NFL Blitz Graphic Editor (UPDATED 1/17/2018)

[jaker3]

Just updated the editor, you should now be able to export/view CI4 and I4 images. Hope to get C16+I4 image type done before the end of the month. Will also be developing a full how to guide to insert a brand new team and edit the graphics to create a new team.

@TAPFS, let me know how it works. I think you'll be the first person adjusting player graphics with this tool.

[TAPFS]

Sweet, thanks for letting me know I'll let you know how testing it goes. Good luck with your how to guide and getting C16+I4 images working. If you need help with the how to guide I can lend a hand.

[TAPFS]

After testing out the new version of the Graphics Editor I was able to make mostly complete Home and Away uniforms I did have to reduce colors for some textures, but other than that it was pretty straight forward. The only area I had trouble in was editing the helmet stripes.

If I didn't reduce the colors and added them to the texture database in the editor, highlighting them would crash the editor (my thinking is maybe the editor wasn't converting the png to the right C type due to too many colors or maybe it was just too many colors for the editor to display properly in the preview window). If I did reduce the colors, they showed up in the editor just fine as a CI4 texture, but other teams' helmet stripes are C16 according to the editor which could be part of the problem. When I went to the team select screen with the CI4 helmet stripes, the last team rendered on screen in the team select screen before switching to the Rattlers would have their stripe displayed instead of the textures I added. In the screenshot it shows the New York Giants' stripe on the helmet because they're right under the Rattlers. It could be that the game is trying to load the texture I added but can't due to it's C type, so it's just sticking with the last successfully loaded texture in its memory.

Whatever the case, that's the only problem I've had along the way, other than that everything else turned out nicely. If you need any more details from me or have suggestions on how to fix the stripes just let me know.

[blitzmaster5000]

That's some great work TAPFS! Could you possibly make the Texans away jerseys? They look like this:

http://www.betexansfans.com/Tom_Savage_Jersey/Womens-Nike-Houston-Texans-3-Tom-Savage-Elite-Away-Liberty-White-NFL-Jersey_c.jpg

Let me know how it goes!

[TAPFS]

Sure, blitzmaster I could try making some retro NFL uniforms too for folks that might want to remake older teams

[jaker3]

Hey TAPFS,

The uniforms look great! If you didn't want to overwrite the saints in the game you can this tool:
http://nflblitzfans.com/index.php?topic=542.0
It allows you to add more teams in the rom. Lets you select a team as a template also.

I also just updated the editor so can you change the team logos, endzones, ect... Almost have C16+I4 files working, just need to figure out the import part.

For the helmet strip can you send the image your using? I'll test it out and see if I can figure out whats wrong.

One last thing, you should look into updating some on the uniforms (patriots, seahawks, Jaguars, ect..) if you have time lol. Your uniform skills are better then mine haha. Looking to get a 2017-18 ROM hack put together before the start on the 2017 NFL season. If you wanted to help with the how-to guide also that be great. Sometimes I'm not the best and explaining how things work haha.

[blitzmaster5000]

Sure, blitzmaster I could try making some retro NFL uniforms too for folks that might want to remake older teams

Actually, I was thinking it would be really sweet to have the oilers in the game too. I wanted to make a "super team", and the oiler colors are pretty tight.

Jake - Can your editor also import new team logos from the matchup/enter cheat screen? I can make a custom Oilers logo if so.

edit: Just re-read your comment Jake, looks like we can! Awesome stuff. I'm trying to work out some of the bugs of the extended playbook hack right now.

[TAPFS]

Thanks Jayke! I know about the tool, for the ROM hack I'm working on though I'm converting Blitz into an Indoor Football League game (since one doesn't exist yet). It's a smaller league, similar to the Arena Football League. They only have 10 teams in it, so I figured it'd be better to use the existing team slots rather than take up more team slots and preserve the NFL teams since it still gives me room to add All Star teams and bonus teams like retired AFL teams to fill the gaps rather than tack all the teams on at the end of the team list past all the NFL teams.

Also, that's great! I'm really excited with how fast your editor has progressed these past few days, being able to edit logos and endzones now is great to hear.

For those helmet stripe textures, I tried to send them as attachments but I got an error of some sort on the forum and it wiped my whole post when it sent me back to the Send Reply page. (I'm typing it again in Notepad this time to avoid that again lol)

I'll try uploading the stripe textures to PostImage tomorrow when I wake up instead. (or I suppose later today technically, stayed up way too late again hacking Blitz, haha)

About the updated uniforms, I can give them a try, sure I'll just need some reference to go off of of course. If we do decide to do a full 2018 hack we need to set up a poll or something for a cover athlete, I could make our ROM a fake N64 box :p

Also Blitzmaster, I can do an Oilers uniform if you want. I've been using a program called ninjaripper to rip models and textures from the PC version of the original Blitz. The Oilers were in there from when they were in Tennessee, so I can get Midway's endzone, helmet, logo, and uniforms from that. I'd have to downscale them to fit 2000 on N64, but they should still look decent. That's what Midway's N64 team had to do back then too, lol.

