Wiimms SZS Tools

Wiimms SZS Tools

Author:	Wiimm
Operating Systems:	Linux (i386/x86_64), Windows (Cygwin), Mac (x86_64).
Software Type:	File manager, decoding and encoding toolset.
Compression Formats:	Yaz0, Yaz1, WBZ.
Archive Formats:	SZS, U8, WU8, LTA, LFL, PACK, RARC, BRRES, BREFF, BREFT.
File Formats:	BMG, BTI, KCL, KMG, KMP, MDL0, PAT0, TPL, TEX0, PNG, OBJ, StaticR.rel, main.dol, CT-CODE, LE-CODE, LEX, LPAR, ObjFlow, GeoHit, ItemSlot, minigame.
Image formats:	I4, I8, IA4, IA8, RGB565, RGB5A3, RGBA32, C4, C8, C14X2, CMPR.
Current Version:	v2.37a, 2023-09-09
Website:	szs.wiimm.de

Wiimms SZS Tools has a punctuation error, but you should see it as a brand name.

Introduction

Wiimms SZS Tools is a set of different tools to manipulate SZS, U8, RARC, BRRES, BREFF and BREFT archives and BMG, BTI, KCL, KMP, MDL0, TPL, TEX0 and StaticR.rel files. All tools are command line tools and run without any interaction. The tools are available for Linux, Mac and Windows. The main goal is to run them in batch files and scripts to automate recurring jobs. At the moment there are 9 tools:

wszst : Wiimms SZS Tool (handles SZS, U8, RARC, BRRES, BREFF and BREFT archives)
wbmgt : Wiimms BMG Tool (convert and patch BMG files in binary and text format).
wimgt : Wiimms Image Tool (convert and patch image files of Mario Kart Wii).
wkclt : Wiimms KCL Tool (convert raw KCL files from/into obj format).
wkmpt : Wiimms KMP Tool (handles raw and text KMP files, read text files like a compiler).
wpatt : Wiimms PAT Tool (handles raw and text PAT0 files, read text files like a compiler).
wstrt : Wiimms StaticR Tool (handles StaticR.rel and main.dol files of Mario Kart Wii).
wctct : Wiimms CT-CODE Tool (handles CT-CODE and LE-CODE files).
wlect : Wiimms LE-CODE Tool (handles LE-CODE, LPAR and LEX files)

One main goal is the fully automated track name replacement. The tools together can do this. Another goal is to extract all sub files recursively and transforming they into user friendly file formats (like text of png files) and support recreation of the original source files.

There is also a little how to.

Main Features

The tools are command line tools. This means, that there is no GUI support. The main advantage is, that you can place commands into scripts (batch files) for fully automated execution → More about command line.
wszst is the main SZS tool. It has a fast Yaz0 compressor with the best compression rates.
The wszst command CHECK can help you to find bugs in your track.
The new wszst command SLOTS makes a track proposal for working and non working slots.
The KCL tool wkclt can create KCL files from scratch (they become as small as possible) by reading an OBJ file. It can also export an existing KCL to an OBJ file with colors to make a KCL visible.
The KMP tool wkmpt can decode and compile (yes, it's a real compiler with loops and other control structures) KMP files.
- While compiling, it can overide some parameters for debugging or optimization.
- The KMP compiler can use the KCL to find optimal vertical positions of objects and route points. This is good for visual debugging.
The wkmpt command DRAW creates an OBJ file with KCL and add route positions and other objects of the KMP.
The wszst command PATCH can transform whole tracks inkl. KCL, KMP, MODEL, MINIMAP and VRCORN. Transforming means any combinations of scaling, rotating and shifting with different factors for each axis.
The wszst command MINIMAP can center the minimap automatically. You can use this command with SZS, U8, BRRES and MDL0 files.
The image tool wimgt can convert images of all formats:
- It can convert the file formats TPL, TEX0, BTI, BREFT and PNG to any other.
- It can convert the Image Formats I4, I8, IA4, IA8, RGB565, RGB5A3, RGBA32, C4, C8, C14X2 and CMPR to any other.
- It supports the palette formats IA8, RGB565 and RGB5A3.
- It can automatically create mipmaps, or it can use user defined mipmaps and create only missed mipmaps automatically.
- It can patch images with other images.

Last Features

Cygwin

As of v2.21a, 2 Cygwin version are supported: One for 32-bit Windows and one for 64-bit Windows.

Mac OS

As of v2.24a, the ARM version for Mac is supported.

Porting and other address calculations

As of v2.25a, tool wstrt supports address porting from one to all other regions. Therefor the new commands PORT and WHERE were implemented.

As of v2.26a, both commands are improved in many ways. Entered addresses can be real addresses, or file offsets, or cheat codes. By options the user can define the output format (with or without 0x prefix, with or without file offsets, with or without table headers).

Please read wstrt PORT and wstrt WHERE for details.

History and Download

Wiimm started the development of his SZS Tools in March 2011. The first goal was to automate the insertions of the track names for Wiimms Mario Kart Fun distributions. Therefore 2 tools have been needed: A SZS extractor and creator and a BMG manipulator. The 2 tools wszst and wbmgt were ready in April 2011. After this, Wiimm implemented an Image-Tool (wimgt), an StaticR.rel tool (wstrt), a KMP tool (wkmpt) and a KCL tool (wkclt). Other tools were added later. The last added tool is wlect to manage LE-CODE and LEX files. All tools are command line tools to support scripts and fully automated operations.

Latest Change Log

szs v2.37a r8863 - 2023-09-09

 - Option --max-file-size=SIZE now accepts sizes up to 2 GiB. For LTA files
   it is automatically set to 2 GiB.

