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Official Wii Homebrew Thread

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by Suyo » January 24th, 2010, 2:08 am

This post by Suyo was thumbed up by:: Sprocket (August 16th, 2013, 7:47 pm)

Homebrew FAQ

Spoiler: show

What's that, "Homebrew"?
Applications from non-official game programmers running on a console/handheld/whatever through a non-official way.
Does that mean, it's illegal?
Nope. The Homebrew Channel (HBC) is perfectly legal. Though some of the stuf you can do is illegal (cheat online, run pirated games). Thus these things will not be covered here.
The only problem is, the warranty will expire. So if your warranty is over, install it. You'll lose nothing.
EDIT: I heard Nintendo now refuses to repair the Wiis if they have Homebrew in America.
Can this brick my Wii?
The installation can not brick your Wii, though there's a little chance it will brick if your Wii loses power during installation. So don't install Homebrew during a thunderstorm or something.
With the applications, there are differences. Some modify the Wii, some do not. You should be careful.
I heard you can make your Wii un-brick-able with Homebrew.
That's not a question, but eh. If you have a older Wii, YES, you can make you Wii undestroyable by installing BootMii as boot2 (see Installing Homebrew). It makes a backup of the Wii which you can reinstall every time you want.
So I installed Homebrew. Now my Wii is completly safe, no?
See above. Though, you should NEVER EVER UPDATE THROUGH NINTENDO FROM NOW ON. There are programs which can update everything for you without removing Homebrew/bricking your Wii. I'll post tutorials when there's a new update out.

Epic Homebrew for epic users

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Super Mario War Wii (v1.8b2)
Superyoshi: It's really fun with multiple players. Also you can customize almost everything.
Achtung Wii Kurve (v1.2)
Superyoshi: F***'s epic with up to 12 players (4 Wiimotes, 4 Nunchucks, 4 GC Controllers)
Riivolution (v1.2)
Superyoshi: New stages, new textures, new music without any ISO hacking. w00t. (BTW: Tutorial for custom Music in MKWii and Brawl using Riivolution is below)

If you feel like something should be added, post the link here with a little description.

Epic Homebrew by epic users

Spoiler: show

WakeMiiUp (v0.6)
By Superyoshi. Little alarm application, waking you using the disk drive light.

Installing Homebrew
Installing on 4.2 or lower

Spoiler: show

Stuff you need:
- Bannerbomb v2
- HackMii Installer v0.6
- a SD Card (2GB is perfect)
- a SD Card Reader for your PC
- and obviously a PC and a Wii, duh

First, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE DONE TO YOUR WII AND THE ILLEGAL STUFF YOU DO WITH HOMEBREW (cheating online, piracy etc.)

1. Preparing stuff
1.1 Put the SD card in your PC. If there are any files on it already, delete them all (or move them somewhere)
1.2 Format the SD Card with FAT as file system
1.3 Extract Bannerbomb and HackMii Installer somewhere
1.4 Move "boot.elf" from the HackMii Installer archive to the root of your SD card
1.5 Move the whole folder "private" from the Bannerbomb archive to the root of the SD card (not the contents, the whole folder!)

2. Time for the Wii
2.1 Don't put the SD in the Wii yet. Start the Wii and go to the Wii Menu.
2.2 Enter the SD card menu.
2.3 NOW insert the SD card.
So what happens now?
Bannerbomb uses a malformed banner (the little video thingy in the channels) to execute a code from itself, which triggers the pop-up window.
2.4 A window will pop up. Click "YES". If it doesn't pop up, try a different version of Bannerbomb.
2.5 After sometime, it will run a test. If it looks like this, you got a old Wii. If the last green thing is purple and says "Can only be installed as IOS", you got a new Wii.

3. Installing the stuff
3.1 Press A to continue, then choose "Install the Homebrew Channel" and then "yes, continue".
What's the Homebrew Channel?
With it, you can easily access all Homebrew Applications on your Wii. If it wasn't there, you would have to start Bannerbomb every time you started a Homebrew App.
3.2 After the installation, it should say "finished" and return you to the main menu.
3.3 If "Uninstall DVDx" is aviable, uninstall it.
Uhm, why?
DVDx is a invisible channel which allows Homebrew Apps to read normal DVDs in your Wii's Disk Drive. Sadly Big N nuked it and it's really buggy.
3.4 Return to the Main Menu, choose "BootMii".
3.4.1 If you have a old Wii, choose "Install BootMii as boot2".
3.4.2 If you have a new Wii, choose "Install BootMii as IOS".
What's the difference?
As IOS, you have to start BootMii through the Homebrew Channel. Thus, you need to go through the Wii Menu and thus, you Wii is not un-brick-able. BootMii as boot2 will start BEFORE the Wii Menu. Thus you can go right in the HBC, to the Wii Menu or backup/restore the Wii, creating a practically undestroyable Wii.
3.5 Press "yes, continue" twice.
3.6 Now get back to the Main Menu and press Exit. Then switch off the Wii.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU GOT HOMEBREW ON YOUR WII NOW!

