Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:10 pm

Hi, I have an idea. Since there is no longer any new NCAA football games coming out, what I'd like to do is update the uniforms on the PS2 NCAA football games. Like NCAA 2005 or NCAA 08 on PS2. I am taking a look at the disc of NCAA Football 2005 for PS2 and there are a lot of the same files that are in Madden PC.

I can't seem to find a UNIFORMS.DAT, but the uniforms are somewhere in one of the other DAT files. There's a lot of UIS_xxxx.DAT like UIS_STAD.DAT and UIS_TMLO.DAT. There's TEMPLATE.DAT, there's a STRMDATA.DB, GAMEDATA.DAT, LOADDATA.DAT, etc.

To all you veteran modders of Madden PC, which one of these files do you think the actual uniforms are in for a game like NCAA Football 2005 on PS2? the UNIFORMS.DAT or the uniform & helmet files themselves should be somewhere compressed in one of those files. Now with PCSX2 the PS2 NCAA games are very playable on PC and I think it would be great if we could update these games with new uniforms. It would be cool if we could edit the uniforms, helmets, and change what conference logos are on the uniforms for teams that have switched conferences. Maybe even do some external roster editing. I think some of the Madden DB tools are compatible with the NCAA PS2.DB file. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Sponsor

Sponsor
 

User avatar
Sidelion
MVP
Posts: 646
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:12 am
Location: East Tennessee

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Sidelion » Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:01 pm

There is a uniform file. However, I believe as another member of this forum has said, they're so compressed it makes it less-than-viable to try and mod them.

EDIT: I'm not entirely sure on this. I've opened up the game before when I was emulating it on my PC (I own the game, don't care to hook a PS2 just to sim games), but it's been a year or so.
"Why do you go away? So that you can come back.
So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors.
And the people there see you differently, too."

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:44 pm

OK, well maybe they can't be de-compressed as easily, but we may be able to hex edit the files to work with some of the madden tools. A lot of the DAT files on the PS2 disc have the same filenames that can be found in Madden PC modding when viewed in hex. I could take a look at trying to extract them. Do you know which of those .DAT files the uniforms are in?

In the past I have been able to load up an NCAA roster file, and a dynasty file I think in one of the old madden tools. (one of the old DB editors) Considering that EA stopped making NCAA games, I think now is the perfect time to update the PS2 games with new uniforms and what not. After all, like Madden, PS2 NCAA games were better on the PS2 than on the PS3. The PS2 NCAA games still remain very playable to this day. I am playing NCAA 2005 right now and have found some awesome sliders.

I would also like to try to edit the playbooks too. (plays, formations, etc)

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Thu Sep 18, 2014 2:17 am

Sidelion wrote:EDIT: I'm not entirely sure on this. I've opened up the game before when I was emulating it on my PC (I own the game, don't care to hook a PS2 just to sim games), but it's been a year or so.

Cool, the recent PCSX2 builds can run the PS2 NCAA games a lot better. There are some tips though to get the NCAA games running properly on PCSX2. I own all the NCAA games on PS2, and still have an actual PS2, but I prefer running NCAA on PCSX2 for a number of reasons. First, running the NCAA games on PCSX2 allow you to save your state during a match. So if you play the first half and want to save your progress you can come back to it later and play the 2nd half. Also you can upscale the graphics and NCAA FB looks way better on a PC than it does on a PS2. (I run NCAA 2005 at 3x, 4x it's still a little choppy but 3x is smooth) Another benefit of running it on PCSX2 is you can use Cheat Engine to edit stuff in the game. Like last night I wanted to play on the demo camera but still control a team. Well thanks to cheat engine I figured out how to do that. PCSX2 is the future, since PS2s are no longer being made. I want to save my PS2 laser for as long as I can.

We should be able to mod the PS2 NCAA games and update them similarly to how Madden 08 PC has been updated and modded for years. Some stuff might be harder than others. As you know, NCAA on PS2 has a Create-A-Team mode where you can create your own uniforms. But the Create-A-Team in the game is limited and sometimes you run into issues after you've created a team, like editing player ratings on a created team and saving it sometimes doesn't work.

