Razr V3RE Skinning issues

[edminister]

My first post:

I got an V3RE as an "upgrade" for my dead V3 from T-Mobile yesterday and am having a nightmare time with modding it.
Software R3442A_G_0E.43.25R

Got the Bootscreen with a little trial and error, got Startup/Shutdown screens right off the bat, gave up on custom startup/shutdown sounds for now, and am currently fooling with the skinning.

I used M-Editor and patch to crawl in and add my skin to the skins directory. As long as folder and filenames match the skin will load, otherwise it will default to Alkali skin. The real issue is the skin itself.

When I load it and access menus they will overlay each other. For instance, I can open main menu and select message, when selecting create new it will open new window for typing text but the message menu is still in place! I loaded a few other skins I downloaded and the issue does not reoccur in them so what is wrong with mine?

If anyone wants to tackle the custom startup/shutdown sounds issue as well I am all ears.

[pwyll]

I haven't tried any skins yet, so I don't have anything to say about that. But here (http://modmymoto.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2344241&postcount=1)is the thread for startup/shutdown sounds on the V3re, and here is where my part (http://modmymoto.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2484771&postcount=15) starts, documenting what had to be done to successfully customize the sounds on my R3442A_G_0E.43.25R...

Good luck!


Scott

[modnmotos]

Maybe the skin isnt going to work for that phone untill its ported, which im tring to learn about currently. I know the v3 and 3re are sim but we've been findind small differences here and there thats why we are working on new guides for the v3re so we can get our own section.

[edminister]

Hi guys, I will keep you posted as events unfold, I am on my way to work ATM so I won't be on til late this evening and of course will spend another hour or so frustrating myself before having anything new to bawl about. Will look into startup sounds first I think.

[modnmotos]

With mexplorer open the audio folder and look for the startup and powerdown sounds. These are what needs to be written over. On computer find new sounds you want to use and rename, then drag and drop in to the audio folder. Crop sounds down to about 5 seconds. You can have more on start up it will just continue playing untill its done. On shut down it will play for like 3-5 secs untill phone shuts off so if its longer it will be cut off.

All startup and power down sounds must be loaded with these titles (just right click, copy, paste on to the new sounds you wish to use):

Power~down
Cust_Start~up

Failure to do so will result in nonworking startup/shutdown sounds.
If loaded with p2kcommander will be nonvisible from phone. With mexplorer highlight sound and on the left side check 'hidden' and it will be nonvisible from phone.

Any problems pm or post we'll walk you through it.

[edminister]

modnmotos, I have that part done, it is still using midi bleepity bleep as startup sound and nothing as shutdown. I am assuming this is going to be a seem edit to enable but I have yet to find a seem editor that does not crash or hang the V3RE in question. Both psk commanders 4.9e and 5.05 lock up the phone when seem editing. P2ktools 3.08 bulid 864 looks like it will work (detects phone properly) but I will need to locate the seems again as I cannot remember what they are.

[Danation]

P2kTools 3.0.8.864 is what I use to edit seems. Also, you can download them with P2kTools and edit them with XVI32 if you prefer.

[edminister]

Pwyll, thank you! I pulled up my sounds in Adobe Audition and cleaned them up a little more then saved them at 128kbps 44khz and then seem edited to enable sounds and they are now working. Next step is the impact font and drm icons.... the skin I am assuming I will have to trial and error rebulid from the V3 skin I had made originally. Fortunately I saved all my .psd files from the original build of it. Once it is done there will be a mind.in.a.box monsterpack for the V3RE.

Also, is there an analog clock in the V3RE? It might be a seem edit but I have no idea, there is not an option for it in my phone.

[Danation]

My analog clock showed up when I enabled the date on the home screen. Seem 0032_0001 Offset BE bit 5 (0 for date and analog clock, 1 for no date or analog clock.) It will move the clock down to the bottom right, but you can easily move it back. Hope that helps.

