TUTORIAL: EXPLANATION OF THE EFFECT FILES FOR ENTRANCE AND VICTORY MOTIONS 1

[BlindedByTheGrace]

Hi,

This tutorial will cover the effect files for entrance and victory motions. I will attempt to cover as much as I know as I haven't figured out all the data but I will say enough to make major changes. Figuring out the data requires experimentation and time. 

I will state here that this is not a tutorial for the inexperienced modder. Messing around with lighting data is not the first thing you want to do if you are still learning to mod your game as this involves manual  hex editing. There aren't any tools to make changes to the lighting data or easy way around it. The data also can't be edited in Wrestleminus either.

Second thing is, do not modify anything you are not sure about or the entrance will crash. One wrong byte will make the game crash while loading the entrance. If the game crashes when loading the entrance after making any  changes, it means you have added data in the wrong place. Always backup the original effect file.

 

You will have noticed each entrance evt file has an effect file with the same ID . This file contains data for the lighting presets used in the entrance.

Now I used the word LIGHTING PRESETS as this is what the developers create and assign to entrances . A group of light objects are assigned colour, behaviours and other attributes and given one ID. In a way we can't create our own lights but use the lighting presets in the game to create  other lighting presets.

Here is a screenshot I have captured from Advanced creation showing the entrance lighting

All the lights in the stage area I have circled in blue are the ENTRANCE LIGHTS

All the lights in red which light up the ring are the CEILING LIGHTS

All the lights in purple which hover around the crowd or stadium are the STADUIM LIGHTS

The light circled in yellow (there are a few others hidden in the shot) are the SEARCH LIGHTS. Some of them are spotlights for the character in the entrance. )

The names I have used here are what the developers used in the game (taken from the 2k17 data information file)

The lighting presets for each combination of lights is set in the evt_light.pac file. The effects file basically reads from this file do determine which blocks of  lights are on and off for each preset (This will be covered at  a later date)

 

You will see that each group of lights is composed of multiple light objects.

Next we will look at the data in an entrance effect file. I will use Apollo Crews effect and Goldust effect  files for this tutorial. 

Apollo Crewz entrance evt is 00391 (You can look this up in the data editor entrance ID list) so the effect file will also be 00391.pac .

Open this file in Pac editor.

Highlight the file with bpe extension in the window and select UNCOMPRESS from the menu. The saved file will have an 0fop extension.

Open this file in Hxd. or any Hex Editor.

Here is a screenshot.

All entrance effect data starts from offset 380 in the data file. The 01 87 I have highlighted is the ID for the effect file in Hexadecimal (391 in decimal)

There are two main sections of data in this file .

The blocks of data circled in aqua colour are for the cutscene timeline which I will explain further down in this tutorial.

The blocks of data circled in red are for the entrance lighting presets.

I will start off with the lighting presets data. Each preset is an array of 8 bytes separated by 4 bytes before the next one.

In this screenshot you will see the first block of data 00 AD 01 39 00 64 00 01

8 bytes separated into 4 sets of 2 bytes each.

00 AD is the preset ID for the ENTRANCE LIGHTS

01 39 is the preset ID for the CEILING LIGHTS

0064 is the preset ID for the STADIUM LIGHTS

00 01 is the preset ID for the SEARCH LIGHTS.

This is how the data is formatted in all entrances /cutscenes/victory motions with effect data.

This is separated by 4 bytes before the next. (I will explain this further down)

Lets look at another entrance file. Goldust which has gold brown lighting which can be used for Bobby Lashley's entrance as the default Bobby Lashley ligghting is blue which is now outdated.

You will see here I have highlighted the 00 4A 00 9C 00 41 00 01

00 4A - Entrance light preset

009C - Ceiling light preset

00 41 - Stadium light preset

0001 - Search light preset. Later this changes to 0000.

Now lets say I wanted to have the stage entrance lights for Apollo Crews the same gold brown like Goldust. All that neds to be done is replace the entrance preset bytes with those of Goldust

so the 00 AD 01 39 00 64 00 01 now becomes 00 4A 01 39 00 64 00 01 . I have changed the 00AD to 00 4A. If I changed all the bytes, then all the lights will change to the gold brown.

CUTSCENE TIMELINE

Next we will look at the cutscene timeline similar to what you have in advanced creation. One thing to take note of in advanced creation is, thoughj you can customize pyro, you can't customize light presets like changing just the entrance, ceiling, search or stadium light.

First a few things you need to know

Each entrance evt is separated into 5 segments like you see in advanced creation

00 is the INTRO 

05 is the STAGE

0A (10) is the RAMP

0F (15) is the RING-IN

14 (20) is the ring.

Here is a screenshot of Apollo Crews effect file this time marking out the cutscene time and the corresponding lighting preset data.

1A 00 00 00 00 00

1A 00 05 00 00 00

1A 00 14 00 F2 00

The 1A is a sort of byte code for lighting preset data. There are a few others for other things like screen effect,particle effects etc  some which I haven't figured out yet. 

in the data above , I have underlined the 00 , 05 and 14.

The 00 is for the intro. This means at the intro , the lighting preset is AD 01 39 00 64 00 01

The 05 is for the Stage . This means at the stage section, the lighting preset is 00 AD 01 39 00 64 00 45. 

You will see here the difference in data is the search light changes from 0001 to 0045. 

The 14 is for the ring. This means at the ring section, the lighting preset is  AD 01 39 00 64 00 01

You will observe the there is a byte 00 F2 after the 14. This is the frame at which the lighting preset changes in the ring.

It means at frame 00F2 from the beginning of the ring section, the effect changes.

Now how do we calculate this 00F2 .

This is a hexadecimal value . We convert 00F2 to decimal using a hex calculator 

F2 is 242 in decimal. This is 242 frames in the ring animation. (not from the intro)

There are 60 frames in one second. To find the time in seconds, divide 242 by 60 . This is about 4 seconds. This means about 4 seconds after the ring section starts, the lighting preset changes from 00 AD 01 39 00 64 00 45 to  AD 01 39 00 64 00 01.

I will stop here for now. 

You will want to experiment with data for different effect files. There are other data and effects I haven't covered for now to avoid creating a tutorial which is too lengthy which wouldn't serve its purpose as it will be too daunting. However if you experiment and have questions, I will be happy to answer them with examples.

Edited March 12, 2021 by squaredcirclefan

[swipergod]

Great tutorial as always @squaredcirclefan. I'd figured out some of this and started modding some entrances like Shawn Michael's while back, but I couldn't really articulate it. I used pre-existing code where I could. I made a video to show people what you can do with this kind of mod. Here I made Vader's '96 entrance by editing the effects when he enters the ropes to be like Viktor's. 

 

[somerandodude]

Ty so much!