It would be much easier to you know just extract the actual uniforms in they game from whatever .DAT file they are in, edit them with photoshop to make them current to the 2014 college football season. Also maybe we can figure out how to actually move teams into different conferences globally. I know this can be done for an individual team in Dynasty Mode, but with all the re-alignment in college football, it would be cool to be able to edit the conferences permanently with new logos and what not. Even stadium editing, it might be hard to edit the stadiums, but lets say I just wanted to change which stadiums have turf now and which have grass. Debug option fixes like that should be doable. It will take some effort, but with no NCAA 15 this year, this is our best bet of making our own NCAA 15 PS2 / PC version. Think about the possibilities. If we could update those uniforms and fix the conferences, we could update the rosters and have our own NCAA 15 on PS2 / PC. The mods for Madden 08 PC have been phenomenal, like the Heisman Mod and what not, but to be able to update the actual PS2 NCAA games and play them on PC would bring another level of authenticity to the product.

User avatar
Rixster67r
Hall of Fame
Posts: 1441
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:56 pm
Location: Seabrook Texas

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Rixster67r » Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:28 am

I think the uni's are in the pladata......
Image

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Fri Sep 26, 2014 10:11 am

I have made some progress on this. Rixster67r is correct, that in NCAA Football 2005 PS2, since there is not a UNIFORM.DAT file, the uniforms can be found in PLADATA.DAT. However, in NCAA 08 there is a UNIFORM.DAT and the PLADATA.DAT is a very small file. I would imagine this is similar to what it is like in Madden 04 PC vs Madden 08 PC.

Using DAT File Replacer (version 5.0.0) I was able to open these .DAT files up and extract the files. When extracted, the files inside are named PLADATA.DAT.File00001, PLADATA.DAT.File00002, etc (for NCAA 2005) and UNIFORM.DAT.File00001, UNIFORM.DAT.File00002, etc (for NCAA 08). There are thousands of files in these .DAT files, but some of them do seem to be uniform files (.uni) even though they are not labeled as such coming out of DFR 5.0.0. Some of them actually open in Madden Uniform Editor And Ripper 1.5. (you can see a list, however you can't seem to extract them further, only replace)

So I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how I can get those NCAA uniform files (extracted from the .DAT) to work fully with Madden Uniform Editor And Ripper 1.5, so I can edit the uniforms, helmets, etc then re-import them into PLADATA.DAT (in the case of NCAA 2005) or UNIFORM.DAT (in the case of NCAA 08). Perhaps some hex edits of these extracted files (.uni) could do the trick, or maybe there is some other program I could try?

I have also done the same thing with the playbooks in GAMEDATA.DAT. I was able to use DAT File Replacer to extract files out of GAMEDATA.DAT. They are named GAMEDATA.DAT.File00001, GAMEDATA.DAT.File00002, etc but when looking at them in a hex editor they are in fact .pbo files like in Madden PC. However trying to open these files in the madden playbook editors gives an error.

What I'd really like to do is edit these NCAA 2005 or NCAA 08 playbooks files like you guys do for Madden PC with the madden tools available. I could try hex editing the NCAA .pbo files to get them to work with the Madden tools, but I'm not sure if that will work. Ideally I'd like to edit the NCAA 2005 playbooks, but perhaps the NCAA 08 playbooks are closer to the format of the Madden 07/08 .pbo files.

The good news is that DFR does seem to be compatible with the NCAA PS2 .DAT files and extracts them correctly. (no zero byte files) It's now a matter of editing these files from there. I understand that some of the features in Madden are different than NCAA, but this are the same files so it should be possible. To be able to edit uniforms, formations and even plays would be a huge breakthrough for the NCAA PS2 games. I am hoping to find a few good men to work on this with me, and if anyone has any suggestions on what I could try to edit the uniforms and playbooks it would be greatly appreciated.

