***EDIT***
If you upgrade to 3.03 OEA`, use this version of X-Flash instead, X-Flash v18k.
Updating from 3.03 OEA to 3.03 OEB will not remove any mods you made or reset any settings except for your version (It will be set to 3.03 OEB).

Also, 3.10 OEA and 3.10 OEB can not do custom menus or icons... sorry.
***EDIT***

^_^ Have any of you seen the mariofied psp? Now I am not going to pretend that I can do ALL of that, but I can help you to make something close.
This tutorial will tell you how to customize your new 3.03 OE A psp into an expression of YOU!

Sorry for the bad image quality and video quality... I REALLY tried to make it look good, no luck with my cruddy equipment.
Here is the video, with HORRIBLE Sound! *Sigh*, I had to use my web camera and a cheap microphone, and the camera kept self adjusting (Only way you could see the screen was if there was a REALLY bright light behind it, hence the infinite loop in the background)
Click here for Horrible Video of my Awesome PSP!
Here you can see four of my custom icons and some of the custom text:

There is Mui Mui... *sigh* seriously, on MY side this thing looks AWESOME.

Ah, the two custom LocoRoco icons I made. ^_^ Simple, sweet.


Oh, one more thing:


THIS IS DANGEROUS, STUPID AND ONLY FOR THE ADVANCED. If at any point you have to ask "What is flash0" or "Where does the homebrew go", then you should NOT do this tutorial. Matter of fact, go home now. No really. This (If done wrong) can and WILL semi brick your psp or worse. Even I semi bricked my psp twice while doing this (And learned a bit) before I got this right.

PLEASE TRUST ME, DON'T EVEN READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN FLASH0 BEFORE!

Here are all the programs I used:
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PC Programs:
Audacity ~ GET THIS! Very fun and easy to use.
XVI32, a hex editor (I also made bookmark files for this)
BMP Merger
Topmenu Generator, which needs Microsoft Framework 2.0.
Gimp 2.0
GomPlayer
Inkscape
IrfanView ~ GET THIS, PLEASE! This rocks.
autostitch, read about it here.
MFAudio
PBP Unpacker
PSP Brew
ATRAC 3 Codec ~ Thanks TowMater
GoldWave ~ Thanks TowMater


PSP Programs:
PSP Filer 2.4 (I use this a lot)
The 303oeflasher, Please unknoxploite this and convert into one folder. (Just in case)
X-Flash V18h
PSP MAC Address Changer

Other Files:
Super Gameboot Pack v1.0.rar
Original PSP Theme Backgrounds.zip
All PSP files I used to Make this firmware ~ I didn't include DATA.DXAR, because I think that would be illegal. Also, I included the LocoRoco demo's (Altered names, etc, same ones). Just look inside please.
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O.o and that is about it... Really, I don't know if you need all of this, but let us continue!

Step 0. Update to 3.03 OEA.

Step 1. Make some room.
^_^ My hack involved getting some room for new files!
How can we do this?
1.a Use X-Flash to remove your Network Update capability. This is also a duh step.
1.b Use PSP Filer... Lets go into this a tad more.
To free up room in FLASH0 with PSP Filer, we are going to replace a couple of Font files in Flash0 with a smaller file.
Step 3. ^_^ Better Safe than Sorry.
Now that we freed up some space, lets begin by protecting our psp:
1.a Go ahead, and grab a copy of Dark_AleX's 3.03 OEA firmware's flasher. Go through all the steps to upgrade your PSP, and stop at the point when you have the two 303oeflasher and 303oeflasher% folders.
1.b Install PSP Brew and start the program.
1.c On the menu on the right there is a button to "Convert PBP (1.50 -> 1.00)". Click it.

1.d In the first blank, put the EBOOT from the 303oeflasher% folder, in the second blank put the EBOOT from the 303oeflasher folder. Save the output file to 303oeflasher, overwriting the original.
1.e Rename the folder 303oeflasher to BOOT, and move it to (/psp/game/).

Ok, so why did we do that? Now, if you ever have problems (And you have issues using the "start eboot at /psp/game/RECOVERY"), you can just go to configuration and turn on "Autorun program at /PSP/GAME/BOOT/EBOOT.PBP". This is handy for when you corrupt your menu. Moving on:

1.f Get a copy of PSP Filer, and put the Eboot in /PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/.

Now you will have two quick options if you semi-brick: You can either try to fix the individual file you screwed up using PSP Filer, or you can do a complete Firmware install as a latch ditch effort.

2. Start X-Flash, which we are going to use several times, and go make a Firmware Dump. This way if you corrupt a PSP file, you can use PSP Filer to just swap in a working one without starting over. ^_^

3. Create a folder on the root of your memory stick, and call it "Custom". ALL files you use for your theme, keep a copy here just in case you need to reflash or upgrade. This cuts down the time needed to find the right ones.

