PS3 New CFW Tools idea on Evilnat

In my case past, I created image using Photoshop w/Nvidia plugin on Windows, it worked by rewriting icontex.qrc with hex editor.
It was a long time ago so I dont remember... but I created it without any special knowledge.
I just followed the great tutorial left by pinky.
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/pinkys-ps3-tutorials.1546/

Also my main machine is a mac, so after understood the method of porting dds into Icontex, I remember creating png on mac and converting them to dds using a application called aorta.
Either method worked. and after that I think I basically worked on mac because converting with aorta was very easy.
It was a long time ago so my memory is hazy, but if dds settings are correct, it should be possible incorporate them into icontex.qrc any software.

opening my dds in the viewer, its displayed inverted. as far as I know, this is the default and I remember that both official dds and custom dds were inverted in same.
I don know the reason behind it, but I also created images without giving it much thought.

I post some examples of my work. I don't see many custom icons that are similar to official icons, so I hope this will be helpful.
View attachment 44815 View attachment 44816 View attachment 44817 View attachment 44818 View attachment 44819
8n and 8nf.dds are alternative icons for the "user column" that myself.
Ive recreated the familiar smily and friend column icon used in XMB versions prior to 1.0, and adding effects from later FW.

7n is the retro category icon from multiMAN ported to the XMB.
I still use the network column as the emulator column, so this invader has been facing me on the screen for a long time.

n_.dds is the PSPs extra column icon ported to the PS3 XMB.
I used to include it, but now moved the extra column to PSN column, so Ive removed it. but It worked fine.

Ill post an example w/effects removed, in case its helpful for someone, custom folder 44n_2.
The parts where the effect is hollow are displayed as no effect, but this isnt used anymore as it didnt produce very visually interesting effect.
At the time I also created a version which holes were filled, but it didnt make much difference.
Because these base are grayscale, the drawn patterns dont seem to stand out as much as patterns made by carving them out.

Do you still have these files? or the icontex.qrc?
 
Do you still have these files? or the icontex.qrc?

there's one by demonhades, if you can find his cfw. I think it's called jfw or something like that, forgot. I don't know if it works on the latest firmware, because as you know, they added some stuff to the icontex.qrc over the years. I think you can determine if it's good by looking at the icontex.qrc page of psdevwiki. it says when things were added to it, which firmwares I mean. nothing has been added in a long time afaik though, a very long time.

@Kyan_dudl , mine is inverted as well. there's an option in the .dds plugin for photoshop, which is enabled by default, to invert the image. if you have to resave, deselect it. I don't know how it is on a mac, but it looks correct on the xmb that way. I don't know the reason either. I think it might have something to do with the diff file, but I don't really know.
 
there's one by demonhades, if you can find his cfw. I think it's called jfw or something like that, forgot. I don't know if it works on the latest firmware, because as you know, they added some stuff to the icontex.qrc over the years. I think you can determine if it's good by looking at the icontex.qrc page of psdevwiki. it says when things were added to it, which firmwares I mean. nothing has been added in a long time afaik though, a very long time.

@Kyan_dudl , mine is inverted as well. there's an option in the .dds plugin for photoshop, which is enabled by default, to invert the image. if you have to resave, deselect it. I don't know how it is on a mac, but it looks correct on the xmb that way. I don't know the reason either. I think it might have something to do with the diff file, but I don't really know.

I have the DemonHades, but @Kyan_dudl's version is different
 

yeah, I remember this. it looks quite good:

upload_2024-12-4_11-0-1.png
 
I'm pretty bad at Photoshop, have to look up things constantly, but I'm learning a little more each time. Using the original images as a base isn't a bad idea actually. I just found a random drawing of a cobra head and used that. My image doesn't look anything like the originals'. I noticed that it seems to require an alpha channel, so save settings are very important. The RGB channels seem to add some sort of depth and make the image translucent. Mine looks greyish, since I remembered the translucent effect with grey and a coldboot.raf.

Images I posted has rgb channel on the left and alpha channel on the right. alpha image is displayed at the basement on XMB, and rgb is an effect setting that isnt actually displayed.
I remember that applying blue on alpha image gave it glass-like texture and blurring the blue around creates 3dimensional effect. green and red react to the movement of XMB waves and add a glow.
Official icons has clear rules for its effects, with a glass texture, smooth 3dimensional edges, and a coating of "shine" that mainly reacts to waves around icon.

