NCAA 06 or anything. From what I've seen so far, it seems that STADIUMS.DAT and STADATA.DAT affect the crowd only. What I'm gonna do next I think is to study the MMAPs and even some of the compressed files (that are the same size in both DATs) to see if there's any changes in hex. The goal here would be to get the stadiums from the later PS2 NCAA games that were upgraded and expanded into NCAA 06. But the stadiums that I liked better in NCAA 06 (like Stanford's) I would keep. I know a lot of you guys are working on the NCAA 06 Next mod, so you might be happy with using the texture replacement feature in PCSX2 for uniforms. So you may not have a need to get into UNIFORM.DAT. But my focus is getting custom uniforms and stadiums through the .DATs. So if anyone wants to work with me on this let me know. I'll continue to investigate the situation and see what I can come up with on my own and report any progress that I make.



I learned a lot about STADIUMS.DAT and STADATA and FIELDDATA recently. I'll have to do a long write up about it soon. i.e. how you find the index to each file within the DATs and where there are in the TEAM/STAD databases, etc.
I also go by Antdroid on other forums and places.

https://www.ncaanext.com - NCAA 06 NEXT Mod
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