4. Consider finding religion. This is VERY dangerous (People WILL attack you from behind the monitor), so praying might help. Up to you though.

5. Whenever you edit a file, don't. Copy and paste the file, then edit the copy. Also, once your done, I suggest you zip up the files you created and put them online somewhere (I suggest mediafire) so that you can get an uncorrupted copy if you ever need it.

OK, I think that is enough playing it safe for now.

Step 4. Topmenu Generator and YOU
We are going to do this one FIRST, for a couple of reasons. First of all, you need the file it creates so that you can edit the text and such of most of the menu items. Secondly, this is the most time consuming, as getting the icons will be hard, and making them look right harder.
1. Download/install Topmenu Generator.

2. Time to get the icon's we are going to use. To do my theme, I went to the official LocoRoco's web site, took some screenshots, and started there. So let's walk through making icons.
2.a Determine what theme you want to do. Seriously. It is easier to START and work your way TOWARD a goal, than to make it up as you go along.
2.b Once you find a webpage, press "PrtScn" or "Print Screen" (It is normally above your home button somewhere on your keyboard) to copy a picture of the screen to your clipboard.
2.c Press "WindowsKey+R" to open a run box, and type mspaint to run Microsoft Paint.
2.d Press "Ctrl+V" or go to the menu and paste. Save the whole, too large and ugly picture somewhere you can find it, as a bmp file.

2.c.I ^_^ Install and open Irfanview, and then use it to open the picture you just made. (I use irfanview for viewing ALL my pictures, also when I need something not as strong as Gimp to convert, resize, resample, recolor, etc.)
2.c.II Click and drag to make a box around the image you want to use as an ICON. If your box is not the way you like it, you can actually grab the edge of it and adjust it! Neat.
2.c.III Go to edit and "Cut-Selection", then go to edit and "Paste". This clears away the crud and resizes the picture to the size of your icon. Save this as a .bmp file.

2.d.I Install and open Gimp, and open the new image you created.
On a side note, to quickly change what a file will be opened with, right click that file and choose "Open with", and choose "Select from list". Find the program you want to use, and click ok. From now on it will be one of the options available to use with "Open with"
2.d.II You should now see two windows open, one labled "The GIMP" and the other with the picture you opened. Go to "The GIMP" window, and select the "Select contiguous region" tool. Now, go to your image.
2.d.III Hold down the "Shift" button to select more than one area at a time, and select EVERYTHING in your picture that is not wanted (Background, extra people, etc).
2.d.IV Right click on the picture, go to "Edit", and choose "Fill with BG COLOR", or really any color you want. If you want it to be invisible when it is on your PSP, use black. (On a side note, I couldn't actually use black on mine, I had to use Red 4 Green 2 Blue 4 for some reason, or 040204 in hex code. Go figgure.)
2.d.V Almost done... Save as a .bmp by going to the window with your picture in it, and clicking "File", "Save As". In the new window that pops up, Give the picture a name, click the plus sign on "Brows for other folders" if you want to save it somewhere different, and click on "Select File Type (By Extension)". Choose "Windows BMP image", near the bottom. Click "Save". If it asks you to use some sort of file compression or what not, say no. If it asks you to combine layers, to export them, say yes.

2.e.I OK, now install and start InkScape, and go to "File", "New", "icon_64x64".
2.e.II Go to "File", "Import", and import the image you want to use as an ICON. Drag it anywhere on the icon, doesn't matter if it hangs off anywhere. You can resize your pic, etc pretty easily with this program.
2.e.III When you have the image the way you want, go to "File", "Export Bitmap". Under "Export area", click Page to force your pic to be the right size, click "Browse" to choose where to save it, then "Export".

2.f.I ^_^;;; Getting closer. Open IrfanView again, and go to "Image", "Decrease color depth", and choose 256 colors. Click "OK", then go to "File", "Save as", and save it as a .bmp (Just to make sure.)

And there you go! You should now have a .bmp file that is 64x64, 8bit. Feel free to use Paint or Gimp to fill in empty areas or whatnot. Repeat this process until you have at least 6. Now, what do you do with these new images?

3. Start Topmenu Generator, make sure 3.02OE is selected (This works for 3.03 as well), and select one 64x64, 8bit .bmp file for each one. Then hit Create. Copy the file that is created, and put a copy in "Custom" so that you can find it if you need it again.