I found an Oiler-blue style fan uniform design for the Texans on Google Images I could try to make for you as well if you want. I've also got a vintage uniform in mind related to them I might try and make too just for fun.

[TAPFS]

Here are those helmet stripe textures I tried Jake. The first two are the normal Saints textures without color reduction, the copper ones on the right are the custom ones I made with color reduction.

[jaker3]

Thanks. I'll test them after work if I get time.
C16PlusI4 Export and import is now working. So you should officially be able to change all team textures at this point. I'll also try and upload the updated tool tonight after work.
Demo with wisconsin badgers logo:

[TAPFS]

Awesome stuff Jake! Hopefully with this many levels of customization now more folks might jump on board to make their own ROM hacks for the community. Also nice choice for testing there, I was thinking of adding some college teams to Blitz sometime as well.

I'm working on those Texans uniforms for blitzmaster right now, but if there's any other teams you'd like me to try to make I can add that to my list. Doesn't have to be NFL either, could be from another league too.

[TAPFS]

Hey Blitzmaster, I finished updating the Texans uniforms. They're inside the zip file here.

https://puu.sh/w2gao/ed3e75352d.zip

[blitzmaster5000]

Awesome, Thanks TAPFS!

Jake: I tried importing the files TAP made with the ROM that has the custom plays after the image table. The tool imports the images and sticks them immediately after the custom plays. I thought it was going to overwrite them, but it doesn't look like it.

Question: Did you use the "Replace file" or "insert new" to get the away jerseys in the game? Also, I noticed the file types are png. I can import these directly, correct? Can I replace using these as well?

edit: Looks like I got it figured out. Had to use the set all file to team. Only thing is the custom books are also shifted down to lower addresses because of the included files. So we just need to figure out how to have the values match up either using the tool or my code. good stuff!

[blitzmaster5000]

One last thing. Jake: Does your tool allow for modifying any added new teams? I currently have a copy of the redskins that I want to convert into the Oilers, but I don't see it in the list of teams. I found the code at the end of the team and was wondering if it links to the image table?

This is what I'm referring to:
57415300 //WAS short hand for displaying scoreboard
056E056F //can I modify this or the two lines below to link to image table?
0570077B
073C073C

[jaker3]

@blitzmaster, currently the team count is hard coded. I'll try and get it to do it dynamically tomorrow is possible. worst case I can set it up to allow the user to override it.
Both pngs and bmps can be used currently. What happens is the program checks the amount of color used and determines what N64 image type to covert it to based on that. so pretty much any image file will work, you'll just need to make sure to follow the color count to align with the image type. I'll include some of zoinkity's notes in the next version to explain the image types.

For the plays.... how many hard coded addresses need to be modified?  I feel like it would be easy to modify on my end.

As for how the teams link to the file table, this is how it works:
# Playerdata portion, 0x18 each player:
0x0   4   (float) scale
0x4   1   size (0:normal, 1:heavy)
0x5   1   skin color (0:dark, 1:light)
0x6   1   number; printed as hex, so 19 is written 0x19
0x7   1   luck
0x8   0x10   last name
# Repeat for 16 players, then continue with:
0x180   0x28   outfits
0x1A8   0x1B   offensive plays
0x1C3   9   defensive plays
0x1CC   4   RESERVED
# Teamdata portion:
0x1D0   1   passing
0x1D1   1   rushing
0x1D2   1   linemen
0x1D3   1   defense
0x1D4   1   special team
0x1D5   1   weight for random team victory in tournament
0x1D6   1   team 'float'
0x1D7   1   ordering (0-2)
0x1D8   2   (HW) index for small logo file in filelist ("l_*")
0x1DA   2   (HW) index for large logo file in filelist ("l_*")
0x1DC   2   filelist index for team titlebox file ("ti_*")
0x1DE   2   filelist index for city/state titlebox file ("ti_*")
0x1E0   0x10   team name
0x1F0   0x10   select name
0x200   0x10   city/state name
0x210   4   3-char city/state name
0x214   2   (HW) filelist index ("*_ez1")
0x216   2   (HW) filelist index ("*_ez2")
0x218   2   (HW) filelist index ("*_ez3")
0x21A   2   (HW) filelist index ("win_*")
0x21C   2   (HW) filelist index ("hel_*lf")
0x21E   2   (HW) filelist index ("hel_*rt")

Zoinkity compressed all the team data into one location.