PS3 EA Game modding(NCAA FB & Madden)

[xDividedByZero]

Over the past couple of months I've been apart of an amazing community, the College Football Revamped community(we have a discord aswell) specifically. We've been modding a game called "NCAA Football 14" and eventually will convert said mod for "NCAA Football 13". The mod updates old uniforms, logos, and more for college teams to resemble the 2020-21 College Football season.

But enough about that mod, I wanted to share the method of how we do it and everything we know, and somethings we don't know. I will update this thread the more we find out about certain file types.

Tools(Current ones we use and tools we used before but don't anymore, links provided)
AST Editor - Someone came along and made a tool for us to easily import/export/replace files.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/9bzd5vahyje2d3f/NAE10265.zip/file

QuickBMS & nbajamfire.bms script - A simple program that started us off. We were able to import/export files but with limitations
https://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm

So to start off, the game has to be in a JBFolder format(I should also note this works for RPCS3, obviously, and Xbox 360 aswell). Each game comes with 4-6 main game files in EA's BGFA(.AST) format. I've listed the main files of each game I've looked at, these files are all in the USRDIR folder. From what I can tell the only games to use these types of files are the Madden/NCAA FB series; NHL, FIFA, Fight Night, etc... seem to all use .big.

NCAA Football 14

• qkl_boot.ast
• qkl_fe2ig.ast
• qkl_interfact.ast
• qkl_misc.ast
• qkl_stream.ast

NCAA Football 13

• qkl_boot.ast
• qkl_fe2ig.ast
  
• qkl_heisman1.ast
  
• qkl_heisman2.ast
  
• qkl_interface.ast
  
• qkl_misc.ast
  
• qkl_stream.ast

NCAA Football 12

• qkl_boot.ast
• qkl_fe2ig.ast
• qkl_interfact.ast
• qkl_misc.ast
• qkl_stream.ast

Madden NFL 12

• qkl_boot.ast
• qkl_fe2ig.ast
• qkl_interfact.ast
• qkl_misc.ast
• qkl_ram.ast
• qkl_stream.ast

Madden NFL 09

• qkl_boot.ast
• qkl_fe2ig.ast
• qkl_interfact.ast
• qkl_misc.ast
• qkl_ram.ast
• qkl_stream.ast

Filetypes in those main ASTs​

.P3R: A graphic file, which is essentially a DDS file(Normally either DXT1 or DXT5).
.RSF: Model file, as of right now we can only edit values to change colors or add/remove certain elements like helmet numbers. Currently unable to really edit geometry, only a small Proof-of-Concept exists(shown below)

https://imgur.com/a/KLfL2fy
.XML/.WDPROJ: In XML formats, mainly config files.
.SBK: Sound archive file, can extract with EALayer3(I haven't tried yet, but it should work).
.VP6: Video file, unable to reimport or edit these VP6 files because we don't know what type of encoding EA used.
.GD: We know nothing about this filetype besides that its a gamedata file(that all the info one of the previous devs gave us as that was all he remembered).
.PYC: Only two of these files exist, python. Unknown what they do as they only contain the alphabet and numbers.
.APT(APT1/APT Data): UI Config files, older games like C&C used these but instead came with a .CONST file. NCAA/Madden files do not have these. So as of now we cannot edit these.
.TTF/OTF: Fonts obviously. Menu fonts can be easily replaced and look fine, but replacing fonts for things like the scoreboard(scorebug) require editing the font files EM size, kerning, etc...
.XFN: Shader file from maya, we aren't been able to open at the moment
.SEV(SEVT): Unknown
.FRE(FREGM002): Unknown
.FIM(FIMFF001): Unknown
.OND(ONDEMAND): Unknown
.PRE(PRELOAD): I guess this is for preloading files?

What can you do as of right now?​

As of right now all we can do is change certain textures and the configs of certain 3D model files. We've changed configs for certain things as well.

As mentioned I will update this thread over the next couple of months.(Small edit: No idea why pictures aren't working.)

 

[xDividedByZero]

Long Overdue update: February 26th, 2021​

We've successfully managed to import our own video files into NCAA Football 14 to replace the base game VP6 files. This is done by copying some of the header info from the base game VP6 files over to our own VP6s.

We also overhauled the interface textures and fonts. Fonts were one of the weirder things to change as the font AST was duplicated throughout 3-4 different larger AST files. When changing something like the scorebug font it would default to one of the duplicated AST files. We eventually figured out it was a problem with the game caching fonts/interface files which we fixed by removing the cache from the games data folder, once thats deleted it works fine.

As far as model editing we still have no answer for that. Same goes with shader files and GD files.

I'll post another update when it seems fit.

 

[neo88]

Long Overdue update: February 26th, 2021​

We've successfully managed to import our own video files into NCAA Football 14 to replace the base game VP6 files. This is done by copying some of the header info from the base game VP6 files over to our own VP6s.

We also overhauled the interface textures and fonts. Fonts were one of the weirder things to change as the font AST was duplicated throughout 3-4 different larger AST files. When changing something like the scorebug font it would default to one of the duplicated AST files. We eventually figured out it was a problem with the game caching fonts/interface files which we fixed by removing the cache from the games data folder, once thats deleted it works fine.

As far as model editing we still have no answer for that. Same goes with shader files and GD files.

I'll post another update when it seems fit.

It sounds interesting about the VP6, since last year I decided to learn a little about game modification and I took as a base a game from EA FIFA Street (2012) with the help of my friend Fifayoun today I have what it takes to introduce many modifications to the game to update it in the volta style, but for time reasons I have paused it, these days I have been taking it up again, now it has made me curious to change the images of the game menu, but I would also like to modify videos and the music of this game to close the loop. HEN's screenshot option does not display the menu well so use the phone to take this image.

 

[xDividedByZero]

It sounds interesting about the VP6, since last year I decided to learn a little about game modification and I took as a base a game from EA FIFA Street (2012) with the help of my friend Fifayoun today I have what it takes to introduce many modifications to the game to update it in the volta style, but for time reasons I have paused it, these days I have been taking it up again, now it has made me curious to change the images of the game menu, but I would also like to modify videos and the music of this game to close the loop. HEN's screenshot option does not display the menu well so use the phone to take this image.View attachment 31749

How are the games files set up? Assuming you dumped the game, it'd look something like:
"dev_hdd0/GAMES/BLUSXXXXX-[FIFA Street]/PS3_GAME/USRDIR"

And show some examples of the files, filetypes mainly.

 

[neo88]

How are the games files set up? Assuming you dumped the game, it'd look something like:
"dev_hdd0/GAMES/BLUSXXXXX-[FIFA Street]/PS3_GAME/USRDIR"

And show some examples of the files, filetypes mainly.

Hi, inside the main USRDIR folder, there are the big files that go from 0 to 7 each with its bh checksum file, most of the 3d models are in data1 in the directory called sceneassets there they can be found from the body, head, eyes, hair, shoes, balls among others, and textures of skin, face, kits, crest among others, all stored in .rx3 files some older fifa series used .rx2, as for the audio I have found several formats that go from .sbr, .sci and .mus in the latter I presume that there are the tracks of the music of the game I have not been able to extract anything from that file, the videos are in vp6, the game contains other files oriented to the configuration some of them are xml, there are also .lua codes that are key to making the game read modifications out of the big files without the need to regenerate the bh checksums.