4. First Steps
4.1 Download your first App. Get the SD Card in your PC, and download this App. You could choose any app, but I'll take this one since it's pretty useful.
4.2 Create a folder in the root of your SD card called "apps", and in this one you create a folder with any name, here "BMCE" would be good.
4.3 In the downloaded archive, search for "boot.dol" or "boot.elf". Copy this file and everything what's in the folder with it in the "BMCE" folder.
4.4 Now put the SD in your Wii and start it.
Eh, this is not my Wii Menu... and my Wiimote doesn't work.
You installed BootMii as boot2. You can skip to step 4.7 now.
4.5 In the Wii Menu, look for the Homebrew Channel. Listen to the epic music a few secs and start it.
4.6 In the HBC, press HOME and then choose "Launch BootMii".
4.7 You Wiimote doesn't work anymore. You got to control the cursor either with a gamecube controller (Left/Right and A) or with the buttons on the Wii (POWER proceeds one button, RESET chooses it)
4.8 Go to the Gear and then to the button where a arrow is pointing from a hardware thingy to the DVD.
4.9 The backup will begin. Wait some time, the backup will be saved as "nand.bin" in the root of your SD.
4.10 When it's done, retun to the main menu of BootMii and choose the HBC.
4.11 Do you see the App we just copied on the SD? Click on it, and start it.
4.12 At video, choose you video mode. Autoboot should be set to System Menu, and Boot Delay to 1. From now on, if you start Bootmii and don't press a button in it's first second (don't worry, it sounds shorter than it is) it will proceed to the Wii Menu.

Installing on 4.3 or higher

Spoiler: show

Stuff you need:
- Either LEGO Indiana Jones (first part) or Brawl (only for America)
- Indina Pwns or Smash Stack, depending on your game
- HackMii Installer v0.6
- a SD Card (2GB is perfect)
- a SD Card Reader for your PC
- and obviously a PC and a Wii, duh

First, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE DONE TO YOUR WII AND THE ILLEGAL STUFF YOU DO WITH HOMEBREW (cheating online, piracy etc.)

Red means Indiana Pwns only, Green Smash Stack only.

1. Indiana Pwns
1 Move your current Indiana Jones savegame to the SD card on the Wii.
2 Put the SD card in your PC. Move ALL the files on the SD on your drive.
3 Format the SD Card with FAT as file system.
4 Extract Indiana Pwns/Smash Stack and HackMii Installer somewhere.
5 Move "boot.elf" from the HackMii Installer archive to the root of your SD card.
6 Move the whole folder "private" from the Indiana Pwns/Smash Stack archive to the root of the SD card (not the contents, the whole folder!).
7 Insert the SD card in your Wii, and start the game.
8 Load the save, and go to the Art Room.
9 Approach the left character on the podium. Choose the option "Switch".
So what happens now?
Indiana Pwns names one of the chracters so long, the game can't handle it and crashes. This makes the exploit able to executed unsigned code.
10 Go into the menu, and enter the Stage Builder.
What happens here?
The stage of the archive has a name which is too long for the game to process. Crash.
11 Press 1 as soon as you're prompted to.
12 After sometime, it will run a test. If it looks like this, you got a old Wii. If the last green thing is purple and says "Can only be installed as IOS", you got a new Wii.
13 Now you can go to Step 3. of the "Installing on 4.2 or lower" tutorial to finish the installation!

Moar Tutorials
INSTALLING THE "DARKWII" MENU THEME

Spoiler: show

Downloads:
DarkWii Theme
ThemeMii
myMenuify

Here's how it will look.

