BRRES Sub Files (File Format)

BRRES files contain many Sub Files. Each of these obeys a similar format.

Preamble

This page contain many statistical information. It is based on a combined DVD created from Mario Kart Wii PAL and NTSC:

• All files of Mario Kart Wii/PAL are used.
• Files only in Mario Kart Wii/NTSC are used too. See »Filesystem: PAL and NTSC« for more details.

Summary:

• The combined DVD has 1834 SZS file.
• The combined DVD has 17 BRRES files.
• If extracting all SZS files, the combined DVD has 4871 BRRES files. This is the test suite for all following statistics.

If you need more list or want to find files with special content, then download mkw-brres-statistics.zip (1.2MB). It contains different file and sub file lists.

Common Format

Each files starts with the same header:

Offset	Type	Description
0x00	String	A magic to identify the sub file.
0x04	UInt32	Length of the sub file.
0x08	UInt32	Sub file version number. The number of sections (N) is dependent of this version number. See next table for details.
0x0C	Int32	Offset to outer BRRES File.
0x10	Int32[N]	N section offsets. N is implied in the version number (offset 0x08).
0x10+N*4	Int32	String offset to the name of this sub file. This name equal to the name of the entry name of the BRRES Index Group pointing to this data.
0x14+N*4	End of this header

The known values for the magic are given below, along with the purpose, and which folder within the BRRES they are in.

Magic	Folder and description	Version	Num of sections	File count	Subfile count	Section size found in MKW	Found in files
CHR0	AnmChr(NW4R) Model movement animations.	3	1	5	8	0x120..0x8dc	Race/Course/Object/*
		5	2	2205	23704	0x80..0x7a70	*
CLR0	AnmClr(NW4R) Colour changing animations.	4	2	99	190	0x60..0x1a60	*
MDL0	3DModels(NW4R) Model files.	8	11	14	14		Race/Course/Object/* old_mario_gc_*.szs
		11	14	4773	11161	0xc80..0xaa280	*
PAT0	AnmTexPat(NW4R) Texture swapping animations.	4	6	973	5828	0x98..0x1cc	*
SCN0	AnmScn(NW4R) Polygon morphing animations.	4	6	3	3	0x2f4	old_mario_gc_*.szs
		5	7	12	16	0xf4..0x45c	*
SHP0	AnmShp(NW4R) ?	4	3	29	31	0xd4..0xe78	*
SRT0	AnmTexSrt(NW4R) Texture movement animations.	4	1	3	3	0xac	old_mario_gc_*.szs
		5	2	966	1834	0x68..0x66c	*
TEX0	Textures(NW4R) Texture files.	1	1	14	83	0x860..0x40060	Race/Course/Object/* old_mario_gc_*.szs
		2	2	10	72	0x240..0x80040	draw_demo*.szs
		3	1	4655	30189	0x60..0xaaac0	*

File main.dol seems to support some more sub file formats:

• Palettes(NW4R) (does only exist in Brawl)
• AnmVis(NW4R) (not seen in Mario Kart Wii)
• Subfiles which SCN0 use
  • LightSet(NW4R)
  • AmbLights(NW4R)
  • Lights(NW4R)
  • Fogs(NW4R)
  • Cameras(NW4R)

String Pool & Extraction

Nearly all sub files have a directory structure like BRRES files. For this directory structure file names are needed. Most sub files has also some more strings. All these strings of the main BRRES file and of all sub files are stored in common string pool, unique string only once. The string are sorted in ASCII order. The string pool is placed at the end of the BRRES file behind all other data and outside of the sub files.

If extracting only the raw data of a sub file the pointers into the string pool becomes invalid and the names are lost. To avoid this, Chadderz and Wiimm are on the way to define a file format for extracted sub files that includes an local string pool. It is important to understand, that this is not a Nintendo specification!.

Definition

If the raw data of a sub file is extracted it is modified with the following rules:

• The local string pool is added at the end of the file, aligned at a multiple of 4 relative to file start.
• Each string is prefix by a 32 bit length value, but the offsets always points to the first character of the string.
• Each string is terminated by a single NULL character and a padding with more NULL characters until the next 4-align.
• The size value of the sub file header (offset 4) will not be changed. This helps to find the end of the original sub file when creating a new BRRES file. This position with respect to the aligning is also the start of the string pool.
• The back reference to beginning of BRRES file is set to the beginning of the new file. This means: Set it to value 0.
• Sort the string pool in ASCII order without duplicates like Nintendo does.

