Actor Files

Actor files are files that the game uses to get resources for actors such as models, shaders, and textures.

Filesystem

The main file is a .szs, which is a Yaz0 compressed SARC file, and it can contain the following subfiles:

• A .bfres file, which contains the models, textures, and animations for the actor.
• May have multiple .sharc or .sharcfb files which contain the shaders for the actor model(s).

BFRES

The .bfres may contain up to 3 relevant folders:

• A Models folder, which contains the model(s) for the actor in BFMDL format.
• A Textures folder, which contains the texture(s) for the actor in BFTEX format.
• An Animations folder, which may contain up to 4 other relevant folders for Skeletal Animations (BFSKA), Texture SRT Animations, Texture Pattern Animations (BFTXP) and Color Animations.

SHARCFB (.sharc Files go unused in NSMBU)

• .sharcfb files contain shader programs and binary data. Materials in a .bfres depend on those.
• There are local as well as global shaders in NSMBU. Materials that link to global shaders can be used in any BFRES (mostly) without issues, whereas materials that link to local shaders require you to swap the shader archives and renaming them accordingly (internally as well as externally). Since the latter is harder to accomplish and inconvenient in many cases, working with global materials from following shader archives is recommended: nw4f_koopa_shader.sharcfb nw4f_cs_water_shader.sharcfb nw4f_shader.sharcfb nw4f_dv_shader.sharcfb nw4f_cs_shader.sharcfb Credits to AboodXD for gathering and sharing information on global shaders.
• Materials that link to nw4f_shader.sharcfb as well as ones that link to nw4f_dv_shader.sharcfb can for example be found in the opening demo backgrounds in /Common/demo or in the credits background in /Common/distant_view.