Revolution Editor app icon Revolution Editor
Guide

Models & textures

Edit BRRES files, import OBJ and COLLADA models, and work with textures, normal maps and images.

The BRRES editor

A BRRES bundles a model, its textures and its animations. The editor lists every resource grouped by type. Select one to see it: a 3D viewer for models (drag to orbit, scroll to zoom), a preview for textures, and a keyframe summary for texture animations.

  • Add File…: add a texture from an image, an .obj (converted to a real model, using its .mtl diffuse colours), or a raw resource.
  • Replace from Image… re-encodes a texture; Export PNG… saves it out.
  • Extract Raw / Replace Raw From File… for any resource.
  • Rename and Delete. Deleting can't be undone once the archive is saved.
  • Resource types without a dedicated editor are kept byte-for-byte, so opening and saving never corrupts them.

Importing 3D models

Every model import accepts .obj (with .mtl and textures) and COLLADA .dae. A .dae is converted to an OBJ behind the scenes, so it works everywhere an OBJ does: BRRES models, collision, sky and the Double Dash tools.

The Build for setting in Settings > Games chooses how models and collision are encoded. Dolphin-compatible is small and fast to build. Hardware-compatible uses the community-standard encoders (triangle strips, mipmapped textures, collision as Wiimm's tools build it) for tracks that must run on a real Wii.

Normal maps

Right-click a texture and choose Normal Map… to create one from the texture's brightness (treated as height) or to bake a normal map's relief into the texture.

  • Choose the output format: RGB565 is half the size of RGBA32; CMPR is smallest but blocky.
  • Light = high by default, so grout and cracks sink in. Flip it for textures where the dark parts stick out.
  • The relief is baked into pixels because Mario Kart Wii's course shader has no per-pixel lighting. Match the direction to the track's sun.

Other viewers

  • TPL: view every image in a texture bank and export PNG. It doesn't re-encode back to TPL.
  • OBJ and images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP): view-only previews.
  • Text and source files open in a code editor with syntax highlighting, undo and Find (⌘F).
  • Open in… hands a file to the external editor you set in Settings, such as Blender or Photoshop.
← Mario Kart Wii tracksAudio, text & menus →