Raging Tools is a tool that will help you in order to edit the games from the Raging Blast series. You can edit textures, shaders, transformations, parameters, camera values, export/import animations, explore zpak files, etc.
It gathers several tools that were made previously, like Vram Explorer, Character Parameters Editor and Pak Explorer.
Compatibility list
Dragon Ball Raging Blast (PS3 and Xbox 360) -> Only Vram Explorer, Pak Explorer and Gsc Explorer
Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2 (PS3 and Xbox 360) -> E
8000
xcept Gsc Explorer
Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3 and Xbox 360) -> Only Vram Explorer and Pak Explorer
Dragon Ball Z Zenkai Battle (uncompressed files) -> Only Vram Explorer and Pak Explorer
Credits:
- To revelation (revel8n) from XeNTaX forum who made the compress/uncompress tool dbrb_compressor.exe and for his contributions.
- To Ascomods, HiroTex, SamuelDoesStuff, 316austin316, SSJLVegeta, LBFury, Saidai, Vive and Geko for their contributions.
- To the Raging Blast Modding community.
- If you want to run the source code, the requisites are the following:
Python:
3.8.13Packages:
natsort 7.1.1 numpy 1.21.1 pyglet 2.0.5 pyqt5 5.15.4 pyqt5-sip 12.12.2You can install these packages by running
pip install -r packages.txt - Git. If you're not sure if you have Git already installed in your computer, or you want to install it, you can check it here.
- A graphic card that is compatible with OpenGL 4.0 or higher is required for Vram Explorer. If you're using an Intel Graphic card, make sure the version of the drivers is 21.20.16.4627 or higher, otherwise, Vram Explorer won't show any dds texture. You can update Intel drivers here.
- It is highly recomended to place the tool in Program files because when using Pak Explorer, if the path in Windows is very large, the tool will crash! Windows has a limit for the path name, so run the tool in a place where the path is not too long.
This tool has several options, distributed in tabs. Each of one will be explained in the following sections. We will explain first the ones that are on the top of the tool and, after that, the ones that are below.
You can open a file, save it, or close the application. Moreover, for each task, you have a keyboard shortcut. The type of file you can open or save, will be explained in the following sections.
Utilities has some individual tasks you can use. The utilities are Compressor, Packer and Converter
Compressor will use the dbrb_compressor.exe made by revelation (revel8n). In this option, you can encrypt or decrypt a single file, or multiple files. The supported files are .zpak (STPZ) and .pak (STPK) files. The dbrb_compressor.exe will detect if the input file needs an encryption or decryption, so there is no need to specify what you need to do.
For the single file option, the tool will generate the output in the same path where the input is located. When is a decryption, the output file will be .pak. When is a encryption, it will ask you what game format do you want the output (Ultimate Tenkaichi or Raging Blast series). After that, the file output will be written in .zpak.
For the multiple files option, the tool will ask you the path of the folder where the files you want to encrypt or decrypt and also the game format (if there is a file that needs a decryption, the game format won't affect the result of the output, only when is a encryption). The tool will create a folder with the output files, in the same path where the folder input is located. The name of the output folder will be the same as the input folder, but with the datetime of creation.
Packer will unpack the files that are packed as a .pak, or pack a folder with files, creating a output as a .pak file.
When unpacking, it will create a folder with all the files that the pak has within. For each pak file, it will create a .typ in order to store the type of pak file (if is a vram pak file, spr pak file, etc). This information will be used for packing, so it avoids crashes in console. Also, for some data, it will create a dummy file with the extension .dum which have the necessary number of bytes for padding the correspond data when packing. This is important in order to make the .pak file compatible with console, so be awared of removing those if you encounter one of them.
When packing, it will pack each folder and the correspond .typ file in order to generate the pack file propertly, according to the structure define in the .typ file, avoiding crashes in console. If the tool doesn't find the specific .typ file, it will generate the pack file with default structure values.
Like the previous task, you can unpack or pack, a file or folder respectively, a single one or massivelly.
In this tab, you can convert the files to another format. The options are SPA, JSON, AFL and TXT
You can convert a single SPA to a file, or select a folder with some SPA files and convert all of them, to the JSON format. The same goes if you want to convert from JSON to SPA, or from AFL to TXT and vice-versa.
In this tab you can check if there is a new version of the tool (you need Git installed for this. You can check if you have Git installed here) and some guides that will explain, in a more detail way, some specifications to take account in order to avoid crashes when running the game in real hardware. There is also a guide of the functions used in the GSC files. It's recommended to check it in order to use those functions propertly.
In this tab you can check the author of the tool, go to the GitHub repository where is explained how to use the tool, and the people that contribuited in the development of this tool. There is also a link to the Discord server of the Raging Blast modding community where you can join and stay tunned about the news in the modding of this series.
Vram Explorer is a tool that will help you to edit the textures of the game. When you open a .spr and .vram file, the textures will be loaded.
It will show you for each texture, the Resolution, Mipmaps and Encoding. You can export the textures, import over the original, export all the textures, import all the textures from a folder (for this feature, the folder should have the exact filenames of the original textures), remove textures or add a brand new texture.
