PS3 [Research] Modifying the Coldboot/Gameboot Sequence (custom_render_plugin.sprx/rco)

[sandungas]

Overal i like it, at beginning (before you shaked the DS3) is something confortable, particles at that huge size are ok for it, the "particle emitter" area maybe has excesive activity... it could have been used as official

The reflection is a static point, i played the video several times, place the mouse pointer in the center of it and you will see it stays exactly in the same position til the ending. What moves is the lights all around emitted by it
Not sure what is that reflection, but connecting dots....

With the reflection, It's not static exactly, it just does not move around the screen , it's kind of like its on another layer compared to the particles.

Also no wave without over rides,..

So it looks like is in another layer... and it seems there is no wave

So... maybe that reflection is the wave ?

 

[sandungas]

Just realized... is like a black hole, and the light effects around it is because the black holes deforms space/time and devoures the light, lol
Funny, we have a higgs boson and a black hole, i wonder what would be next

Btw, the fact that is static is a detail that supports what you said about being located in a different layer... is obvious his position is not affected by the DS3 sensors (when you shaked the DS3), and doesnt follows the rules of the other particles

So... not sure if it could be related to the wave... but by now doesnt seems related with the particles
Actually, that light effects that appears around it are driven by "shaders"... you know they causes distortion of the objects, color tone changes, and other small visual effects
The particles itself doesnt have shaders... but the wave have

 

[DeViL303]

Just realized... is like a black hole, and the light effects around it is because the black holes deforms space/time and devoures the light, lol
Funny, we have a higgs boson and a black hole, i wonder what would be next

Btw, the fact that is static is a detail that supports what you said about being located in a different layer... is obvious his position is not affected by the DS3 sensors (when you shaked the DS3), and doesnt follows the rules of the other particles

So... not sure if it could be related to the wave... but by now doesnt seems related with the particles
Actually, that light effects that appears around it are driven by "shaders"... you know they causes distortion of the objects, color tone changes, and other small visual effects
The particles itself doesnt have shaders... but the wave have

Yeah, I am thinking the static point could be the wave too. I guess we could try adding just one over riding value at a time to see if the reflection starts to change, maybe we can even build it up from scratch and make something different to a wave.

You have a much better understanding of the waves values, so if have you any suggestion for good values to add for debugging let me know as i will trying the brute force approach otherwise.

Is it possible that one of the MNUs is the default settings before the specific over ride for each environment is applied. I ask this because i was expecting to get a similar effect to the tests where you had reduced the size of the mnu to just a header. The fact that mnu with all 0A is different to no mnu is strange. I'm missing something

 

[DeViL303]

Just noticed I had missed 3 MNUs at the very bottom of the qrc, removing those made no difference.

I can also add single override values to the MNUs. I tested just adding "emit vel min:float:5.0" and it made the particles go crazy.

Also just realized I can completely zero fill the whole MNU sections at the top and the bottom, and even wipe out the headers for the MNUs. Still displays the same like if its 0A filled with headers.

Also the clock still has an effect on the brightness, so we know that is not controlled by the MNUs, midday is still all bright grey when on original, and all dark at midnight.

The colour settings still all work fine, classic theme still works fine and shows no particles like normal. No way to know if the reflection is still there on classic as it does not effect the XMB icons or the wallpaper

 

[sandungas]

Just a theory, a line is defined by 2 points, in official XMB one of that points is at left (out of the screen), and the other is at right (out of the screen). So the wave is generated in between them and it covers all the screen (and a bit more out of the screen we cant see)

But in your experiment it could happen that both points are located in the same position... so a line in between 2 points in the same position... is a point
And the shaders could have some kind of "sensibility range" up to a distance... but in this case is a point so the affected area looks like a circle all around it
Actually, this is why i mentioned the black hole, because it looks like an (partially invisible) sphere



So it seems is needed to "separate" that points from each other... by loooking at the setting names there are some that looks a good candidate to work like that
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Lines.qrc#LINE1.mnu

But dunno, imo i think could be interesting to see what happens by using
SHADER:int:0
In other words... disable shaders (and see if the black hole sphere and all that reflections around the point dissapears)

From the other settings... it could be this one (length... of the line i guess):
LENGTH:float:0.306001

 

[sandungas]

Is it possible that one of the MNUs is the default settings before the specific over ride for each environment is applied. I ask this because i was expecting to get a similar effect to the tests where you had reduced the size of the mnu to just a header. The fact that mnu with all 0A is different to no mnu is strange. I'm missing something

