PS3 [Research] Modifying the Coldboot/Gameboot Sequence (custom_render_plugin.sprx/rco)

[DeViL303]

@LuanTeles You might like this for your Pro mod. The very last MNU in the lines.qrc is the PARTICLES_UI.mnu, It's the user interaction mnu. this highlighted value is normally 0, if you increase it a little, then left and right movement on the XMB effects the particles. Its kinda cool.

Here is the Pro lines.qrc attached with it set to 0.05 so you can see how it looks.

 

[LuanTeles]

@LuanTeles You might like this for your Pro mod. The very last MNU in the lines.qrc is the PARTICLES_UI.mnu, It's the user interaction mnu. this highlighted value is normally 0, if you increase it a little, then left and right movement on the XMB effects the particles. Its kinda cool.


View attachment 24515



Here is the Pro lines.qrc attached with it set to 0.05 so you can see how it looks.

It really looks nice, is the same as moving the sixaxis but on the xmb.

I think it will be even better if the Debug particles too ( is this one that makes more of them? or more reactive?)

Thanks

What about the y axis? i see some entries there but i never seen this effect something.

EDIT:

Something a notice is that if i movement the xmb to the left the particles will react to right and vice-versa;

 

[DeViL303]

I think it will be even better if the Debug particles too ( is this one that makes more of them? or more reactive?)

They do look better in some ways but they are whiter, no color and yeah there are more of them.

Also no higgs particles with debug..

What about the y axis? i see some entries there but i never seen this effect something.

The icon wind for the Y axis is enabled normally. Easiest to see in the settings category, scroll from top to bottom quickly and you will see it.

There are some other values in this mnu you could play with. I don't know what they all do yet.

Something a notice is that if i movement the xmb to the left the particles will react to right and vice-versa;

Yeah. That's the way it is. It's the icons moving through the particles that makes them move. You will see it better on the y axis, or if you turn x axis up to 1.00.

When you move your selection left. All the icons move right and vice versa

You could try a minus value, if it worked I am not sure if it would reverse the motion or look good.

 

[pinky]

not sure about a minus value if the value is positive. when I tried that with one of the values, it soft bricked my system.

 

[DeViL303]

It's hit and miss. A lot of the "float" values do allow negative values, but some don't.

Of course if you are adding a character you need to push everything else on correctly and make sure you have room in the sprx, so still possible to softbrick even with valid values.

 

[LuanTeles]

@LuanTeles You might like this for your Pro mod. The very last MNU in the lines.qrc is the PARTICLES_UI.mnu, It's the user interaction mnu. this highlighted value is normally 0, if you increase it a little, then left and right movement on the XMB effects the particles. Its kinda cool.


View attachment 24515



Here is the Pro lines.qrc attached with it set to 0.05 so you can see how it looks.

i changed to -0.5 but no effect

but look at dpad scale y:float:0

changing to 1 makes a nice watterfall effect when scrolling up and down

 

[LuanTeles]

 

[LuanTeles]

@LuanTeles You might like this for your Pro mod. The very last MNU in the lines.qrc is the PARTICLES_UI.mnu, It's the user interaction mnu. this highlighted value is normally 0, if you increase it a little, then left and right movement on the XMB effects the particles. Its kinda cool.


View attachment 24515



Here is the Pro lines.qrc attached with it set to 0.05 so you can see how it looks.

fun thing is that i just switched from hen to cfw again, and it is enabled by default in Rebug, so i checked the value is 0.

 

[LuanTeles]

but it works in the same way.

i changed to 1 just to see if it changes and yeap the particles goes to the other side of the screen.

 

[sandungas]

With the official settings the particles goes in different directions too

Moving in X axis = particles moves to opposite direction than the icons
Moving in Y axis = particles moves to same direction than the icons

 

[rast1234]

Hi everyone. Been reading stuff about modifying coldboot and gameboot, found this thread. I'm afraid of bricking my console while debugging different file/value changes, so i was trying to read and understand as much as possible first. Also i've set up specific rpcs3 build which starts XMB and shows coldboot, will try fiddling with it instead of real console.
Now i feel lost in tons of info and thought maybe you guys could clarify some things, if it's appropriate here.

