DAT File Help (EA Nascar using Madden tools)

[AJFay77]

I'm trying desperately to replace car paints in Nascar Thunder 2004 for the PCSX2. The game hotreloads textures on the fly in the middle of a race, so replacing a paint scheme via tools like PCSX2's export/import features won't work. Neither will Texmod for the same reasons.

So I was looking to change the raw texture files via .DAT editing and have tried using various Madden tools to do so with no success on the graphical front. I had used various versions of DRF tools from Stingray and have found plenty of MMAP files that I believe are the cars, but cannot get a single image from anything with the existing DRF tools. I'm guessing it's some (hopefully small) difference between how Tiburon (the team that made NT2004) and the team that made Madden compressed and stored their files.

I was wondering if anyone has any info or would be willing to help with such a project of figuring out the file differences for Madden vs Nascar DAT files.
I am a programmer and am more than willing to do some of the harder work, but I have no clue where to begin with reading/writing, decompressing/compressing image data when I haven't worked with anything like this before.

[StingRay68]

There should still be info on DAT and MMAP formats here. JDHalfrack released some of his source code for various editors, that should still be here somewhere as well. IIRC the ps2 versions of EA sports games used some sort of bitmap compression, as well as storing the palettes and/or bitmaps in a tiling method (I think modders refer to it as 'swizzle')

[octobump]

I'm trying desperately to replace car paints in Nascar Thunder 2004 for the PCSX2. The game hotreloads textures on the fly in the middle of a race, so replacing a paint scheme via tools like PCSX2's export/import features won't work. Neither will Texmod for the same reasons.

So I was looking to change the raw texture files via .DAT editing and have tried using various Madden tools to do so with no success on the graphical front. I had used various versions of DRF tools from Stingray and have found plenty of MMAP files that I believe are the cars, but cannot get a single image from anything with the existing DRF tools. I'm guessing it's some (hopefully small) difference between how Tiburon (the team that made NT2004) and the team that made Madden compressed and stored their files.

I was wondering if anyone has any info or would be willing to help with such a project of figuring out the file differences for Madden vs Nascar DAT files.
I am a programmer and am more than willing to do some of the harder work, but I have no clue where to begin with reading/writing, decompressing/compressing image data when I haven't worked with anything like this before.

You know how to mod 360 or ps3 games?

[AJFay77]

There should still be info on DAT and MMAP formats here. JDHalfrack released some of his source code for various editors, that should still be here somewhere as well. IIRC the ps2 versions of EA sports games used some sort of bitmap compression, as well as storing the palettes and/or bitmaps in a tiling method (I think modders refer to it as 'swizzle')

Thanks StingRay, I'll look into all that stuff, very helpful!

@octobump no I do not know how to mod ps3/xbox 360 games.

[AJFay77]

Still can't get the textures to work in a viewer (can't seem to find the value for palette offset is my guess) and if I rip them out to .bmp format they end up mostly as blank block images.

Let alone replacing these in the game itself, NT2004 is notorious for just hanging on the loading screen if you change literally 1 thing and rebuild the iso.

I've been trying to go the route of pnach files replacing data, which works great for stats/roster changes etc but I still cannot figure anything out for the textures (which is the most sought after step to figure out for a racing game obviously)

P.S. I have tried using "Console Texture Explorer" for viewing images, as well as CheatEngine's Graphical Memory View with no luck.

[StingRay68]

post the mmap file

[AJFay77]

This is as far as I've broken them down. I think these are driver numbers for use in the driver select screen and standings etc.

There are many more of course, but if you can figure one out I'm sure the pattern will work on the rest.
I really do appreciate all your help!

[StingRay68]

those are mmap format, the bitmap is definitely compressed, some kind of RLE (run length encoding) but I dont have time to really get into it at the moment. Hope that helps.

[AJFay77]

I'll do some research on RLE when I have time. Thanks for the assistance.