The last 2 points are important for comparing extracted sub files.

Wiimms ISO Tools has implemented this since v0.07a.

Strings

For extracting it is also important to find all string positions in the different sub files. The following table is based on a statistical analysis of all BRRES files of the test suite (see »Preamble« for details). The table shows the position of pointers into the string table.

The data is divided into 2 tables. The first table is a summary of old sub and not important formats. The second table contains all data needed for geame play.

Old Formats

File type	Group index [1]	Offset [2]	Entry name [3]	Comment	Implemented [4]
					SM	CT	WS
CHR v3	—	0x0014	Yes	Offset relative to begin of CHR. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes
CHR v3	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	No	Yes
MDL v8	—	0x003c	Yes	Offset relative to begin of MDL. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
SCN v4	—	0x0028	Yes	Offset relative to begin of SCN. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes
SCN v4	00	0x0020	Yes	—	No	No	Yes
SRT v4	—	0x0014	Yes	Offset relative to begin of SRT. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes
SRT v4	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	No	Yes
TEX v1	—	0x0014	Yes	Offset relative to begin of TEX. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
TEX v2	—	0x0018	Yes	Offset relative to begin of TEX. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes

These old formats only appear in the following files:

• Directory /Race/Course/ files old_mario_gc_hayasi.szs, old_mario_gc_narita.szs, old_mario_gc_yabuki.szs, draw_demo.szs and draw_demo_d.szs.
• Directory /Race/Course/Object/ files castle_tree1.brres, castle_tree2.brres, choropu.brres, kinoko_lift1.brres, kuribo.brres, npc_mii_a.brres, pakkun_f.brres and pendulum.brres.

Current Formats

File type	Group index [1]	Offset [2]	Entry name [3]	Comment	Implemented [4]
					SM	CT	WS
CHR v5	—	0x0018	Yes	Offset relative to begin of CHR. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
CHR v5	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	Yes	Yes
CLR v4	—	0x0018	Yes	Offset relative to begin of CLR. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
CLR v4	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	—	0x0048	Yes	Offset relative to begin of MDL. This is the name string of the sub file header.	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	01	0x0008	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	02	0x000c	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	03	0x000c	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	04	0x000c	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	05	0x000c	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	08	0x0008	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	08	N=[0x2c/32]; OFF=[0x30/32]; for I=0..N-1: OFF+I*0x34	No	N is a 32 bit number at offset 0x2c and the number of layers. OFF is a 32 bit number at offset 0x30 and the base offset of the first layer. The size of each layer is 0x34. Each layer starts with a string offset relative to the current layer. →Details	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDL v11	10	0x0038	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	Yes
PAT v4	—	0x0028	Yes	Offset relative to begin of PAT. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
PAT v4	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	Yes	Yes
PAT	00	list with strings	No	The last section contains a list with string. →Details	No	Yes	Yes
SCN v5	—	0x002c	Yes	Offset relative to begin of SCN. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes
SCN v5	00	0x0020	Yes	—	No	No	Yes
SHP v4	—	0x001c	Yes	Offset relative to begin of SHP. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	No	Yes
SHP v4	00	0x0004	Yes	—	No	No	Yes
SRT v5	—	0x0018	Yes	Offset relative to begin of SRT. This is the name string of the sub file header.	No	Yes	Yes
SRT v5	00	0x0000	Yes	—	No	Yes	Yes
TEX v3	—	0x0014	Yes	Offset relative to begin of TEX. This is the name string of the sub file header.	Yes	Yes	Yes

Footnotes

[1] : This is the index of the BRRES Index Group.

[2] : The offset is relative to the begin of data for each group entry (but see comments for exceptions). Before adjusting a string offset, check the value. If it is zero, don't modify it. Zero offsets can only be found in the 5 excluded files.

[3] : Yes means: The string pointers points always (no exception found) to same same string as the name pointer of the entry within the BRRES Index Group. This is important for a creation process.

[4] : Tool abbreviations:

• SM = SZS Modifier (Chadderz)
• CT = CTools (Chadderz)
• WS = Wiimms SZS Tools (Wiimm)

All about BRRES files

BRRES file — Index Group — Sub Files

CHR0 — CLR0 — MDL0 — PAT0 — SCN0 — SHP0 — SRT0 — TEX0