So, there are coldboot and gameboot. Coldboot is fired on PS3 boot, gameboot is fired on game launch. (except for not-ps3-games?)
Coldboot loads the coldboot.raf which is a compiled thing and can not be altered easily, so we only can replace textures, some values etc manually in hex editor, starting with some officially released *.raf. Is that right?

This thread is about using gameboot as coldboot by tampering with custom_render_plugin.rco but i don't quite get how exactly. And what happens to gameboot? Is it forced to be the same as coldboot this way? Can it be disabled?

Then, gameboot is a .gim which is kind of scriptable xml animation like SVG, which enables us to do complicated stuff. Great! But will this affect what's showing on game launch? Since it's same gameboot on game launch and gameboot on system boot now...

Also i've stumbled upon mentions of otherboot, gameboot2/3/..., coldboot2/3/... and don't understand where did they come from. Otherboot seems like another gameboot which is used when launching non-ps3-games. Other things with numbers - is this something invented in this research to replace/swap other things?

Also there are waves and particles, but that's getting too much and i just want to make some *boot animations =D

What i ultimately want to do:
1. on boot: PSX boot animation and sound, first half (with orange square on white background)
2. on game launch: second half of PSX boot animation and sound (with PS logo on black background)
Or if cold/gameboots can not be different when using custom_render_plugin and long animation is possible then just full PSX sequence on boot...


Thanks for anyone who is willing to read and reply to my mess of questions.

 

[DeViL303]

Hi everyone. Been reading stuff about modifying coldboot and gameboot, found this thread. I'm afraid of bricking my console while debugging different file/value changes, so i was trying to read and understand as much as possible first. Also i've set up specific rpcs3 build which starts XMB and shows coldboot, will try fiddling with it instead of real console.
Now i feel lost in tons of info and thought maybe you guys could clarify some things, if it's appropriate here.

You can only soft brick while modifying these files not hard brick, So worst case it can be fixed with a FW reinstall. If you have FTP and dev_blind enabled at boot up you can often fix it without reinstalling FW.

So, there are coldboot and gameboot. Coldboot is fired on PS3 boot, gameboot is fired on game launch. (except for not-ps3-games?)

Correct.

Coldboot loads the coldboot.raf which is a compiled thing and can not be altered easily, so we only can replace textures, some values etc manually in hex editor, starting with some officially released *.raf. Is that right?

The raf is just the logo that appears during boot up. Most of the coldboot sequence is controlled by custom_render_plugin.sprx and custom_render_plugin.rco and lines.qrc.

This thread is about using gameboot as coldboot by tampering with custom_render_plugin.rco but i don't quite get how exactly. And what happens to gameboot? Is it forced to be the same as coldboot this way? Can it be disabled?

This thread is not really about using gameboot as coldboot at all, that is just a tiny mod that was done at one stage to show how to do it.

They are different animations that can be modded and used completely independently.

Then, gameboot is a .gim which is kind of scriptable xml animation like SVG, which enables us to do complicated stuff. Great! But will this affect what's showing on game launch? Since it's same gameboot on game launch and gameboot on system boot now...

Gameboot is not a gim file. And gim is not a script. a gim is an image format and can be converted into png and back to gim. Nothing special about gims really, just a normal image file.

There is a script for the gameboot in the custom_render_plugin.rco. rcos are resource files for the ps3, they can contain images, sounds, animation scripts etc.

Also i've stumbled upon mentions of otherboot, gameboot2/3/..., coldboot2/3/... and don't understand where did they come from. Otherboot seems like another gameboot which is used when launching non-ps3-games. Other things with numbers - is this something invented in this research to replace/swap other things?

These are all different types of environments on ps3, these are all handled by qrc files and custom render plugin rco and sprx.

Also there are waves and particles, but that's getting too much and i just want to make some *boot animations =D

The boot animations are all handled by the same files as the wave and particles, mostly lines.qrc and custom_render_plugin.sprx and custom_render_plugin.rco.

What i ultimately want to do:
1. on boot: PSX boot animation and sound, first half (with orange square on white background)
2. on game launch: second half of PSX boot animation and sound (with PS logo on black background)
Or if cold/gameboots can not be different when using custom_render_plugin and long animation is possible then just full PSX sequence on boot...

PS1 boot animation or anything like that is not possible...well it might be in theory but it would take massive animation scripts and years of work. Basically you would have to create every polygon and then animation scripts for every polygon separately and try to get them all to run at once...I doubt the rco format could handle it.

