Channel creation

My thought is just to put the banner on an sd card (in a wad) and put the sd card in and use the copy channels section to preview the small version at least.

Well when I get to my channel installer, I won't be using the WAD format, I'll be using a custom format. The only trouble with your suggestions are that if we were to write a banner preview tool for the homebrew channel, then we'll have to do it from what we know about the banner file formats. This means that if any of the current unknowns have specific purpose, our display might still render the banner, but could still brick the Wii, if wrong.

The only way to get a true test of banner display is to acutally use the Wii System Menu.

Thanks WiiCrazy, couldn't remember where I found it. Doesn't sound like the tool we need, however, I do have one idea for that.

GeckoOS allows you to reboot to the System Menu with "cheats" and WiiRD. If we could find the bit of code which searches the NAND for installed titles and sends the banner content to be rendered, we might be able to re-write part of that that to read them (or even just a single content) from the SD card. That way you'll get a true render, and prevent the bricking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2008 10:24AM by whodares.

Quote
whodares
Well when I get to my channel installer, I won't be using the WAD format, I'll be using a custom format. The only trouble with your suggestions are that if we were to write a banner preview tool for the homebrew channel, then we'll have to do it from what we know about the banner file formats. This means that if any of the current unknowns have specific purpose, our display might still render the banner, but could still brick the Wii, if wrong.

The only way to get a true test of banner display is to acutally use the Wii System Menu.

Thanks WiiCrazy, couldn't remember where I found it. Doesn't sound like the tool we need, however, I do have one idea for that.

GeckoOS allows you to reboot to the System Menu with "cheats" and WiiRD. If we could find the bit of code which searches the NAND for installed titles and sends the banner content to be rendered, we might be able to re-write part of that that to read them (or even just a single content) from the SD card. That way you'll get a true render, and prevent the bricking.

Well the places to look at is I think,

initManagerTask__Q33ipl7channel7ManagerFPv / ipl::channel::Manager::initManagerTask((void *))

it makes calls to

makeLoadOrderList__Q33ipl7channel7ManagerCFPi / ipl::channel::Manager::makeLoadOrderList(const(int *))
for once

and

loadMetaHeaderAsync__Q33ipl7channel7ManagerFii # ipl::channel::Manager::loadMetaHeaderAsync((int,int))
in iteration...

and banners loaded possibly in the below function, they are thrown in threads by the above method I guess... with below code

_f_text:8133CAE4                 lis     %r4, ((doReadTask__Q33ipl4nand7ManagerFPv+0x10000)@h) # ipl::nand::Manager::doReadTask((void *))
_f_text:8133CAE8                 lwz     %r3, 0(%r20)
_f_text:8133CAEC                 mr      %r5, %r31
_f_text:8133CAF0                 li      %r6, 0
_f_text:8133CAF4                 addi    %r4, %r4, -0x3374 # doReadTask__Q33ipl4nand7ManagerFPv
_f_text:8133CAF8                 bl      request__Q23EGG10TaskThreadFPFPv_vPvPv # EGG::TaskThread::request((void (*)(void *),void *,void *))

get_app_banner_from_meta__Q23ipl12NandSDWorkerFUxPQ33ipl12NandSDWorker11SDAppBanner / ipl::NandSDWorker::get_app_banner_from_meta((unsigned long long, ipl::NandSDWorker::SDAppBanner *))


and maybe these places could be examined and exploited... these are used to produce the initial list that later in used for scene creation... they take title ids

is_disk_or_user_nand_app__Q23ipl12NandSDWorkerFUx / ipl::NandSDWorker::is_disk_or_user_nand_app((unsigned long long))

is_user_nand_app__Q23ipl12NandSDWorkerFUx / ipl::NandSDWorker::is_user_nand_app((unsigned long long))

Thanks WiiCrazy, that will be really useful.

I've not done much hacking of the System Menu yet, so I guess when I come to writing my SysMenu patches I'll be giving you a shout ;-)

wait- will these be installable for those who have the new system update? Will it use some of the HBC's code?

Not unless one of three things happens:
1. I find a new exploit to install (which will be unlikely)
2. Team Twiizers tell me their undisclosed exploit
3. Somebody else finds a new exploit

The only things my channel creation set will use that are not coded by myself will be the libogc, and possibly marcan's NAND loader if he permits me to use it. If not, I'll be coding my own NAND loader (unless somebody else volunteers).

That said, I'm not worried about any of this stuff yet, because the banner tools are quite a way off yet, and if nothing else, I would at least like to finish those. Who knows, by the time I get to writing the channel creation tools, there might be loads of new exploits and patches.

Somebody might even take my idea above about redirecting banners loads to an SD card to get the system menu to list and run channels from SD/USB etc. as well as the NAND. The seed is planted *wink* *wink*



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2008 03:58PM by whodares.

Well only save icons loaded from sd backup of a channel I guess, yet it could be a nice way to prove that at least saveicon and 0.app banner is healthy... if there is a problem with the banner.bin that will not cause a great problem... it can be get rid of through recovery menu...

