Topic: Strange Things Afoot At The Circle K... (Read 111 times)

BenJeremy · « **on:** July 14, 2003, 08:32:00 AM »

From XboxHacker.net:

QUOTE (complex @ Jul 14 2003, 03:47 PM)

bios animation can be changed if you know what your doing

coming soon to an xbox near you
user posted image

and:

QUOTE (Enchz0rX @ Jul 14 2003, 04:29 PM)

It's also possible to change the shape of the "X" logo following the animation. Although the vertex count is very high, applying a transformation to it can make for some interesting shapes

Keep your eyes open for this soon too.

-MomDad

I think this is newsworthy...

switzch · « **Reply #1 on:** July 14, 2003, 10:13:00 AM »

i remember people talking about this earlier.
i wonder how they coded the animation to fit onto the bios?

BenJeremy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 14, 2003, 10:21:00 AM »

QUOTE (switzch @ Jul 14 2003, 02:13 PM)

i remember people talking about this earlier.
i wonder how they coded the animation to fit onto the bios?

It's a matter of replacing the existing app.

Using the tools available with Visual Studio and the XDK, you can disassemble the kernel (with symbols) and see the code used to do the Flubber.

switzch · « **Reply #3 on:** July 14, 2003, 12:01:00 PM »

im suprised more people are not more interested in this..
i think its a cool development.
i would love to know how they did it so i can make my own animation.

Heet · « **Reply #4 on:** July 14, 2003, 12:44:00 PM »

Ya, itd be cool to put our names er whatever. Very cool. Things just keep getting more interesting lately......

Ubergeek · « **Reply #5 on:** July 15, 2003, 09:55:00 AM »

complex doing some real nice stuff atm - very impressed - good work guys

BenJeremy · « **Reply #6 on:** July 15, 2003, 06:25:00 PM »

QUOTE (Mike117 @ Jul 15 2003, 10:17 PM)

I would guess that they have the animation along with some other crap stored on a chip on the mobo. Just my thought...

Yeah, it's called a BIOS FlashROM.

BenJeremy · « **Reply #7 on:** July 15, 2003, 06:28:00 PM »

Upon examination of the video that was released, I relaize what they actually did, which was to modify the data used in the animation itself - the flubber itself was modified to the Complex logo (probably plenty of vertices to do that), angle and the flubber's animation code could have been jumped to skip the tessalation.

So in retrospect, while very cool, it's closer to a patch, rather than all new code.

Mike117 · « **Reply #8 on:** July 15, 2003, 08:13:00 PM »

Oh yeah, i have seen the pics of the complex animation, but where can i find the video?

BenJeremy · « **Reply #9 on:** July 16, 2003, 05:00:00 AM »

QUOTE (Mike117 @ Jul 16 2003, 12:12 AM)

Yeah, i know what you mean. I know that they have a bios chip. but i am saying that there is probably a separate chip from the bios chip that stores some animation info. I seriously doubt that they could fit the code saying to render it and do whatever with it on the bios chip... 256K bios.

That was one theory, but it's very quickly dispelled by: 1) the fact there ARE no other chips to store such information, and 2) a disassembly of the BIOS reveals the flubber animation program and data.

As I have such a disassembly, I can tell you it's all done programatically; there's not video involved: it's pure DirectX 3-D, which doesn't require a lot of space when it's all vertices (no real textures) and code.

As I said, that's what Complex changed, the DATA used by the code, not really any code itself. Their hack is really just a patch of the data in the BIOS by gross replacement of vertice and motion tracking data.

BenJeremy · « **Reply #10 on:** July 16, 2003, 06:44:00 AM »

QUOTE (Mike117 @ Jul 16 2003, 10:31 AM)

Dang dude, you really know everything about the xbox and the chips on it! Good job! But MS is really smart to fit such an animation on the BIOS.

Yes, it's a nice bit of coding.... I wonder if M$ has a team at the annual Assembly meetings in finland (or wherever it is they have those demo parties).

Those guys do amazing things in 4k or 64k.... I'm sure M$ took notice of them, and maybe hired some of them to do the animation, maybe?

SupeRdUPErBlakE · « **Reply #11 on:** July 16, 2003, 07:37:00 AM »

Instead of an 'X' after the Animation it would be REALLY cool to have like...a Smiley!

Ill187 · « **Reply #12 on:** July 17, 2003, 12:04:00 PM »

I want the laughing man symbol to be in front of the X. Would something like that be possible?

BenJeremy · « **Reply #13 on:** July 17, 2003, 12:27:00 PM »

QUOTE (Ill187 @ Jul 17 2003, 04:04 PM)

I want the laughing man symbol to be in front of the X. Would something like that be possible?

No, but it might be possible to put "X-S" man INSTEAD of the "X"

BenJeremy · « **Reply #14 on:** July 18, 2003, 03:33:00 AM »

QUOTE (Mike117 @ Jul 18 2003, 12:20 AM)

Since you are the all-mighty and knowing god BenJeremy, what is the "X" made of? Is it just some 3D shape pre made and rendered everytime it boots?

According to others who have checked it out, yes, it's actually a series of vertices comprising the shape.

When patching the logo colors, you are actually patching vertex texture colors, resulting in the graduated colors you end up seeing on screen.

If there are enough vertices, you should be able to work those into something cool....

Author Topic: Strange Things Afoot At The Circle K... (Read 111 times)