Homebrew developer cdesseno has decided to show off his stuff by releasing the NeoFlash edition of the PlayStation Portable homebrew game Avoid It. The latest version 0.2 includes a lot of new features which steps up Avoid It's gameplay up a notch, making the game a lot more challenging and enjoyable than before. You can check out all the new stuff in Avoid It v0.2 by reading our full article.

Download: Avoid It v0.2

 

Bumuckl from QJ's PSP Development Forums has been hard at work since the release of Bermuda CS 7 'patched' to bring us an update to his portable image editing studio for the PSP. Today that hard work has paid off with the hopefully bug-free release of Bermuda CS 8. Many new features have been added, including the option to add your own fonts and brushes in order to customize Bermuda CS.

However, bug fixes was the name of the game and along with the 'thousands' of bugs that bumuckl has fixed for this release comes a lot of code optimizations to make Bermuda CS run faster and more smoothly on the PSP. Let's just say it runs a lot faster than Photoshop does on QJ Office computers! Anyway, back on topic, here's the giant changelog:

• New interface GIMP-style Interface with new menu navigation
  
• Fixed bug that made the app crash during creating a new picture
• Improved menu-handling and code optimizations
  
• Grafitti-tool added
  
• Line-tool has been improved
• CPU speed an be changed to 333 mhz, 222 mhz and 100 mhz
• Fuzzieborad has been improved, now capital letters can be used as well
• New fonts and brushes added, as well as the option to add your own
  
• Added option to save your picture as a brush
• Small canvas preview with cursor positions
• Option to change default settings using the CONFIG.CFG file

If you are a graphic geek and enjoy manipulating or creating images on the move, then this app is for you. Catch the download below.

Download: Bermuda CS 8
Visit: PSP Development Forums

 

Customizing a PSP may be fun, but it's admittedly tricky with all that fiddly coding required. Now, if you've been reading up on Vulpix's tgaWave Custom Wave Texture Injector, but don't have the technical finesse to run it, this latest update makes his latest XMBwave editor app even easier to use:

Instructions for use
------------------------------
!!!!NO MORE HEX EDITING REQUIRED!!!! [<---Yup, that's why]

1. Read the tutorial by Al-Zamli from QJ.NET forums (2 mirrors), you can read it at: http://pspjunk.org/tgawavetut/index.html OR http://vbmaster.portablesofdoom.org/tgawavetut/index.html
2. Open your TGA in Photoshop/GIMP/etc. Edit to your satisfaction (but make sure you read the tutorial first!)
3. Save it exactly how the tutorial says (Indexed Color, Local (selective), 32 (or less) colors, Black and White with Transparency, and Diffusion.) You can now save the TGA as any name you wish.
4. Run start.bat. It will guide you through the rco creation process. Specify the TGA you would like to inject and relax as it does the rest (no more hex editing required)
5. Put system_plugin_bg.rco that was created in /vsh/resource/
6. Done!
   

As always, be sure to view the README for extra details (such as the team that helped put this together).

We also highly recommend a visit to the forum boards - they've been cranking out some beautiful work using this and his previous apps, which may give you ideas on how you can customize your PSP.

Download: [tgaWave Custom Wave Texture Injector v0.7]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Want to pimp your PSP without hassle? One of the few good places to start is with your unit's cross-media bar. The homebrew scene was recently bombarded by a lot of custom XMB waves, so this should be easy. (One homebrew coder even came out with a flasher application to preview these custom xmb waves first before actually trying them out.)

This app that's just been released adds to the long list. However, coder Vulpix's tgaWave Custom Wave Texture Injector v0.3 is somewhat different as it doesn't require hex-editing.

All you need is an image editing program such as Photoshop and you can already edit your wave's texture by applying filters to whatever image. Vulpix was good enough to provide all readers with a step-by-step process on how to use this application:

• Open system_plugin_bg_deflate_part2.tga in your favorite image editing program (Photoshop/GIMP/etc).
• Change the wave texture as desired by using filters in Photoshop or whatever.
• Save the targa file with the same name as you opened it with.
• Run start.bat.
• Put system_plugin_bg.rco that was created in /vsh/resource/
• Done!

Download: [tgaWave Custom Wave Texture Injector v0.3]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Here's a heads up for you Popstation users out there. GTK PopStation, the latest product of LiraNuna's coding skills, has just been released in the QJ forums.

This is LiraNuna's first ever GUI app made for GNU/Linux, made due to the absence of non-Windows GUIs for the Popstation converter. Here's what he has to say about it:

After being frustrated of all the Win32 GUIs out there, I was thinking of coding my own Linux one. GTK PopStation is based on the original popstation sources and the GIMP Tool Kit (GTK).

Be aware that using libgtk-2.0.dll and compiling using x86 w32 gcc, there is a high chance of running it on w32 platforms (Similer to the w32 xchat compilation of silvertear).

There is no readme as I think the program is obvious to use.

To download GTK PopStation, click on the link below. If you have any questions of suggestions, feel free to talk about this release on the QJ forums by clicking on the "discuss" link below.

Download: [GTK PopStation - binaries]
Download: [GTK PopStation - source code]
Discuss: [Forum release thread]

Three days after hitchhikr released PSPTex v1.03, he came up with the updated version: PSPTex v1.04.

We already mentioned the details on the first version of the application, PSPTex v1.01, but for the sake of those who haven't been acquainted, we'll brush up on a little info here. hitchhikr's app is basically a save plugin for GIMP 2.2.x and 2.3.x that allows anyone to create textures on the PSP. The program, apart from being able to save RGBA, indexed textures, and DXTC compressed ones, can also support swizzle mode. It actually has a handful of other features, too, such as generating mipmaps, color key feature, and gray scale to alpha channel texture conversion.

With the updated version in PSPTex v1.04, hitchhkr was able to fix the DXT1 compression and DXT3 fetching issues. Also, the developer added an option to save picture data and palettes as source codes in this version.

Download: [PSPTex v1.04]

Hitchhikr from Hitchhiker softworks, has  released a small application to create textures for the PSP as a plugin to popular image manipulation software GIMP. This plugin comes from the same legendary developer that made history today by finding an exploit in firmwares 2.5 and 2.6 that allows full kernel mode access. Although this simple plugin is not as ground-breaking as his kernel mode access discovery, this little plugin is useful for those wanting to create PSP optimized textures. This guy is the next MPH, the next Fanjita and the next Kxpliot team all rolled into one, so this plugin has gotta be worth a try if you use GIMP.

Here's what Hitchhikr said:

"PSPTex is a save plugin for GIMP 2.2.x & 2.3.x allowing to create textures for the PlayStation Portable.

It can save raw RGBA (5650, 5551, 4444 or 8888) & indexed (T4, T8) textures (with 5650, 5551, 4444 or 8888 palette modes support) as well as DXTC (DXT1, DXT3, DXT5) compressed ones, it supports the PSP textures swizzle mode and can generate mipmaps, it also have a color key feature to handle transparency and can convert grayscale pictures into alpha channel only textures."

The source code for this GIMP plugin is included, so if you fancy trying your hand at creating your own GIMP plugin, give it a try! After installing, if if the plugin doesn't work you'll need to copy the gimp dlls files from the GIMP root directory into the system directory.

Now, lets get back to that exploit!

Download: [PSPTex v1.01]