To test it all one need to get the wii specific keys I think...

Here is the method,

1. Backup a just installed channel that you already had as a wad
2. Try to build a verbatim copy of the backup channel using the wad content and wii specific encryption / hashing keys

I think it's doable yet one need to fiddle with the files and the encryption keys...

I wonder... did Wanikoko use a Nintendo banner for his backup channel, or did he make one? Or did he steal it from the Homebrew Channel?

Quote
WiiCrazy
it's sadmenu...
it can't be used for testing... it changes the references to banner.bin files to zanner.bin files and all channels except disc channel loaded in black... so you can't actually test the banner... I don't remember if it deliberately misses the patch for the current displayed channel...(then you can test the banner of course)

Can't you just rename your banner.bin to zanner.bin for testing? Then it will only show up using sadmenu, so if it "bricks", reboot in the normal menu and it'll load up just fine with every banner except that one.

Quote
HyperHacker

Quote
WiiCrazy
it's sadmenu...
it can't be used for testing... it changes the references to banner.bin files to zanner.bin files and all channels except disc channel loaded in black... so you can't actually test the banner... I don't remember if it deliberately misses the patch for the current displayed channel...(then you can test the banner of course)

Can't you just rename your banner.bin to zanner.bin for testing? Then it will only show up using sadmenu, so if it "bricks", reboot in the normal menu and it'll load up just fine with every banner except that one.

Of course you can but it will still not be brickproof.. since you can badly pack the 0.app u8 archive which contains all of that banner stuff... then sadmenu will not help you at all... but of course if you make the 0.app packing static and healthy then you can go around tweaking the banner stuff and hence relying on sadmenu or recovery menu... yet I don't know if wii will like a zanner.bin installed as part of the 0.app archive...

Quote
WiiCrazy
yet I don't know if wii will like a zanner.bin installed as part of the 0.app archive...

It must be okay, otherwise sadmenu would be a really pointless release.

But you are correct, there are other factors that could still end up bricking the Wii, which is why I think a banner load redirector is probably the best way to go, even if it replaces every channel's banner by 1 one off the SD card. That way you don't need to install the content, and if it crashes, you reboot back to the normal system menu, and everythings cool.

Quote
strongfan
I wonder... did Wanikoko use a Nintendo banner for his backup channel, or did he make one? Or did he steal it from the Homebrew Channel?

Waninkoko never released a backup channel... or specifically a channel...

Waninkoko released a SNES channel way back with a black banner (the one from the hbc demo). That one was legal.

Quote
marcan
Waninkoko released a SNES channel way back with a black banner (the one from the hbc demo). That one was legal.

did it have Tantric's SNES emulator in it?

Quote
DrLucky
did it have Tantric's SNES emulator in it?

Please don't take this off-topic...

Thinking aloud here. If sadmenu patches banner.bin to be zanner.bin, and those channels still showed, just with a black banner. Could just installing a banner than consists of the 64byte "Banner" header (for lack of a better name), IMET header and a U8 file with no contents, allow a channel to be visible and run.

Don't know why I'm asking that (other than curiosity), as obviously my banner tools will be ready first, so I'll have banners ready for when installing channels :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2008 09:11AM by whodares.

But then people could make channels now (without banners) that are legal and have black banners.

Worth a shot?

You'd still need a non-Nintendo NAND loader (when it comes to distribution, using the Nintendo one for testing on your own Wii is okay). The first page of this thread talks about that (and we'll eventually come back to it, one my banner tools are finished).

If you (or anybody else) try this, please post your results here.

Quote
whodares
You'd still need a non-Nintendo NAND loader (when it comes to distribution, using the Nintendo one for testing on your own Wii is okay). The first page of this thread talks about that (and we'll eventually come back to it, one my banner tools are finished).

If you (or anybody else) try this, please post your results here.

If we tried your finished banner tools? Have you released it?

If so, I would love to test it out and post my results

Quote
DrLucky
If we tried your finished banner tools? Have you released it?

No, we were talking about using an "empty" banner content with a channel. Due to how the system menu is patched by SadMenu, if the zanner.bin does not exist in the banner contents U8 file (which it won't do for normal channels, with them being designed for normal system menu), it apparently displays a black banner.

So the question was, if you created a "banner" content, which consisted of the 64 byte header (title/author text), the IMET header (title in various languages, displayed by system menu), then a U8 file with /arc/meta folder, but no files inside (maybe sound.bin), would the channel display in the system menu okay (albeit with a black banner, because banner.bin would not exist), and run your app okay?

The banner tools are coming along quite nicely, although I'm not sure if the current interface will be "easy" enough at the minute. So once I have all the classes to decode and encode all the various file types/formats, I might adjust the front-end to be a lot easier to play with.

There's an updated screenshot on the BannerCreator page-
[www.wiibrew.org]

As you can see, you would have to know what files will need to go where to produce a new banner. I might add a "Wizard" to allow you to select images, and let it create all the structures for you, then you can browse and edit.

Looks good - even great. I can't wait to get my hands on it :D

Will you release the source?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 03:05PM by daniel_c_w.