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Tool: itari's DS ROM Hacking Tools

esperance

esperance

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    itari's DS ROM Hacking Tools​

    Hello! I come to you all today not with new tool, but rather a collection of tools that I feel will become essential to any aspiring DS ROM hacker.

    All of the tools in this thread will not be game specific, but rather geared towards DS ROM hacking in general.

    NARC Tool

    To start off this collection, I have the NARC Tool.

    A NARC file is a Nitro ARChive. It is the main file used within all DS ROMs, and is an archive file, meaning it stores smaller files within, like a RAR or ZIP file.

    NARC Tool's purpose is to deal with these files.
    It can do two things: unpack NARC files, and create NARC files from a directory.

    With this, hackers will no longer have to deal with those pesky NARC editors that only import and export single files. With this, a hacker can extract all the files, edit them, then repack them into a totally new NARC, perfect and ready for insertion into the game!

    Download
    Coming soon~!

    NCGR2BMP

    NCGR stands for Nitro Character Graphic Resource. It a nutshell, it is the image format used for many of the two dimension images used DS games.

    The purpose of NCGR2BMP is simple: convert NCGR files into bitmap files that are editable by Paint or any other generic pixel manipulation program.

    NCGR2BMP is a basic command line program reminiscent of MID2AGB. To work it, you only need to drop the desired NCGR file on it, and... voila! you now have a bitmap.

    At this point, NCGR2BMP only supports one of two main formats found in NCGR files, and creates a random palette for the bitmap to use.

    * For now, only 16-color NCGR's will be indexed when exported. 256-color images will not be indexed. *

    Download
    Version 1.0: Here
    To use NCGR2BMP, you need at least .Net 3.5 installed.

    The theme song for NCGR2BMP is Hartmann's Youkai Girl. ^_^

    BMP2NCGR (and NCLR)

    This program is the opposite of NCGR2BMP. Whereas NCGR2BMP converts a NCGR file into a Bitmap, BMP2NCGR converts a Bitmap into a NCGR (Nitro Character Graphic Resource), the image format used in DS games, as well as an accompanying NCLR (Nitro CoLor Resource) file, which stores the image's palette.

    Just like NCGR2BMP, BMP2NCGR is a command line program. You need only drop the desired Bitmap onto the program, and it will automatically create a NCGR and NCLR file.

    For this to convert your image successfully, it must meet these requirements:
    * Either 16- or 256-color indexed (4 BPP or 8 BPP)
    * The dimensions must be a multiple of 8

    Download
    Version 1.0: Here
    To use BMP2NCGR, you need at least .Net 3.5 installed.

    The theme song for BMP2NCGR is U.N. Hartmann was a Youkai Girl?. :P

    Don't worry about the downloads. I'll add them soon~!
     
    Last edited:
    Wow, this looks great for anyone that wants to get a hold on DS ROM Hacking! I'm very excited and will DEFINITELY be using your tools once you post up a download, thanks!
     
    Wonderful! The tools used to convert NCGR files into bitmaps and bitmaps into NCGR files are really handy. I remember using very similar tools on a program called Tinke, which is open source and is a program also used for Nitro Archives and replacing the files inside.

    I've also got a tutorial on how to edit Nitro Screen Resource (NSCR) files in a hex editor as well. Each of the hexadecimal bytes from where the actual data starts is what points each square of the image that is about 8x8 in pixels in the NCGR file. Whichever hexadecimal value is used, that part of the image will be put in place. As you'd probably know, each of the hex values that point to the squares on the NCGR file are shown in reverse, such as "01D5" will be shown as "D501".

    May I also add that "N" on each of the file types actually stands for the Nintendo DS's codename "Nitro". So basically "NCGR" stands for Nitro Character Graphics Resource. Like as it is for the Wii game's sound data respectively, like BRSEQ stands for Build Revolution Sequence and so on.
     
    Platinum Lucario said:
    Wonderful! The tools used to convert NCGR files into bitmaps and bitmaps into NCGR files are really handy. I remember using very similar tools on a program called Tinke, which is open source and is a program also used for Nitro Archives and replacing the files inside.

    I've also got a tutorial on how to edit Nitro Screen Resource (NSCR) files in a hex editor as well. Each of the hexadecimal bytes from where the actual data starts is what points each square of the image that is about 8x8 in pixels in the NCGR file. Whichever hexadecimal value is used, that part of the image will be put in place. As you'd probably know, each of the hex values that point to the squares on the NCGR file are shown in reverse, such as "01D5" will be shown as "D501".

    May I also add that "N" on each of the file types actually stands for the Nintendo DS's codename "Nitro". So basically "NCGR" stands for Nitro Character Graphics Resource. Like as it is for the Wii game's sound data respectively, like BRSEQ stands for Build Revolution Sequence and so on.
    Click to expand...

    Yep, I've experimented with Tinke before.

    I've seen your tutorial on NSCR files, and it's quite nice. I've actually already written some code that allows for the saving of NSCR's. It's not perfect, but you should look for it soon!

    Also, thanks for that catch with the "Nitro." I've seen both used before, so I wasn't sure what to put.
     
    Is this for mac? Because I need any DS ROM editor for mac.
     
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