blojob is a simple, to‑the‑point BLO toolset for various GameCube games. At its core, it is an API for loading, saving, rendering, and manipulating BLO elements. Tools are included to view and convert BLO files. blojob has support for the following:
- Supports all BLO elements (panes, pictures, windows, textboxes, screens)
- Able to load textures, palettes, and fonts in their native formats
- Text rendering (with support for all ESC codes)
- Gradient mapping, translucency, and multitexturing
The various formats supported by the library are as follows:
| Format | Load | Save | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| compact | ✓ | ✓ | "Compact", or "BLO0", format used in Pikmin 1. Very limited and cannot set most properties. |
| blo1 | ✓ | ✓ | The standard "BLO1" format used by Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Luigi's Mansion. Can set almost all properties. |
| xml | ✓ | ✓ | A custom, XML-based text format, allowing for easier editing. See here for documentation on this format. Can set all properties. |
To compile blojob, you'll need to have the following libraries compiled and/or installed:
The repository contains a premake5 script. Simply run the script with premake5 and build the resulting solution.
Note: You might need to fill in any unresolved-reference errors by supplying your IDE with the paths to the dependencies listed above.
Once built, there will be a several executables:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| blojob | The primary shared library. Contains the BLO loading, saving, rendering, and manipulation code. |
| pablo | Simple BLO viewer, accurately displaying any given BLO file of the supported formats. |
| joblo | Dedicated BLO converter. Useful for upgrading "compact" BLOs to BLO1, as well as converting BLO1 to XML and back for basic editing. |
The viewer, pablo, has a very simple command-line interface allowing drag‑and‑drop usage, as well as direct command‑line usage for more configuration. It utilizes OpenTK's GameWindow class for rendering. In drag‑and‑drop mode, you can load a single BLO1-format file. The command-line parameters are as follows:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| -input file format | Specifies the input BLO file and format. This is the only required parameter. file may be a relative or absolute path. format is optional, defaulting to BLO1. |
| -search-paths path ... | Adds a fallback global search path to the resource finder. This is used to find texture, fonts, palettes, and other files referenced from within the BLO file. You may specify any number of search paths. |
| -display-size width height | Resizes the viewer display to the specified dimensions. Useful to crop the view to the actual game's dimensions. The BLO will be centered with no scaling. By default, the BLO's dimensions are used. |
Once the BLO is loaded, you may use various keys to toggle certain rendering flags:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| p | Allows panes to be rendered as white quads. |
| v | Shows all BLO elements, even ones which are set to be hidden by default. |
The converter, joblo, does not support drag‑and‑drop usage. The command-line parameters are as follows:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| -input file format | The path and format of the BLO file to convert. file may be a relative or absolute path and cannot not be the same as the output. format is optional, defaulting to BLO1. |
| -output file format | Specifies the format and path to which to convert the input file. file may be a relative or absolute path and cannot not be the same as the input. format is optional, default to BLO1. |
| -search-paths path ... | Adds a fallback global search path to the resource finder. This is used to find texture, fonts, palettes, and other files referenced from within the BLO file. You may specify any number of search paths. |
Note: If both the input and output formats are the same, joblo performs a basic file-copy operation with no conversion performed.