PC
1. Start ThemeMii, "Options"/"Standard System Menu"/"4.2"/Your region, say yes to the download, wait
2. "File"/"Open", "darkwii.mym" (the theme
3. Create csm (as DarkWii.csm)
Wii
4. Do a backup with BootMii (IMPORTANT!)
5. Start MyMenuify
6. Patch DarkWii_theme.csm
7. Enjoy

USING CHEATS

Spoiler: show

You need:
Code Downloader ( http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Code_Downloader )
CheatManager ( http://wiibrew.org/wiki/CheatManager )
Gecko OS ( http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Gecko_OS )

First you start Code Downloader, choose your Region and then the game type with Up/Down and A. You gotta wait some seconds now. Then, look for the right game. Downoad it with A.
Next step: Go into CheatManager. Choose your game, then you get a list of all cheats (hit Left/Right to see more). If you want to activate a chat, hit +. Sometimes, there's a [!] on the left of a cheat. That means there are comments, which you can see by pressing A (go back with B). When there's a [?] on the left, you got to replace some values first. Hit A on the cheat, read the comment on what to set. If there's no comment, better don't use the cheat since it could crash the game. Move to a line where you got to replace stuff with Up/Down and hit A. Use Left/Right to mark the place where you got to replace stuff, Then press Up/Down to set. When done, hit A and B to go back to the cheat list and hit + to activate.
When you activated all of your wanted cheats, hit 1 and wait until the CheatManager is done. hit HOME to leave and start Gecko OS. Now put in your game, select "Launch Game" and you got your cheats!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR WII UN-UPDATEABLE

Spoiler: show

Stuff you need:
The Wii App Priiloader @ http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Priiloader
DOP-Mii @ http://code.google.com/p/dop-mii/downloads/list
BootMii in boot2 to make a backup, since this is pretty dangerous

STEP 1: Preparing the SD
Download Priiloader and copy the whole "priiloader" folder into SD:\apps\.
Download DOP-Mii and copy the whole apps folder into the root of your SD. If it asks you to merge folders, say yes.
Open Notepad, and go to http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Preloader/hacks#Systemmenu_4.2 . Now choose the code which fits your System Menu. If you don't know your Version, you can find it in the system setting of the Wii. Paste it in Notepad and remove empty lines at the end, if there are any. Save the file as "hacks.ini".
NOTE: It MUST be "hacks.ini", not "hacks.ini.txt". If Priiloader fails to find the file later, make sure it isn't a txt file.

CREATE A BOOTMII BACKUP BEFORE GOING PAST THIS POINT.

STEP 2: Preparing IOS36
Start DOP-Mii, and in the Main Menu, choose "Install IOS36 (v3351) w/FakeSign".
Choose "Download from NUS" - now wait a sec until it finished downloading.
Now it will ask you two questions:
"Apply ES_Identify patch to IOS36?"
"Apply NAND Permissions Patch?"
Say Yes to both by pressing A.
Choose "Download from NUS" again after DOP-Mii is done, say Yes to "Would you like to restore IOS15 to v523?" by pressing A. Choose "Download from NUS" a last time, And now just wait until it's done. Press A to quit this screen and then HOME to leave DOP-Mii.
Q: What did we just do?
A: We patched IOS36 - now we can do even more crap to the Wii :D
Technical Answer: We installed the Trucha Bug in IOS36, which mean we can now login to the Wii as Super User using this Fakesigning Bug (we can read the Wii's internal keys and use them to log in).

STEP 3: Priiloader Time
Now start the Priiloader app. Press + to install. Ignore any "error -106" warnings, and wait until you see the HBC again. Now turn off the Wii.
Q: OH CRAP IT SEZ MY SYSTEM FILES ARE CORRUPTED!?!?!?!?!? ;________;
A: Restore the BootMii backup and try again.
Start the Wii again and hold the RESET button all the time, until a white screen pops up. Choose System Hacks unsing the D-Pad and A and activate:
Block Disc Updates
Block Online Updates
Not necessary, but useful:
Move Disc Channel
Recovery Mode (great if your Wii f***s up)
Auto-Press A
Replace Health Screen
Region Free Wii Games
Region Free GC Games
Region Free Channels
As the last step, hit "Save Settings", press B when saved, choose System Menu. Go to the System Settings and disable WiiConnect 24. Your Wii is now completly brick-proof! :D

EXTRA STEP: Moar 'bout Priiloader
NOTE: This was written with Priiloader r78 being the newest version. If you use a newer/older version, it could differ.

LAUNCH TITLE
Start any WiiWare/VC/other channel. Pretty buggy right now.

INSTALLED FILE
See below.