[modnmotos]

Settings, personalize,homescreen,clock on phone you can change this. Motoskin can help you with the clock issue as well. DRM icons are different then skin icons. When you change a skin the DRM icons will not be affected that is done by modifing the cg15(break it apart with 3G-DRM edit icons, recompile the cg15 and flash back to phone)

[edminister]

modnmotos, the options under settings personalize homescreen clock are digital and off on my phone. I was planning on using shxcodec to break up CG15 and toy with it but I read something in this forum where it might be odd unless filesizes remain the same...

[modnmotos]

then you will need to do the seem change to enable the option as danation suggested. Yes danation had an issue after he modified the cg15. he had the overall file size to big and 3G-DRM could'nt recompile the cg15 it said it was to big, however i've been experimenting around with deleting things and making the cg15 smaller(to gain more memory space on phone) and have had no issues.

[edminister]

Cool, I am rebuilding the skin as we speak. I am going to have to go to the girl's house tonight so i won't be back on til tomorrow afternoon but things are "seem"ing to look up at the moment.

[Danation]

I'm glad things are looking up. Did you read my post? I told you how to enable the analog clock a couple posts up.

Also, on the CG15, I had some trouble with file size, but all you have to do is take some of the DRM files and make them all white. Modnmotos is expirimenting with deleting gifs, and it appears to be working. But until he's researched it more extensively, making the icons white is for sure safe, and it frees up space.

[modnmotos]

Danation I think he was just letting me know it was'nt enabled because I told him it was changable under settings on the phone.
:)

[edminister]

This silly mod is getting to be too much fun at this point, good thing my battery is constantly charging as I fool with it as I tend to wear it down so fast flipping it open and turning it off and on whenever I am not working on it.

I am dreading the DRM portion of it but it is getting to be that time, the skin appears to be falling into place nicely ever since I pulled the necessary gifs out of alkali and used them as a model.

Once it is done the real exploratory begins, I might be pushing the phone too far with what I want to do with it but version 3 of this mod is going to explore whether I can skin this thing so far as to do away with the bottom navigation buttons, essentially just using only the circular portion of the keypad to navigate the phone.

My avatar is a portion of the main screen of the skin. The ring around the girl (her name is Night) is not just a fancy hula hoop. It is segmented into 8 pieces to visually emulate the ring on the keypad and it's (currently) 4 directions. It ought to be do-able but in the meantime I want to get a practical and functional one up and running.

PS, how come avatars are this silly size instead of 176x220? Just a thought.

[Danation]

So........... did you get the analog clock working? DRM is pretty easy. Check out SocaSlvr's guide, it's good.

[edminister]

Danation, I have an anolog clock!

[Danation]

Awesome :)

[pwyll]

Pwyll, thank you! I ... seem edited to enable sounds and they are now working. ...

Glad I could help. :-)


Scott

[edminister]

This will not sound like a V3RE question at first.

Well in all suckiness my shxcodec is dead. It crashed once and would never reopen. I bagged a new copy of midas.dll and regsvr32ed it and now shxcodec opens but windows decides that it needs to close when it opens, I system restored, still the same issue, replaced SHXcodec (266) and I can use it if I move the stupid windows shxcodec has encountered a problem and needs to close error but my font will not load into my phone when I compile it with shxcodec. Do the start and end address of SMG file have to be the same or is my Windows hosed in a minute and esoteric way? The start is same but the end address is different in the SMG.

I am trying the randomshx method instead, it flashed but font did not change.... God I am doing something way wrong today.

OK, I got my new font done, feel free to update the font tutorial/guide if you feel the urge. I used randomshx which was no problem. motolangedit however would not display my font correctly.... it left a lot of letters out completely. I tried using the file from my old V3 and renaming it then recompiling with randomshx which worked but caused phone to crash on boot. I then used motofontedit instead of motolangedit which rendered the font without issue, recompiled and now have my font in the phone. It looks great.... Impact font anyone?

[modnmotos]

what guides did you use for the font change? and what os do you have?

[edminister]

modn

My boot loader is 0c.f4 and SW is r3442a_g_0e.43.25r

As far as guide I originally just went in headfirst as if I were modding a V3, making the SHX with FB3, Splitting it open with shxcodec, then changing icons with motolangedit. That is what got me the font with a lot of missing letters. Fooling with it more I managed to crash shxcodec and then not recover from it.