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:32 am

So, the uniforms from NCAA 2005 / NCAA 08 on PS2 are compressed inside PLADATA.DAT / UNIFORM.DAT. After reading through some of the tuts on here, apparently one of the ways to un-compress them has to do with running Madden. (at least through MadUniform09 in MadMod-X) Well since this is an NCAA PS2 game, a lot of those methods don't work and I am looking at alternative ways to accomplish this task.

I am going to continue to research ways to try to un-compress these uniform files from NCAA 2005, and try edit them and put them back into the .DAT. Even if I could just just hex edit the color palette of the uniforms on a team-by-team basis. What I would need to figure out first is which one of the thousands of files in that .DAT contain the actual uniforms. Since they are compressed, and not labeled, I have no idea which ones are the uniforms. Once I figure out which file is which team's uniform, then hopefully I can find a way to de-compress it so I can edit the palette in a hex editor or possibly get it to open in MUER 1.5.

I've gone through these forums to try to find out more information about extracting and de-compressing uniforms from the .DAT. In Madden PC I know there are .uni files, but also apparently in the Madden PC .DATs the uniforms in the game are actually .mmap files. Are these .MMAP Madden uniforms compressed in PLADATA.DAT / UNIFORM.DAT as well? I feel like I'm missing some obvious pieces of information here on how to de-compress them.

If I can figure out how to identify which files in PLADATA.DAT / UNIFORM.DAT (NCAA 2005 / NCAA 08) are the uniforms, then I could try to un-compress them and edit the uniforms. I have some ideas but I am wondering if there is an obvious step that I am missing or something.

Note : Unlike the uniforms, the playbook files in GAMEDATA.DAT are not compressed. And although they (predictably) give an error when I try to open them with the madden playbook editor tools, the hex information of the playbooks in NCAA 2005 is there to edit and have very similar hex data to the .pbo files in Madden PC. This is encouraging.

Sleeper66
All-Pro
Posts: 316
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:46 pm

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Sleeper66 » Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:57 am

If you could attach a couple of the extracted/compressed files you think might be uniforms, I (and maybe others) can take a look at them and maybe provide some specific suggestions on how to proceed.

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:45 am

Sleeper66 wrote:If you could attach a couple of the extracted/compressed files you think might be uniforms, I (and maybe others) can take a look at them and maybe provide some specific suggestions on how to proceed.

Thanks. I am going through them right now and trying to figure out which ones could be uniforms. For any of you guys who have Madden 04 PC, I would imagine the structure of the PLADATA.DAT in that game is likely quite similar to what I am experiencing in NCAA 2005 PS2's PLADATA.DAT. (more teams in NCAA obviously so more uniforms, but in terms of file size and structure I would imagine they are the same)

Along those same lines, I would imagine that NCAA 08 PS2's UNIFORM.DAT is likely similar to the structure of Madden 08 PC's UNIFORM.DAT. The file size of the compressed files inside NCAA 2005's PLADATA.DAT seem to range anywhere from only a few KB to about 200-250 KBs each. If you have Madden 04 PC installed, that game's PLADATA.DAT could be helpful. If the uniform files are compressed, then maybe we can take a look at their compressed / un-compressed file size and try to find out where they are in NCAA 05's PLADATA.DAT. (also maybe where they are in the list of compressed files)

EDIT: Since I don't know which ones are uniforms, I selected (at random) some of the files in NCAA 05's PLADATA.DAT. I tried to get files of varying file size, hopefully one of the ones I select is a uniform file. Most of them are in the 130-170 KB range. I'll put these files in a zip and upload it. FYI : there are 2,664 files in NCAA 05's PLADATA.DAT, and there are about one-half of that many files in NCAA 08's UNIFORM.DAT.

Harry97
All-Pro
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Uniform Updates for PS2 NCAA games

Postby Harry97 » Sun Sep 28, 2014 4:01 am

Ok here is a zip of 25 randomly-selected compressed files from NCAA 2005's PLADATA.DAT. Hopefully we can figure out what these files are and if any of these are uniform files. I can do the same thing for NCAA 08's UNIFORM.DAT if needed.


Return to “Other Football Games”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest