Virtual amiibo (amiibo emulation) system for Nintendo Switch

Table of contents

• Download
• Virtual amiibos
  • Virtual amiibo creation
  • Supported figures
  • Areas
  • Per-game access IDs
• Usage and controlling
• Boot procedure
• Compiling
• For developers
• Credits
  • License exemption

Download

Make sure you always read the README and release changelogs (which are located on the release page)!

You will need the following files:

• emuiibo and emuiigen (formerly emutool) (grab the latest release here)
• Tesla (grab the latest Tesla-Menu and nx-ovlloader)

Extract all ZIP files and copy the folders on your SD card. It should look like this in the end:

• emuiibo: sd:/atmosphere/contents/0100000000000352/exefs.nsp and /flags folder
• emuiibo overlay: sd:/switch/.overlays/emuiibo.ovl
• tesla-menu: sd:/switch/.overlays/ovlmenu.ovl
• nx-ovlloader: sd:/atmosphere/contents/420000000007E51A/exefs.nsp and /flags folder

Always keep in mind that (if these contents were placed without turning off the console, using FTP, MTP, etc.) a reboot will be needed for emuiibo to actually work/reload!

Virtual amiibos

Virtual amiibos go inside sd:/emuiibo/amiibo. For instance, an amiibo named MyMario would be sd:/emuiibo/amiibo/MyMario/<amiibo content>. They can go inside sub-directories, like sd:/emuiibo/amiibo/SSBU/Yoshi.

A virtual amiibo is detected by emuiibo based on two aspects: a amiibo.json and a amiibo.flag file must exist inside the virtual amiibo's folder mentioned above. If (for whatever reason) you would like to disable a virtual amiibo from being recognised by emuiibo, just remove the flag file, and create it again to enable it.

The JSON file contains all the aspects and data an amiibo needs to provide to games, except a few special ones (per-game savedata, protocol and tag type...)

This are the properties an amiibo has:

• Name: the amiibo's name (max. 10 characters, longer names will be automatically limited to 10 by emuiibo)

• UUID: it's a unique identifier for the amiibo, composed of 10 bytes. Common amiibo UUID values seem to have the last 3 bytes zeroed...?

• Random UUID: if this option is enabled (set to true), emuiibo will ignore the fixed UUID value and generate random UUIDs every time the amiibo is accessed by a game. This has potential benefits in certain games, like in BOTW, where amiibos can only be used once per day, but with randomized UUIDs this can be bypassed, and one can get infinite rewards scanning this amiibo infinite times.

• Mii: every amiibo has a mii associated with it (it's "owner"). Internally, miis consist on a 88-byte structure known as "char-info", so emuiibo stores this data in a file (typically mii-charinfo.bin). For new amiibos, emuiibo uses the console's services to generate a random mii, but for those who would like to use a mii from their console, emuiibo dumps in miis directory the console's miis, so it's just a matter of copying and pasting/replacing charinfo bin files. NOTE: emuiibo contains the charinfo file's name in the JSON (mii_charinfo_file), so if the file ever gets renamed, don't forget to rename it in the JSON too, or emuiibo will generate a random mii for the file name in the JSON.

• First and last write dates: these are (as if it wasn't obvious) the first and last time the amiibo was written/modified. When a virtual amiibo is created with emuiigen, the current date is assigned to both dates, and when the amiibo is modified in console, emuiibo updates the last write date.

• Write counter: this is a number which is increased everytime the amiibo is modified (and emuiibo does so, imitating Nintendo), but when the number reaches 65535, it is no longer increased (the number is technically a 16-bit number)

• Version: this value technically represents the version of Nintendo's amiibo library (NFP), so emuiibo just defaults it to 0.

Virtual amiibo creation

While old emuiibo formats are supported and converted to the current format (see above), it is strongly suggested to, unless bin dumps might be indispensable, emuiigen be used, the intuitive PC utility designed to create and edit virtual amiibos:

Now you can copy the generated amiibo folder onto your SD card, in sd:/emuiibo/amiibo or in any subdirectories inside it!

Supported figures

Some games (like Skylanders) make use of their particular NFC technology, aside from amiibos. This project ONLY emulates amiibos; therefore, in Skylanders' case, only the two special figurines with amiibo support can be emulated here, where emuiibo will only emulate the "amiibo part" of them.

Areas

Areas (application areas, technically) are per-game amiibo savedata. Technically, real amiibos can only save data for a single game, but emuiibo allows as many games as you want (since savedata is stored as files). This savedata is quite small, and tends to be 216 bytes or smaller.

emuiibo saves this data inside bin files at areas directory inside the amiibo's directory, and the bin file's name is the game's area access ID in hex format.

An access ID is a unique ID/number each game has for amiibo savedata, used to check if the game actually has savedata in an amiibo. Here's a list of games and their access IDs:

Per-game access IDs

Game	Application ID	Access ID
Splatoon 2	0x01003BC0000A0000	0x10162B00
Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove	0x010057D0021E8000	0x1016E100
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild	0x01007EF00011E000	0x1019C800
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate	0x01006A800016E000	0x34F80200
Splatoon 3	0x0100C2500FC20000	0x38600500
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening	0x01006BB00C6F0000	0x3B440400

Some of these IDs were obtained from switchbrew.

Usage and controlling

If you set up everything mentioned above, you're ready to use emuiibo ingame.

Tip: Enable it (emulation status) before you start a game, because it does not work in some games if you enable it after launching the game! It really depends on how the game uses amiibos internally, so this guarantees emuiibo will intercept the game.

To see if emuiibo is working ingame, check if emuiibo is intercepting the game when it's trying to access amiibos. If it's not, try launching the game with emuiibo enabled first.

To open the Tesla overlay, hold down L1 + DPAD-down and then press R3 (right stick). If you did it, the overlay will open on the left side of the screen. Now choose emuiibo.

You can see/control the following options in the top part of the overlay:

• Emulation status (on/off): when emuiibo's emulation status is on, it means that any game trying to access/read amiibos will be intercepted by emuiibo. When it's off, it means that amiibo services will work normally, and nothing will be intercepted. This is basically a toggle to globally disable or enable amiibo emulation.

• Active virtual amiibo: it's the amiibo which will be sent to the games which try to scan amiibos, if emulation is on. If the amiibo happens to have an image, this will be displayed in the top part of the overlay.

• Virtual amiibo status (connected/disconnected): when the active virtual amiibo is connected, it means that the amiibo is always "placed", as if you were holding a real amiibo on the NFC point and never moving it - the game always detects it. When it is disconnected, it means that you "removed" it, as if you just removed the amiibo from the NFC point. Some games might ask you to remove the amiibo after saving data, so you must disconnect the virtual amiibo to "simulate" that removal. This is a recent feature, since emuiibo tried to handle this automatically in previous versions, causing some games to fail.

• Random UUID (on/off): when a virtual amiibo is selected, this will toggle the random UUID option on the amiibo (see above), which will make emuiibo use randomized UUIDs any time a game accesses the amiibo.

In the main menu of the bottom part, You can browse virtual amiibos (and thus select them) through the (sub)directories in sd:/emuiibo/amiibo. You can also mark some of them as favorites, which can be easily accessed from a separate menu below.

After you selected an amiibo, you can see it's selected on top in the overlay and that it is connected. A virtual amiibo being connected is the equivalent of holding a real amiibo figurine/card on the NFC point. To disconnect the amiibo (the equivalent of removing a real amiibo from the NFC point), just select the same amiibo again.

To go back in the menus, just press B button.

Example of use:

1. Open the overlay and choose emuiibo
2. Enable emuiibo
3. Start the game
4. Navigate to the games NFC feature to use the amiibo and activate it
5. Open the overlay and choose your amiibo (the amiibo will then be connected).
6. The game should now register/make use of it
7. If the game tells you to remove the amiibo, disconnect it.

Boot procedure

• This is the list of actions emuiibo will automatically do when booting the console:

  • Console miis are saved at sd:/emuiibo/miis/<index>, both their name (in a text file since it might not be ASCII) and their data as a mii-charinfo.bin file.

  • Old amiibo formats (raw bin dumps and old virtual amiibo formats) are automatically converted to the modern format:

    • If sd:/switch/key_retail.bin is present, the bin dump's encrypted sections can be also used, which means that amiibo settings (mii, name, etc.) and game app-area (save-data), if present, are also extracted for the new format.

    • The bin dump file does not get removed, but it will get moved inside the modern amiibo format, along with the decrypted file.

Compiling

In order to compile emuiibo you need to setup Rust for Nintendo Switch development. You'll also need devkitPro (devkitA64 specifically), in order to compile the overlay.

With this requirements satisfied, simply clone (recursively) this repo and hit make

For developers

emuiibo hosts a custom IPC service, also named emuiibo, which can be used to control amiibo emulation by other homebrew tools.

The overlay's code serves a good example to see how to control emuiibo with libnx.

Credits

• Everyone who contributed to the original nfp-mitm project (and other forks): Subv, ogniK, averne, spx01, SciresM

• AmiiboAPI web API, which is used by emuiigen to get a proper, full amiibo list, in order to generate virtual amiibos.

• 3dbrew for their detailed documentation of amiibos, even though some aspects are different on the Switch.

• LoOkYe for writing emuiibo's wiki and helping with support.

• AD2076 and AmonRaNet for helping with the tesla overlay.

• AmonRaNet for all the work he put into the overlay.

• AmonRaNet, Impeeza, amazingfate, qazrfv1234, shadow2560 and SimoCasa for providing/helping with translations.

• Thog / Ryujinx devs for reversing mii services and various of its types.

• Citra devs for several amiibo formats used in 3DS systems.

• Manlibear for helping with improvements and development of former emutool.

• All the testers and supporters from my Discord server who were essential for making this project progress and become what it is now :)

License exemption

• The Ryujinx project/team is exempt from GPLv2 licensing, and may make use of emuiibo's code licensing it under their current license.