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What is an Eyecatcher?

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Protofall edited this page Mar 7, 2019 · 2 revisions

Until I worked on my program I heard a lot of different things about Eyecatchers, but still didn't know much. Here is everything you need to know

  • Eyecatchers are a part of a savefile similar to how the savefile icon is
  • Eyecatchers are always 72 pixels wide and 56 pixels high and are in the ARGB4444 format
  • Unlike the savefile icon, you can't have multiple frames of animation
  • They come in 3 modes/types which controls how it represents the ARGB4444 image
    1. Type 1 is just plain old ARGB4444 and allows for as many colours as you want (2 Bytes Per Pixel * 72 * 56 = 8064 Bytes = 15.75 Blocks)
    2. Type 2 is PAL8BPP ARGB4444 and allows for a palette of 256 colours (1 Byte Per Pixel * 72 * 56 = 8.875 Blocks)
    3. Type 3 is PAL4BPP ARGB4444 and allows for a palette of 16 colours (0.5 Bytes Per Pixel * 72 * 56 = 4 Blocks)
  • The savefile icon and Eyecatcher DON'T share the same palette, they both have their own (Except for EC type 1 which isn't paletted)
  • You need to insert this mode/type value into KOS's vmu_pkg_t/vmu_hdr_t struct under the eyecatch_type parameter (If you have no Eyecatcher set this variable to zero)
  • KOS also requires a pointer to the Eyecatcher binary when making a savefile. If using mode/type 2 or 3, the palette and body are one binary and the palette appears first followed by the body.
  • Also note Each VMU has 200 Blocks (+44 if you hack it) so think about this when making your savefiles
  • The Eyecatcher appears in the bottom right corner of your savefile details on the Dreamcast BIOS menu as seen in the picture below (It might take a few seconds to load in)

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