When a texture is imported over a original one, the tool will check the new texture file and compare it with the original one. If they have differences in resolution, mipmaps or/and encoding, it will tell you those differences and you if you want to import the new texture. However, for images that are originally swizzled, the tool won't let you import a texture that has those differences because the swizzle algorithm needs the width and height from the original texture.
At the bottom of the tool, there is a material section where you can edit the properties of the material. You can select the material and change the layers, type, effect, the texture to being used, and the values of the material children. In the material children, you can edit the Border color and apply for the transparency value, the same value to all the materials children by enabling the check Apply 'A' value to all materials. Moreover, you can add a new material to the spr, remove the current one, export and import their values (and children values if any), export all the values of each material, and import all the values of each material from a folder (for this feature, the folder should have the exact filenames of the original materials).
At the bottom of the material section, there is another section where you can assing to a 3D model part, what material will be used. WARNING: if there is a 3D model part that doesn't have any material assigned, the game will crash so be aware of removing materials!
Lastly, when saving the spr and vram, if this files are from the PS3 version of the game, it will ask you which format for the vram output would you like to generate. This selection is important since will make the vram more accurate to the game selected, avoiding crashes in console. However, if the spr and vram are from the Xbox 360 version, it won't ask you since this version only needs one single format.
NOTE: Due to maps spr files has a different structure, Vram Explorer only will let you import or export textures. Adding and removing textures, material edition, and assing to a 3D model part a material, won't be allowed for now.
Pak Explorer is a tool that will unpack the files that has the extension .zpak (encrypted pak file) or .pak (decrypted pak file). It uses a Depth-first search since the information in those files are stored as a tree graph structure.
When opens a .zpak or .pak file, it will store all the sub-files in disk, in order to write the files propertly. When the algorithm finishes, the tool will show the full path of the sub-files.
You can export the files, import a new one, export all the files or open the folder where those files are located.
When saving, it will ask you what game format do you want
the output (Ultimate Tenkaichi or Raging Blast series).
Character Parameters Editor is a tool that will edit the parameters of the characters, like glow, lightnings, aura size and more.
Since these files are .zpak, the Pak Explorer will be activated too, and show you all the sub-files that the main .zpak file has.
If you have doubts about what parameter is modifying, leaving the pointer of your mouse in the name of the parameter, it will pop up a description of that parameter.
When saving, it will ask you if the modified values from character parameters editor will be also inserted into the unpacked files before repacking everything.
This tool is divided in three tabs:
This tab holds the general parameters of the characters, like transformations, glow, lightnings, health, aura size, default blast attacks, names, etc.
In order to use this tab, and deppeding on what you need to edit, you have to open one of the following files:
-
operate_resident_param.zpak located in
st_pack_battle_others_pt_ps3.afs and st_pack_battle_others_pt_x360.afs (Raging Blast 2).
-
db_font_pad_PS3_s.zpak located in st_pack_boot_pt_ps3.afs and
db_font_pad_X360_s.zpak located in st_pack_boot_pt_x360.afs (Raging Blast 2).
-
cs_main.zpak located in st_pack_progress_pt_ps3.afs and
st_pack_progress_pt_x360.zpak (Raging Blast 2).
This tab holds the individual parameters of one character. This parameters are the camera values, movement speed, animations, melee values, signature, etc.
You can change the background color when the character is transforming. However, for some characters this option won't be avaliable. To enable it for those characters, you need to export the properties of 'Transformation in' in the 'Animation values' from a character that originally has a transformation background, and then import those properties to the character you want to change the background color.
The signature can also be swapped too. However, if you're trying to incorporate a signature that triggers a Ki blast, you need to change the Signature Ki blast values in order to execute the signature propertly.
For the animations, you can export the bones to the .json format and mix the bones in that output file. Then, you can import the .json file. Moreover, in the bones section, there is a option called Layer. Since this tool when opens this kind of files, some spa files are mixed into a custom spas file, that have several spa data inside, the layer option will let you select, from the spas file, which spa file you want to edit. Also, for each rotation, translation and unknown (this one needs more research. Some spa files has those values), there is a block section which is related (I think), to the frames of the animation.
In order to use this tab, you have open the operate_character_XYZ_m.zpak (Where XYZ are generic numbers) located in st_pack_battle_character_pt_ps3.afs and st_pack_battle_character_pt_x360.afs (Raging Blast 2).
In this tab you can edit the roster, by adding, removing or swapping characters or transformations.
In order to use this tab, you have open the cs_chip.zpak located in st_pack_progress_pt_ps3.afs and st_pack_progress_pt_x360.afs (Raging Blast 2).
In this tab you can edit the gsc files from the story mode of Raging Blast 1. You can edit the order of instructions, adding removing or editing cameras, animations, stage, music, characters, etc
In order to use this tab, you have open the GSC-DBC-XYZ-000.gsc (Where XYZ are generic numbers) which is inside the file bc_voice_XYZ_lps_JP.zpak, located in st_pack_game_pt_ps3.afs and st_pack_game_pt_x360.afs (Raging Blast 1).
NOTE: It's highly recommended to check in the Help, the web page RB1 GSC Breakdown in order to know each function meaning before attempting to edit the story mode.