Thanks for anyone who is willing to read and reply to my mess of questions.

I think you should read this thread fully and the pages on the psdev wiki that are related to lines.qrc as you seem to have misunderstood a few things.

 

[rast1234]

I think you should read this thread fully and the pages on the psdev wiki that are related to lines.qrc as you seem to have misunderstood a few things.

Whoa, i definetly should have gone to sleep instead of digging. Thanks a lot for correcting me! Going to read everything again with fresh mind.

PS1 boot animation or anything like that is not possible...well it might be in theory but it would take massive animation scripts and years of work. Basically you would have to create every polygon and then animation scripts for every polygon separately and try to get them all to run at once...I doubt the rco format could handle it.

But i've seen this:

It's two sprites moving and a fade-in, no polygons in 3d...

 

[pinky]

Whoa, i definetly should have gone to sleep instead of digging. Thanks a lot for correcting me! Going to read everything again with fresh mind.


But i've seen this:

It's two sprites moving and a fade-in, no polygons in 3d...

what you might need is something like fakeanim on the 360. that does away with the splash screen and just uses wmv in its place. the sky's the limit with something like that. I think they can be as long as you want too. and, if you have multiple wmv in the jukebox folder, it will randomly select one.

edit: something like this:

 

[DeViL303]

Whoa, i definetly should have gone to sleep instead of digging. Thanks a lot for correcting me! Going to read everything again with fresh mind.


But i've seen this:

It's two sprites moving and a fade-in, no polygons in 3d...

That is done with just a raf.

TBH I did not know we could use animations on colour raf files, you will not find any info in this thread about editing rafs as I have never done it.

 

[jeka26]

That is done with just a raf.

TBH I did not know we could use animations on colour raf files, you will not find any info in this thread about editing rafs as I have never done it.

How to make a Animated Coldboot

 

[DeViL303]

Here is a slightly modified 4.85 rhm.qrc, this qrc controls the blur of the wave and particles when you enter a folder on the XMB or when an error is displayed.

This has a few fpos replaced with fpos from 1.02 icons.qrc FW, it makes the blur effect kind of watery or shimmery.

 

[sandungas]

What i ultimately want to do:
1. on boot: PSX boot animation and sound, first half (with orange square on white background)
2. on game launch: second half of PSX boot animation and sound (with PS logo on black background)
Or if cold/gameboots can not be different when using custom_render_plugin and long animation is possible then just full PSX sequence on boot...

I was thinking in it too, and is technically posible to have the complete PS1 coldboot build from polygons and images

You are going to see some tutorials about creating a PS3 coldboot.raf sequence composed of "frames" displayed at high speed (30 fps or so to mimick video), but that sucks a bit, the concept is limited in time lenght because the amount of frames needed to store is big, also that frames are bmp images af full screen so the bytes size increases a lot for every second

What you need is something different, inside the .raf format there is a "playstation javascript" file, in it you can do logic functions (most of the stuff supported by standard javascript - some removed + some added by sony)
For visuals you can move textures/images around using a 3D coordinate system, i think all the PS1 coldboot can be made moving images around and fade out/in effects

But you need also a 3D "object" created with either 3dmax, maya, blender, etc... (and exported in collada format) that object is a rectangle that cover the whole screen
You know... all textures needs to be applyed in a polygon... so you need the polygon, otherway you cant apply any texture :P

The real problem is you need to get used to all that file formats, conversions and tools, and you need some basic javascript knowledge (not specially hard to learn, the amount of things you need to know to create a javascript for coldboot.raf is very limited)

I was talking about all this in this other thread
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/h...ne-persona-5-dynamic-theme.26311/#post-210603



*Btw, the lenght of the coldboot animation can be extended... right now i dont remember how/which is the better/easyer but there are a couple of different ways

 

[DeViL303]

Old style bios coldboot mod:

Work in progress...proof of concept..any ideas?

Yeah, the position and alignment is shit. I know.

 

[DeViL303]

Here is a slightly modified 4.85 rhm.qrc, this qrc controls the blur of the wave and particles when you enter a folder on the XMB or when an error is displayed.

This has a few fpos replaced with fpos from 1.02 icons.qrc FW, it makes the blur effect kind of watery or shimmery.

Check out this effect @LuanTeles , it might suit your pro mod. I like it cos the particles are more visible and it adds a bit of a watery effect.