Then I decided to see what other options I had without trying to figure out why midas.dll was choking in XP (media center) and came across this in a sticky on this forum. http://www.modmymoto.com/forums/show...61&postcount=1

That got me back in business but I still had problems when flashing my final langpack back into phone so I switched to motofontedit instead and that got me up and running.

DRM is driving me crazy. I replaced sending and receiving gifs for main screen as a test and fb3 fails to write the shx file with a critical error.
Original backup size and location...
Start 10f00000
End 110fffff
Size 2,097,152

These are the same for my replacement as well, have made the custom shx with both shxcodec AND 3G-DRM 1.0.

I am stuck and it is making me bonkers.

[Danation]

You need to use SBF Recalc, not SHX Codec, so that you can recalculate the checksums when you recreate the DRM. I had that problem previously.

Here's the guide that I used. It has worked perfectly for me:
http://www.modmymoto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213731

[edminister]

I just ran the recalc on the one I made earlier and that resolved! This makes it officially done aside from gif editing! the mind.in.a.box MP is on it's way! Some screens from work so far... (I haven't found anything that will work yet to get actual screens out the phone so bear with default font/icons)
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/40/l_b758365d537d4d04b368765df61f90a0.gif
and in case you don't know what mind.in.a.box is...
http://mindinabox.com/

In summary here is what worked for me as far as putting it together.

Motorola V3RE (t-mobile branded)
boot loader is 0c.f4
SW is r3442a_g_0e.43.25r

m-explorer ver. 0.9.6m and v3re patch for loading skins/cl.gif/ringtones

flash and backup 3.0.7 for backups, creating bin/shx/sbf files (not free but a necessity)

motofonteditor ver. 102 for font edits

MotoBootScrnReplL9 ver. 3.5 beta for bootscreens

adobe audition 3.5 for audio editing (not free but others have reported similar results with audacity)

adobe photoshop/imageready 7 for image editing (not free but only one of a bajillion image editors that will work)

skinner4moto ver. 0.2.8.3002 for colors and whatnot

p2ktools ver. 3.0.8 build 864 and XVI32 ver. 2.51 for seem editing

v3re flex editor ver. 1.0 to remove folders from many jacking's about that were done.

SBF-Recalc 1.2.4 and 3g drm ver. 1.0 for drm edit and recompile

Fortunately drm icons appear to be all gifs so no need to convert raw files into images and masks like on my old v3...

This should cover just about everything except one tiny detail that is going to drive me completely nuts. When booting the phone a default motorola logo is on the outside screen before cl.gif loads...

Oh and a huge thank you to everyone who has assisted with this phone, I was more than a little disheartened and daunted at the beginning as this phone is in no way like my old v3... I am not sure where I picked up all of the files to do this so I don't know about permissions/linking/mirroring any of it so let me know if you need anything from the list of tools. (and no I am not going to point you anywhere other than adobe.com for some of the software in the list!)

[modnmotos]

edminister the link is dead. Hey skin looks pretty cool too. nice work glad to see you got done what you wanted/needed

[Dumba]

No, link works, but I am missing the relation between the link and any MP? :(

Oh, just reread, I get it now, lol :)

And on a side note, doesn't Msnap work with the v3re?

[modnmotos]

Then I decided to see what other options I had without trying to figure out why midas.dll was choking in XP (media center) and came across this in a sticky on this forum. http://www.modmymoto.com/forums/show...61&postcount=1


this is what i was looking for.

[Danation]

Modnmotos: Wrong thread, man. :)

In any case, edminister, glad we could help. The v3re is a little trying at times, but I'm happy to have one :)

So I'm interested in trying your MP. Are there any other fun features going to be on it? Let us know some more info, and I'd love to try it out when you release it.

P.S. Dumba: You are correct: MSnap does work with the v3re.

[edminister]

So as I was cleaning up some gifs etc. I have had all these crazy ideas that just won't aesthetically go into this skin but I want to try anyways so at least one more skin. DRM icons, as always are going to take forever and a few other things, I am thinking a week or so and it will be done.

[Danation]

Sounds good.