A WIP decompilation of Dinosaur Planet for the Nintendo 64, as released by Forest of Illusion on Feb. 20, 2021.

Note: To use this repository, you must already have a ROM for the game.

- WARNING! -

This codebase is in an early research/development phase and the ROM this repository
builds is not 'shiftable', so cannot be used yet as a source code base for general changes.

Development

Git

This repository uses Git submodules. Make sure to either clone the repository with the --recurse-submodules flag or to run git submodule update --init --recursive after the initial clone.

When pulling updates, you can update all submodules with git submodule update --recursive or ./dino.py submodules.

Note: If you intend on developing inside of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), consider placing the repository on the WSL Linux partition. Builds are considerably slower when done on the Windows partition through WSL.

Prerequisites

System packages

Linux / Windows Subsystem for Linux

• Ubuntu: sudo apt install -y $(cat packages.txt)
• Other: Other distributions will likely work. See your distro's package repositories for the following:
  • binutils-mips-linux-gnu
  • gcc
  • ninja-build
  • python3

Windows 10+ (not recommended)

• MSYS2 with GNU GCC, GNU Binutils (MIPS target), and base-devel.
  • Please see the MSYS2 for Decomp Setup Guide for instructions.
• Python 3.12+ (Microsoft Store version recommended)
• Ninja (also available as an MSYS2 package)

Python 3 packages

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Setup

1. Place an unmodified Dinosaur Planet ROM into the root of the repository as baserom.z64 (MD5: 49f7bb346ade39d1915c22e090ffd748).
2. Set up tools and extract the ROM:
   • ./dino.py setup
3. Build the ROM:
   • ./dino.py build

Rebuilding

1. If any symbols or the splat config were changed, re-extract the ROM and rebuild the linker script:
   • ./dino.py extract
2. If any source files were added, removed, or renamed, re-configure the build script:
   • ./dino.py configure
3. Rebuild the ROM:
   • ./dino.py build

Documentation

Please see the docs directory for project documentation such as:

• an overview of the project
• a break-down of the ROM extraction and build system
• an introductory guide to decomp
• and more!

Also check out the Dinosaur Planet directory on wiki.decomp.dev for technical documentation about the game itself.

Tools

The repository comes with a bunch of tools for decompilation and managing the repository:

• dino.py - An all in one script for working with the repository. Some of the common commands:
  • build - Builds the ROM and verifies that it matches.
  • configure - Re-configures the build script.
  • extract - Splits the ROM and unpacks DLLs.
  • clean - Removes all extracted files, build artifacts, and build scripts for a fresh state.
  • diff - Diff a function/address between the base and re-built ROM.
  • context - Create a context file that can be used for mips2c/decomp.me.
• tools/first-diff.py - Find the first N differences between the base and re-built ROM.
• tools/first_bin_diff.py - Find the first N differences between two binary files.
• tools/dlldump.py - Dump headers, relocation tables, and assembly from a Dinosaur Planet DLL.
• tools/dlldiff.py - Finds differences between the base and re-built DLLs.

Docker

If you prefer to develop inside of a Docker container instead of installing everything in your local environment, use the provided Dockerfile in the root of the repository.

Example usage:

# Create image
docker build -t dpdecomp --build-arg login=$USER --build-arg uid=$UID .

# Enter a bash prompt
docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/dino dpdecomp bash

# Run a one-off command
docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/dino dpdecomp dino build

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Please see our contribution guide for more information on how this project works and how to contribute.

If you're interested in contributing, please also consider joining us on Discord over at the Dinosaur Planet Community server in the #decompilation channel!