Flipnote Studio is Nintendo's DSi animation application. A Flipnote is a sequence of 256 × 192 images with two ink layers and a paper colour; the application can play sound alongside it and save the result as a PPM file. The editor, local library and Flipnote Hatena browser are related parts of the same application, but use different code and file paths. [1][2]
Where to start
- To understand a Flipnote as a file, start with PPM, then read image resources and identity and filenames.
- To understand the original editor, follow the editor, frames, sound and saving.
- To work on a compatible server, start with the network client, UGO menus and the browser.
What the research establishes
The Flipnote Decompilation Project examines four Studio releases and a separate Japanese Viewer. It has documented many functions and resources, although work on the original program is still incomplete. These guides explain which findings were checked directly, which are interpretations and which remain unknown. Format references help when building compatible tools, but behaviour can differ between regional releases. [1][3]
How the application fits together
Studio has four main parts: the editor, the local library, the player and the online client. The editor stores frames and sound; saving converts that data into a PPM. The library finds and checks files, and the online client lists and downloads them using several routes and response formats. When something fails, check which of these parts handled the action. [1]
Where to start when implementing a tool
- When writing a reader, verify the
PARAheader and section lengths before decoding image rows or audio. Check that reads stay inside the file before interpreting the frame data. [1][2] - For a renderer, implement the two bitmap layers, per-frame paper and ink colours, layer visibility, and frame timing before attempting online previews. [1][2]
- An online client or archive needs separate handling for routes, menus and file downloads. The original application uses a different reader for each response type. [1][3]
Scope of these guides
Most claims here concern four studied Flipnote Studio ROMs: Japanese V1 and Japanese, American and European V2, with a separate Japanese Viewer used only where explicitly named. “Confirmed” means the relevant bytes or original instructions were checked; it does not mean all releases or real network environments have been exhaustively tested. [1]
Finding the Collective's topics
The Collective's Home page describes a collaborative effort to document the DSiWare application in full. Its sidebar links file formats, web-client features, identity schemas, internal text, history and failure modes. The table below links those topics to the guides on this site. Some wiki sections remain unfinished; a link to one is not confirmation that the feature works. [4][5]
| Source topic | Guides here | Collective reference |
|---|---|---|
| PPM animation | PPM container, frames, sound | PPM format |
| NBF, NPF and NTFT images | Backgrounds, palette images, direct-colour images | NBF, NPF, NTFT |
| Menus, lists and savedata | UGO menus, PLS/LST, savefiles | UGO, PLS/LST, Savefile |
| Client sessions and document controls | Authentication, HTML and metadata, actions | Authentication, HTML, Feature overview |
| Posting and input modes | Uploads, keyboard and command search | Comments, Flipnotes, commands, keyboard |
| FSIDs and names on disk | Identity and filenames | IDs, filenames |
| Internal storage access and parser failures | Internal URLs, browser limits, unresolved features | Storage URLs, SD/RAM overread, image-cache overread, text-cache overread, HTML bugs, unknowns |
| Text, history, tools and attribution | Key index, message meanings, history, connection methods, research credits | Message data, History, Patching, Credits |