Yes, there is always a .mnu file at the root of the .qrc container that is intended to be overrided by the other .mnu files
At least thats how i always thought it works, but im not completly sure, as example
Lines.qrc/LINE1.mnu
Lines.qrc/override/yoake/LINE1.mnu
Lines.qrc/override/day/LINE1.mnu
Lines.qrc/override/higure/LINE1.mnu
Lines.qrc/override/night/LINE1.mnu

The LINE1.mnu at root is something generic (is related with all the other LINE1.mnu files)
For the tests in main XMB you need to modify the others for yoake, day, higure, night... but for simplification purposes just make the tetsts with yoake... and remember to set the clock to 08:00 or so (because yoake is only used in the first quarter of the day)

With PARTICLES.mnu is pretty much the same... one at root (generic) + 1 specific for every enviroment

Lines.qrc/PARTICLES.mnu <-------------------------- generic
Lines.qrc/override/yoake/PARTICLES.mnu <-------------------------- 1st quarter of the day
Lines.qrc/override/day/PARTICLES.mnu <-------------------------- 2nd quarter of the day
Lines.qrc/override/higure/PARTICLES.mnu <-------------------------- 3nd quarter of the day
Lines.qrc/override/night/PARTICLES.mnu <-------------------------- 4th quarter of the day

I can also add single override values to the MNUs. I tested just adding "emit vel min:float:5.0" and it made the particles go crazy.

Heheh, good

Also just realized I can completely zero fill the whole MNU sections at the top and the bottom, and even wipe out the headers for the MNUs. Still displays the same like if its 0A filled with headers.

View attachment 21526

I have a doubt because (if i remember right) in unix the linefeed is 0x0D0A and you filled it only with 0x0A

In the patches i was suggesting there was 2 ways to convert the .mnu files to dummies, by reducing the size to 9 bytes it keeps the header plus one 0x0D0A so the file is valid (the firmware can read it fine, no problem), and by reducing them to zero i thought that resulted in some details of the animation not displayed (i guess because the functions from the spline.elf or particles.elf was generating partially broken outputs)

Also the clock still has an effect on the brightness, so we know that is not controlled by the MNUs, midday is still all bright grey when on original, and all dark at midnight.

The colour settings still all work fine, classic theme still works fine and shows no particles like normal. No way to know if the reflection is still there on classic as it does not effect the XMB icons or the wallpaper

The clock changes color ? or just changes in grey tones ?, i guess that color changes are related with the monthly colors... check if the clock color changes together with the sidemenu color

 

[sandungas]

Hmm, btw to short the testing times... you could try an specific setting in everyone of them (yoake, day, higure, night)

Lets say...
In "yoake" you could change LINE1.mnu X,Y,Z positions
In "day" you can enable LINE1.mnu SHOW FFD:int:1 (for some reason this is disabled in official firmware)
And so on... a different setting in everyone of them

Then you flash the guinea pig lines.qrc... and by changing the clock settings (to the 4 quarters of the day) you can see what does each setting
Is like testing 4 different settings in every round

 

[LuanTeles]

For curiosity sake, seems like the EXTRA CONTENT can affect the Particles too

I'm using the @DeViL303 srpx patch

The quality is not good, since i broke my phone last weekend and i'm using a old spare one

 

[DeViL303]

For curiosity sake, seems like the EXTRA CONTENT can affect the Particles too

I'm using the @DeViL303 srpx patch

The quality is not good, since i broke my phone last weekend and i'm using a old spare one

Wow, interesting find. I wonder which override controls that.

 

[LuanTeles]

@DeViL303 @sandungas

there is a way to enable the gameboot animation back in HEN?

i mean it can be enabled but the system will load the otherboot animation on both cases, Games and Videos

in the CFW with a game_ext.sprx we have the otherboot for VIDEOS and gameboot for Games

 

[sandungas]

For curiosity sake, seems like the EXTRA CONTENT can affect the Particles too

I'm using the @DeViL303 srpx patch

The quality is not good, since i broke my phone last weekend and i'm using a old spare one

Hmmm, as devil said, probably the reason why happens that is because the "PS3_EXTRA" display mode is an specific enviroment (with his own overrides)

in the CFW with a game_ext.sprx we have the otherboot for VIDEOS and gameboot for Games

In HEN there is a game_ext.sprx too, i dont understand what you mean

There is a patch to enable that ?, i never heard about it

 

[LuanTeles]

Hmmm, as devil said, probably the reason why happens that is because the "PS3_EXTRA" display mode is an specific enviroment (with his own overrides)


In HEN there is a game_ext.sprx too, i dont understand what you mean

There is a patch to enable that ?, i never heard about it

I use a old 3.00 (i think) game_ext.sprx and it enables it

 

[sandungas]

I use a old 3.00 (i think) game_ext.sprx and it enables it

Hmmm ok, i never heard about it before, and i dont know another way to do it

The redirection of the <anim_otherboot> to <anim_gameboot> in custom_render_plugin.rco i was talking about some weeks ago in other forum threads is because i think the latest firmwares only loads <anim_otherboot>

 

[DeViL303]

Ah, I think I figured out something based on this latest PS3EXTRA stuff.

