Dreamcast-Talk.com

Hi everyone! I have been lurking on this site for some time. I have seen some really cool
homebrew stuff being posted here, and today I finally have something to contribute!

I released a new icondata.vms tool on github:
https://github.com/HugoSmits86/dreamcas ... ndata-tool

The main reason for writing this tool is the current state of the older tools. Most are badly
maintained over time and stopped working, others are a hassle to use (i.e. need to run localhost
for php script) or where never released on certain platforms (windows vs macos vs linux).

The tool is written in Google Go, which has the benefit of cross-compiling for windows, macos
and linux. The actual encode/decode part is setup as a separate package, which allows other
users to easily use the package in their own projects.

I cannot take any responsibility for anything that might happen while running the code, however,
I did my very best to ensure no fatal errors can occur. The project includes a very elaborate unit
test, which results in 100% code coverage.

Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

Neat. Its been a while since I've looked at VMS files. Are they the icons on this screen?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_khBg-viGcs/hqdefault.jpg

Yes, ICONDATA.VMS is a hidden file on the VMS, that shows a custom icon on the unit.
A monochrome icon is shown on the unit itself, while an optional color icon is shown in the DC file manager.

Awesome, looks useful. Not to mention I love to see more stuff written in Go!

Well done yes the other tools are very old this is very useful thank you for sharing it's going to come in real handy..

NightBreeze wrote:Awesome, looks useful. Not to mention I love to see more stuff written in Go!

Thanks, Go is great! You could even use this package and turn it into a backend server tool
that allows downloading VMS files directly onto a Dreamcast.

Ian Micheal wrote:Well done yes the other tools are very old this is very useful thank you for sharing it's going to come in real handy..

Thanks Ian Micheal, I really appreciate the star on github!

Hugo, did you ever play pso for pc?
Is there a way to add vmu icons to a homebrew disk that uses ginsu loader?
What about adding vmu animations too?
Thank you for the vmu tool.

SMiTH wrote:Hugo, did you ever play pso for pc?
Is there a way to add vmu icons to a homebrew disk that uses ginsu loader?
What about adding vmu animations too?
Thank you for the vmu tool.

By VMU animations are you talking about the savefile icon or VMU LCD icon? If so I already have a tool to make those formats
https://github.com/Protofall/Crayon-Utilities

(VmuSfIconCreator and VmuLcdIconCreator)

And then for loading them on another system, the reverse process can be used to make a series of PNGs or some other common image format

SMiTH wrote:Hugo, did you ever play pso for pc?
Is there a way to add vmu icons to a homebrew disk that uses ginsu loader?
What about adding vmu animations too?
Thank you for the vmu tool.

I checked it out on Dreamcast back in the day, but I could not afford the online subscription as a teenager
The game looked really cool though!

I'm not familiar with ginsu loader, so I can't say.

Adding animations to VMS save files shouldn't be too hard to do…

Protofall wrote: By VMU animations are you talking about the savefile icon or VMU LCD icon? If so I already have a tool to make those formats
https://github.com/Protofall/Crayon-Utilities

(VmuSfIconCreator and VmuLcdIconCreator)

And then for loading them on another system, the reverse process can be used to make a series of PNGs or some other common image format

Very cool tool set. I'm working on something similar; a complete codec for VMS in Go.