4. To use your new "topmenu_plugin.rco", copy it to your PSP somewhere you can find it (I like the root). Start up PSP Filer, press left+R+L to enter hacker mode, and copy "topmenu_plugin.rco" to your RAMDISK. Press start a couple of times to get to Flash0, open up the folder "vsh", then "Resource". Press X, then triangle to copy "topmenu_plugin.rco" here. Allow it to overwrite the default file. Press "Home" to exit and see how it worked. If some of them have solid black backgrounds, open up the pics you used with Gimp and use the eyedropper to find out what the background color is. They should all be the same color, Red 4, Green 2, Black 4.

Step 5. How to create custom text on menus.
1. Either use PSP Filer to go to FLASH0, copy "topmenu_plugin.rco" to Ramdisk, then go to your memory stick and press X and Triangle to dump it so you can use it, or just grab the one you made earlier with Topmenu Generator. Save this file somewhere, and make a copy for us to work on.

2. Install/Run XVI32, a binary editor (You can use others, but I can't guarantee they will work as well. Use this program to open "topmenu_plugin.rco".

3. I made a bookmark package for XVI32 that lets you jump right to where everything is inside "topmenu_plugin.rco", you can get that here. To use it, after opening XVI32, go to "Bookmarks", "Load From File", and pick one of the three from my Zip. To completely customize almost all text, you will need to open all three bookmarks. Just a heads up. After importing them, you can click on each one under the "Bookmarks" menu.

4. When editing your text, ONLY replace letters and symbols. Do not put anything in a spot that has 00 for a binary value. Do not add extra values or delete values, just replace them please. For example, I replaced "P h o t o" in the binary with "T h o r n". Also, you will notice this in the binary:
The symbols "! become the copy write symbol later on. If you want to use that space, make sure to change the " in this case to the binary value of 00. Otherwise you will get a strange Japanese letter.
5. Once you are done, save a backup copy, and use PSP Filer again. Copy "topmenu_plugin.rco" to your Ramdisk, then copy it to flash0:/vsh/resource, replacing the one there. Press home to exit. If this file is corrupt, the menu won't show. To fix it if you screwed up, use the copy of PSP filer we stuck into /psp/game/recovery. Thank goodness you made a firmware dump, and have the original "topmenu_plugin.rco" (Or if you want, the custom one you made earlier).

Step 6. How to create and install your own coldboot.vag! (The startup noise)
1. Grab some media. Either Audio, a microphone recording, a video, anything.
If you want to use audio from a Video, do the following:
1.a Download/Install GomPlayer. Open the program, set it up, and then get to the main part.
1.b Right click on the player, go to Audio, and click on Advanced Audio Capture. Tell it where to save it's captured files, Make sure it saves in "Windows Wave Format (*.wav)", and check the "Auto-capture on startup" settings. now, restart the video you want to record audio from, and let it play through until the end. (You can turn off Auto-capture on startup after you get this.) Now you have the audio! You can also do stuff like "Audio", "Voice Filter", and just grab the voices or the music. Now that you have your media, we need to alter it!


2. Download/Install Audacity and run it. Here is all I am going to say about actually editing audio with it:
Also, at any point you can go to Edit and back up/undo. I love that personally, it lets you try anything!

2.a To save the Audio when you are done messing with it, Go to File, then "Export as Wav". You can save it in MP3 also, but it needs to be WAV to become a coldboot.vag file.
Also, Please make this audio about 2.5-3 seconds long.

3. Download/Run MFAudio. Select your 2.5~3 second .Wav file, select where to save it (Save it as coldboot.vag), and make sure that it is set to create a .vag file. Click "Process" to start.
This should be how it is set up to run:


4. Assuming you already have XFLASH installed, copy coldboot.vag into (/psp/game150/__SCE__XFLASH/xflash/Modified), replacing the default one.
Start Xflash, Go to option 2, and press right/left until you see "Press `X` to apply External Opening Sound". Press X, and then Home to exit.

Step 7. How to edit your MAC address!
(This is SO FREAKING DANGEROUS!)
1. Download/install PSP MAC Address Changer v2 to your /psp/game150 folder. Run it, and press X to drop the MAC file to the root of your memory stick. SAVE A COPY OF THIS, as this is almost a PERMANENT CHANGE.

2. Use XVI32 and edit the binary for the first few values... (I changed mine to 10c010c010c0, which looks like 10:c0, or LocoLocoLoco ^_^).

This is MORE dangerous than almost everything else, so LISTEN CAREFULLY. Do not put any values into the hex editor other than 1 through 9 and A through F. It shouldn't let you with this program, but DON't FIND ONE THAT WILL. Also, do NOT add extra values, or change more than the first 12 (or first 6 groups of two), or you will be SO screwed.

