@firstform/wii-channel-renderer

Standalone Wii channel rendering engine extracted from WeWAD.

It parses .wad / .arc assets and renders Wii banner/icon animations to Canvas 2D, including BRLYT/BRLAN/TPL support and animation playback.

Install

npm install @firstform/wii-channel-renderer

What you get

• processWAD(buffer, logger?): Parse a WAD and extract renderable banner/icon data.
• processArchive(buffer, logger?): Parse a raw U8/ARC archive.
• processZipBundle(buffer, logger?): Parse a ZIP of renderer resources or ARC files.
• BannerRenderer: Draw + animate parsed layouts on canvas.
• parse* utilities (parseWAD, parseU8, parseBRLYT, parseBRLAN, parseTPL, ...).

Basic usage

import { processWAD, BannerRenderer } from "@firstform/wii-channel-renderer";

const wadBytes = await file.arrayBuffer();
const parsed = await processWAD(wadBytes);

const banner = parsed.results.banner;
const icon = parsed.results.icon;

if (banner) {
  const canvas = document.getElementById("banner");
  const layout = banner.renderLayout;
  const startAnim = banner.animStart ?? null;
  const loopAnim = banner.animLoop ?? banner.anim;

  canvas.width = layout.width;
  canvas.height = layout.height;

  const bannerRenderer = new BannerRenderer(canvas, layout, loopAnim, banner.tplImages, {
    startAnim,
    loopAnim,
    fonts: banner.fonts,
    displayAspect: 4 / 3,
    playbackMode: "loop",
    tevQuality: "fast",
  });

  bannerRenderer.play();
}

if (icon) {
  const canvas = document.getElementById("icon");
  const layout = icon.renderLayout;
  const startAnim = icon.animStart ?? null;
  const loopAnim = icon.animLoop ?? icon.anim;

  canvas.width = layout.width;
  canvas.height = layout.height;

  const iconRenderer = new BannerRenderer(canvas, layout, loopAnim, icon.tplImages, {
    startAnim,
    loopAnim,
    fonts: icon.fonts,
    playbackMode: "loop",
    tevQuality: "fast",
  });

  iconRenderer.play();
}

Common renderer options

• startAnim, loopAnim: Separate start + loop BRLAN support.
• displayAspect: 4 / 3, 16 / 9, or ratio string.
• renderState: Force RSO* state selection.
• titleLocale: Force title locale.
• paneStateSelections: Override pane-state groups.
• playbackMode: "loop" or "hold".
• tevQuality: "fast" or "accurate".

Bundle helpers

Optional helpers are exported as subpaths:

import { loadRendererBundle } from "@firstform/wii-channel-renderer/bundle-loader";
import { exportBundle } from "@firstform/wii-channel-renderer/export-bundle";

These are useful when you want to serialize parsed data into a reusable ZIP and load it later.

Runtime requirements

Browser APIs used by the engine include:

• CanvasRenderingContext2D
• ImageData
• OffscreenCanvas (for export helpers)
• createImageBitmap (bundle loader)

If you need Node-only rendering, provide equivalent polyfills/canvas bindings.