 - New file format: LTA = LE-CODE Track Archive.
   Sometime in the future such archives will replace the individual track
   files to save space (smaller file list) in LE-CODE distributions. In
   addition, common files are to be managed so that the extraction of these
   files by the distribution creator is no longer necessary.

 - New file format: LFL = LE-CODE File List
   The file format was developed to store the common files in LTA files in
   a way that LE-CODE can use easily.

 - wlect distrib:
    - New string type 'PATH', which manages paths to the track files.
    - New instructions LTA=DIRECTORY and LTA-RM=DIRECTORY, which will create
      LE-CODE Track Archives.

 - wszst XCOMMON: If at least 1 file is extracted, then file "avail.txt" is
   created. This helps LE-CODE to detect extracted common files, because we
   don't know how to detect directories by LE-CODE.

 - New LPAR setting: USE-AVAIL-TXT.


szs v2.36a r8834 - 2023-07-22

 - Wildcard parsing has been reworked. In particular, the pipe character is
   now used as a special control character. In addition, the combined use with
   sub-files has been implemented for some commands. See built-in help and
   https://szs.wiimm.de/doc/wildcards for details.

 - New global option --no-wildcards: Disable wildcard parsing and use each
   filename exactly as specified.

 - The 114 commands of the following list including their short cuts accept
   wildcards as source now:
    - wszst: ANALYZE AUTOADD BINARY BMG BRSUB CAT CHECK COMPRESS COPY CREATE
             DECOMPRESS DISTRIBUTION DUMP ENCODE EXTRACT FEATURES FILETYPE
             GHOST ILIST INFO INSTALL IS-ARENA IS-TEXTURE KCL KMP LEX MEMORY
             MINIMAP NAME-REF NORMALIZE PATCH SHA1 SLOTS SPLIT STGI TEXT
             UPDATE XALL XCOMMON XDECODE XEXPORT YAZDUMP
    - wbmgt: CAT DECODE ENCODE FILETYPE LIST MIX SECTIONS PATCH SLOTS
    - wctct: CAT CREATE DECODE DUMP FILETYPE PATCH
    - wimgt: CONVERT COPY DECODE ENCODE FILETYPE LIST
    - wkclt: ANALYZE BLOW CAT CFF CHECK COPY DECODE DUMP ENCODE FILETYPE
             FLAGS LIST SHA1 TRIANGLES
    - wkmpt: CAT CHECK DECODE DRAW ENCODE FILETYPE GAMEMODES GOBJ KTPT ROUTES
             STGI
    - wlect: CAT DECODE DUMP ENCODE FILETYPE LPAR PATCH TIMESTAMP
    - wmdlt: CAT DECODE ENCODE FILETYPE GEOMETRY STRINGS XTEST
    - wpatt: CAT DECODE ENCODE FILETYPE
    - wstrt: ANALYZE DUMP EXTRACT FILETYPE HEXDUMP HTTPS PATCH

 - Tool wszst: New option --9laps patches files Race*.szs to enable lap 9.
   It is based on https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/Lap_Texture_Fix by Wingcapman.

 - For LE-CODE developers only:
    - LPAR:DEVELOPER-MODES can allow or forbid different developer modes.
    - LPAR:DEV-MODE1 .. LPAR:DEV-MODE3: Define some global developer modes.
    - New LEX section DEV1: Define some track dependent developer modes.


szs v2.35a r8801 - 2023-07-11

 - Updated prefix database: Added MK8DX (alias of SW), MK8S, SBSPBfBB, SMB,
   SMBM, TFR, ZeldaWW (alias of WW).

 - Support for online-time-limit by LPAR and LEX:SET1.

 - Support for new LEX section RITP (Random next-links @KMP:ITPH).

 - Fixed end-of-line bugs in LEX text output (CR+LF required for Windows).

 - wlect dump: Colored flags.

Links

v2.28.beta2

Wiimm released a beta version:

Tools Overview

wszst (Wiimms SZS Tool)

wszst is a command driven tool to manipulate archives:

Supported archive formats: SZS, U8, RARC, BRRES, BREFF and BREFT.
It can extract all subfiles of any archive.
While extracting some file formats can be decoded (converted to text or PNG files).
It can create all (but not RARC archives) while readind and scanning a directory structure. Decoded files are encoded automatically.

→ Tool wszst: Features, commands and options

wbmgt (Wiimms BMG Tool)

wbmgt is a command driven tool to manipulate BMG (message) files.
→ Tool wbmgt: Features, commands and options

wkclt (Wiimms KCL Tool)

wkclt is a command driven tool to convert KCL files into/from binary KCL from/into Wavefront OBJ files.
→ Tool wkclt: Features, commands and options
→ General parser syntax and semantics
→ KCL export and import guide

wkmpt (Wiimms KMP Tool)

wkmpt is a command driven tool to convert KMP files into/from binary from/into text files. A special compiler is used to allow variables, expressions, if..then..else, loops, macros and user defined functions while reading a KMP text file.
→ Tool wkmpt: Features, commands and options
→ General parser syntax and semantics
→ KMP text syntax and semantics
→ KMP parser functions
→ How to edit KMP files

wimgt (Wiimms Image Tool)

wimgt is a command driven tool to convert and aptch graphic images:

wimgt supports the file formats BREFT, BTI, TEX0, TPL and PNG as export and import type.
wimgt supports the internal image formats I4, I8, IA4, IA8, RGB565, RGB5A3, RGBA32, C4, C8, C14X2 and CMPR (and also different PNG formats).

→ Tool wimgt: Features, commands and options