Currently, seems that it isn't possible to apply any other effects to XMB icons, so effects are constructed by combining these.
I only used the red and green channels for around icon, but by mixing this with the blue part, can create a more flashy reaction to the XMB wave. the other hand, remove or weaken blue, the glass effect will be weaker. maybe the uploaded DemonHades are those. (I miss them. CFW 3.56!:bullhead:)
 
I must make one correction.
In the DDS set I uploaded, the "pre XMB friend icon" was the "pre XMB users icon". checking past data and realized I remembered it wrong. to be more precise, its OFW 0.92s Users icon.
This one and the next 0.93 use their own icons for users and friend columns.
The previous and following 0.91 and 0.94 have same design as the current one, so I guess they tried a different design before reverting.
 
I must make one correction.
In the DDS set I uploaded, the "pre XMB friend icon" was the "pre XMB users icon". checking past data and realized I remembered it wrong. to be more precise, its OFW 0.92s Users icon.
This one and the next 0.93 use their own icons for users and friend columns.
The previous and following 0.91 and 0.94 have same design as the current one, so I guess they tried a different design before reverting.
I used the icon numbers you had in that post where you showed what the icons looked like. I took a poetic license for a couple of them like the cross or dpad icon that I put on settings. I tried to use as many icons as possible, since a couple are one icon, just different versions. I thought the space invaders icon would look better under game, but it's too large for that icon. As a result, I tried to reconfigure the icontex, making it larger, but it crashed rpcs3. Do you think I should change something?
 
The resolution of icons used in icontex is 128x128. If you want to change the size, you will need to edit the dds, enlarge or reduce icon image so that it fits within 128x128 and save it, after then re incorporate it into icontex.
I think its possible to change the size of icons not included in icontex (included in rco as gim) to some extent via xml, but I dont know how to change visual size of the XMB row icons in icontex just by editing some kind of data.
 
The resolution of icons used in icontex is 128x128. If you want to change the size, you will need to edit the dds, enlarge or reduce icon image so that it fits within 128x128 and save it, after then re incorporate it into icontex.
I think its possible to change the size of icons not included in icontex (included in rco as gim) to some extent via xml, but I dont know how to change visual size of the XMB row icons in icontex just by editing some kind of data.

oh, I'm actually referring to it not fitting in hex. the retro dds doesn't fit in the game category's qrc by about 80 bytes or so. you can enlarge the icons in I think the xmb_plugin_normal.rco iirc. there's a size function in the xml, and I think if you say put 2 (it's currently 1), it will double the size of the icons. I think I've done it before. yep, scaleHeight and scaleWidth enlarge the icons, but they get stuck at the top due to being so large:
upload_2024-12-5_3-7-48.png
 
Oh, I see. So when you expand the qrc, it doesnt fit into the capacity used by default game category.
I remember. I completely forgot it. this was also an obstacle when trying to incorporate our own icons into icontex. too at the time.
If original icon data is small, it wont fit. so I also planned back then which columns to use and which icons to use.
I don't know how to expand the container. sorry I can't be of any help.

Thank you for how to use the xmb_plugin_normal trick. I'll try it.:tickled pink:
 
Oh, I see. So when you expand the qrc, it doesnt fit into the capacity used by default game category.
I remember. I completely forgot it. this was also an obstacle when trying to incorporate our own icons into icontex. too at the time.
If original icon data is small, it wont fit. so I also planned back then which columns to use and which icons to use.
I don't know how to expand the container. sorry I can't be of any help.

Thank you for how to use the xmb_plugin_normal trick. I'll try it.:tickled pink:
sorry, serious insomnia tonight, but yeah. I don't think you can expand the filesize. I think it expects each file to be a specific size inside the icontex. if it's small enough to fit, you can pad the rest of it with 0s after compressing it as zlib.

as far as increasing the size of the icons, you should be able to use decimal points with scaleWidth and scaleHeight. I think it works to the tenths place, possibly hundredths as well. I don't know far you can expand it really, but I think I've tried both. as you can see, doubling the size causes the icon to be way too big.

edit: I set it to 0.25. at least now you can see all of the icons. lmao!

upload_2024-12-5_5-48-42.png
 
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oh, I'm actually referring to it not fitting in hex. the retro dds doesn't fit in the game category's qrc by about 80 bytes or so. you can enlarge the icons in I think the xmb_plugin_normal.rco iirc. there's a size function in the xml, and I think if you say put 2 (it's currently 1), it will double the size of the icons. I think I've done it before. yep, scaleHeight and scaleWidth enlarge the icons, but they get stuck at the top due to being so large: View attachment 44850

How did you replace the icons? using Hex editor or Xforge? my xforge always crash when i try to replace a DDS
 
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