3. Read warning for number 2.

4. Save a copy for future flashing in /Custom, and then run the program again. This time press O + L to flash your altered MAC address. And look, this will NEVER change unless you use this program... Updates, downgrades, whatever, you are this MAC untill you change it. Understand?

Step 8. Making your own Gameboot.
(The video/sound that plays when you start games, ISO's, and homebrew)
In the process of learning how to do this, I found out that there is NO legal way to do this now. So I can't actually tell you how to do it.
I can point you at some programs for editing video (t@b, avi tricks, etc) or at a program that let's you turn your computer camera into a camera/security device/webcam/Video Recorder/etc with Pryme and Dorgem, but I can't really do anything from there on without going illegal.
PLEASE someone make homebrew that let's us do this!

In the mean time, I found a package of LOTS of Gameboots to choose from, called Super Gameboot Pack v1.0.rar. Enjoy.

Step 9. How to edit the background pictures of the themes
First, here is a package with ALL the original background pictures for you to start with: Original PSP Theme Backgrounds.zip.
Now, let's begin.
1. Download/Install BMP Merger, and put the Original PSP Theme Backgrounds in the same folder.

2. Edit the Original PSP Theme Backgrounds, using any program (Gaim, Paint, etc).

3. Make sure that all pictures are EXACTLY 60x34 in size, and 6.03 KB (6176 bytes).

4. Run BMP Merger.bat. All this does is take each picture's binary code and puts them (One after another) into one file, which it calls 01-12.bmp. Easy, no?

5. Make sure that the resulting picture ("01-12.bmp") is exactly 72.3kb in size.

6. Run PSP Filer, and copy 01-12.bmp to Ramdisk. Paste it into FLASH0:vsh/resource by pressing X and then Triangle (when in hacker mode of course).

If all you want is black backgrounds, just use Xflash.

Step 10. How to make homebrew fit in with your theme!
(Thanks to TowMater for his assistance on this one.)
1. Download/install PBP Unpacker. Run the program.

2. Select the homebrew EBOOT.PBP you want to alter. If the homebrew has two folders, one of which ends with a "%" sign, use PSP Brew to combine it into one folder.

3. Click on the EXPORT button in the upper right, and save all the files somewhere you can find them.


4. You can alter or replace any image inside, as well as the audio. To edit the images, use anything (Gimp, MS Paint, Inkscape, etc) that we talked about. To edit/Make your own sound for homebrew, I will turn it over to TowMater, who figured it out for me:
5. Once you are done customizing your icon0.png, icon1.png, pic0.png, pic1.png, and sndo.at3, make sure they are the right size:
icon0.png ~ 144x80
icon1.png ~ This is for the save game, I assume it is 144x80
pic0.png ~ Transparency works, shows on top of pic1.png, 310x180 works, others might.
pic1.png ~ 480x272
sndo.at3 ~ Max size = Less than 500 KB.

6. Now, open PBP Unpacker and click New. Fill in the PARAM.SFO, ICON0.PNG, and if you also have both Data.PSAR and Data.PSP, fill them in too. These are the only files NEEDED for homebrew. If you want sound, do snd0.at3, if you want a background add in pic1.png... you get the point. Click save, and you have a brand new, custom EBOOT.PBP! WAHOO!

If you want to do PSX/PS1 games, follow all the steps up to number 5, then just put those files in the same folder as my program, AutoPopstation2. For a tutorial that explains how to use it, see here.

Step 12. Stay informed with the Homebrew Community
Ever come home to find out that you MISSED SOMETHING AWESOME! Ever sign in and see that the world has passed you by? NO MORE I SAY!

RSS. Really Simple Syndication. This is basically nothing more than a text file, one that your browser or RSS program (Or PSP) can download. This text file can contain links to mp3's, torrent's, video's, links, anything. It can also find out the latest and greatest PSP news online, without you having to go to any web pages. I am showing you this in Firefox by the way.

See that orange and white icon in the upper right, in my firefox url bar?


Just click that icon, and save it as a bookmark. When you save one, it looks like a folder! And the stuff inside changes over time, whenever the owner updates.

For example, I have an RSS feed in my signature, Here.

When I update my subworld34.rss file, everyone who bookmarked it can see the change!

Here are some RSS feeds that I find helpful:
Subworld 34
PS33d.Com (The PS3 brother site to this one)
PSP3d.Com
PSPUpdates.QJ.net
DCEMU PSP forums
Digg.com

Just look at these bookmarks from time to time, and you will always be in the know!




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Whew, that took longer than I expected. If I left anything off my customization tutorial, just let me know!

Also, I know this sounds stuck up, but could someone sticky this thread?
I only have about 450 some odd points, and I really wish I had found something like this when I was doing my tutorial. Thanks guys.
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