LOAD/INSTALL FILE
You can choose any .dol in the SD root to be started by Priiloader! Just mark a file and hit A, and it will be installed. Do you want to start a Homebrew game instead of the System Menu? Here you go!
The .dol can be started by choosing INSTALLED FILE in the Priiloader main menu.

SYSTEM MENU HACKS
...well, obvious.

SET PASSWORD
Choose a password to make your Wii safe! WARNING: You can easily lock yourself out with that.

SETTINGS
I'll just tell you the most important settings:
Autoboot: You can choose where you want to go when starting the Wii. System Menu, HBC, BootMii (must be installed as IOS) ot the file you installed at LOAD/INSTALL FILE, or show Priiloader (also called Disabled)? You choose.
Return to: If you hit "Return to Wii Menu" in a game, you will go here. Look above.
Shutdown to: Same as Autoboot, but you go here when pressing POWER OFF.
Background Color: If you hate White, change to Black here.
Protect Priiloader/Autoboot: You can set a password! Yay! See SET PASSWORD above.
Hit save settings and have fun.

Remember you can always go to Priiloader when holding RESET at starting the Wii Menu.

CUSTOM MUSIC IN MKWII AND BRAWL

Spoiler: show

You need:
BCSM GUI: http://blog.dantarion.com/brawl-custom-song-maker-gui/
Riivolution: http://rvlution.net/wiki/Riivolution
Some songs, mp3, not too long
An original MKWii/Brawl Disc

In this tutorial we will replace the Final Destination Music of Brawl.

1. Converting songs
Okay, first, you open BCSM GUI. Then click on "Add" on the left and choose all the files you want to convert, then click "Convert to BRSTM".

After this is done, close the converter and hit "Select SD/Folder...". Create a new folder somewhere on your drive, not on the SD. If it prompts this:

Click "Create them for me". Now click any song on the left and click "To SD".

You may now do this for other songs too. Remember: In Brawl every stage has multiple songs, and for MKWii you also need a faster version of the song.

That's how I like it.

2. Preparing the XML
Create a folder on your SD called "riivolution". Create a file in there called "brawlmusic.xml" or "mkwiimusic.xml".
Paste the following code in there:

3. Copying the music files and running
Guys with Brawl have it easy now. Go to the folder you chose in BCSM GUI and go there into private\wii\app\RSBE\pf\sound\strm. Just copy those brstm's into a folder called "brawlmusic" on your SD card. Go to Step 4.
MKWii users have to rename the files first. First, do to the folder you extracted BCSM GUI to and go into the folder "data". You will find a file called songs.txt there. Open it and find the song you extracted the BRSTM to - for example, Delfino Plaza - Ricco Harbour is A14. Rename it into the right name. You find a list of all possible music here:
http://pastebin.com/QmxNEndi
Most names are obvious, but some not, like n_Kinoko_X.brstm is Mushroom Gorge for example. A "n" means the normal speed version of a song, and "F" or "f" is the faster one. So you could also play a completly new song there... As soon you renamed all files, copy them into a folder called "mkwiimusic" on your SD.

Finally we can enjoy our work - launch the HBC on your Wii, put in the disc and start Riivolution. Wait for it to load and switch on the Music Replacement Code. Hit Launch and have fun!

NOTE: "Install" installs a channel for Riivolution in your Wii Menu for quick access. If you want, you can do this.

HACK SUCCESSFULLY TESTED ON:
Brawl PAL (Superyoshi)
MKWii PAL (star-fawful)
if it works for you, please tell mich which region and which game!)

USE HOMEBREW WITHOUT INSTALLING HOMEBREW

Spoiler: show

You need:
- Bannerbomb v2
- Your Homebrew

It's easy. Extract the app in the root of your SD, so that "boot.dol" and the other files are in the root. Then move the whole folder "private" from the Bannerbomb archive to the root of the SD card (not the contents, the whole folder!). Now do the steps from 2. of the installing Homebrew Tut:

2.1 Don't put the SD in the Wii yet. Start the Wii and go to the Wii Menu.
2.2 Enter the SD card menu.
2.3 NOW insert the SD card.
So what happens now?
Bannerbomb uses a malformed banner (the little video thingy in the channels) to execute a code from itself, which triggers the pop-up window.
2.4 A window will pop up. Click "YES". If it doesn't pop up, try a different version of Bannerbomb.

If it works, your app will start.
You can use this is conjunction with the Custom Music tutorial to have music without hacking in your games.

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Any questions? Post em!