I do not think they are related to the epilepsy warning at all. See the "welcome" text.

Where have we seen that before? on all the Whats New/TV Channels, Store Ads items on the XMB:

Those use the exact same view as the PS3 Extra... So it's my guess that one or both of these "welcome" overrides" are linked to that GUI style in some way.

@sandungas @LuanTeles I wonder is there another PS3EXTRA style menu used anywhere like in video category that might be linked to the welcome2 override. It would be cool if we could document exactly which override links to which environment. There are lots of them with ?? on the wiki.

 

[sandungas]

Ah, I think I figured out something based on this latest PS3EXTRA stuff.

View attachment 21913

I do not think they are related to the epilepsy warning at all. See the "welcome" text.

Where have we seen that before? on all the Whats New/TV Channels, Store Ads items on the XMB:

View attachment 21915

Those use the exact same view as the PS3 Extra... So it's my guess that one or both of these "welcome" overrides" are linked to that GUI style in some way.

@sandungas @LuanTeles I wonder is there another PS3EXTRA style menu used anywhere like in video category that might be linked to the welcome2 override. It would be cool if we could document exactly which override links to which environment. There are lots of them with ?? on the wiki.

Ouch, it seems you are completly right
That welcome is a codename but i never realized about the relationship with the xml you mentioned, mostly because i could not imagine the override/welcome/*mnu settings could be loaded suddenly in main XMB, but at this point seems obvious that it does that

My bet is what luanteles recorded is welcome2 (probably a most modern version derived from welcome1)
So they implemented welcome1 first... and at some point after welcome2

 

[DeViL303]

Just figured out something else. Someone was asking here how to stop the music player wave visualization from turning the XMB purple... music_2 override is the answer. When using music_2 instead of music_1 it stays with the standard theme color setting in the music player.

You can force it to use music_2 by editing the sprx, Of course we could probably do the redirect in the lines.qrc too, I think music_2 is a better setting overall as it allows you to choose purple if you want, but also pick any other colour.

Edit: just one patch needed actually. Here is the patch I applied if anyone is interested. Just change the "1" to "2" and you have any colour music player wave visualization you want.

Then I realised we can use this method to test out all overrides really easily, without having to find the normal trigger for them, I can just edit this to any override I want, then go into the music player and see the effect. I will do a video with all overrides effects shown in a row when I get time.

 

[sandungas]

Nice
Btw the music player is one of the most safest places to do experiments, because when the PS3 boots the firmware doesnt loads it
So incase you break the music player completly the PS3 is going to continue booting normally (allowing you to fix the files from the previous test that broke the music player)

 

[DeViL303]

Yeah its perfect, also get to see the transitions properly, I already tested welcome1, black, bright and it works fine.

Actually it just needs 1 byte of a patch for the theme coloured wave visualization.

 

[DeViL303]

The Future is now! Here are 16 overrides from a possible 21... The 5 not shown are the normal music player music_1, and the 4 time of day overrides. yoake, day, higur, night. Those 4 time of day overrides seemed to have no effect when triggered like this, and everyone knows the normal music player. This video was done with the official lines.qrc.

I have edited the custom_render_plugin.sprx 16 times so that instead of the music player wave, you get these other overrides showing instead, some are better than others, some are actually a viable replacement imo..

I have attached the files I used in this test, in case anyone wants to try them with different lines.qrc files they might get some cool effects not seen in the video.

Note: These modified sprx files will not work on HEN. They are taken from Rebug 4.84 DREX but will work on all recent CFWs afaik.

 

[sandungas]

Good test, yeah some of them looks nice
I think the settings from gameboot2 are the same used in the coldboot of very old firmware versions, with the full opaque black background, without particles, and the wave looks like having "metalic" colors
The override/bright is a nice effect, i wonder how is made
And welcome1 probably is my favourite... btw remember every enviroment have his owm .mnu settings inside icons.qrc too, so the main XMB icons are having different effects... is just it cant be see them well because the main XMB icons dissapears inside the music player, but inmediatly when you exit there is a transition that allows to see a bit what it was doing with the icons
Note when you exit welcome1 the main XMB icons looks like transparent (like made of ice)