Selfboot Inducer is a program developed by burnerO to make it easier to create a selfbooting compilation disc from many different applications, demos, emulators and games on the Dreamcast. Selfboot Inducer automatically creates a disc image using the DreamInducer loader.

One of the nice things about DreamInducer is the fact that it supports custom themes. Once you create a custom theme for DreamInducer, using the tutorial developed by Nyarlathotep, you can follow this tutorial to package it up as an SBT file, which are the archives that Selfboot Inducer uses to add the theme to your disc compilation.

To follow this tutorial, you will need the following items:

• A DreamInducer Theme
• A ZIP program (WinZIP or WinRAR)

Creating the Appropriate Directories

Begin by creating directories. The first directory you need to create is “Inducer”. Then, you need to create a directory called “Themes”. Then, create the directory in which you plan on putting your theme images.

So far, your directory structure should look like this:

/Inducer/
/Inducer/Themes/
/Inducer/Themes/YourTheme/

Now, if you have decided to include an intro movie clip, you need to place your Intro.dxi file in the “Inducer” root directory.

Next, place all of your dxt files in the /Inducer/Themes/ directory. You should also place your “Loading.dxi” file in this directory.

Also, make sure you have a Font.png file in that same directory (unless you gave it a different path in your dxt files). If you want people to see a screenshot when they are in the main menu, and they scroll down to the different options, then you also need to make sure that you include the following files in your /Inducer/Themes/ directory: Apps.png, Demos.png, Emus.png and Games.png. You should also create a screenshot for exiting the menus and call it “Exit.png”. It should be in this directory as well.

So, now your directory structure should look like this:

/Inducer/
/Inducer/Intro.dxi (optional)
/Inducer/Themes/
/Inducer/Themes/Apps.dxt
/Inducer/Themes/Demos.dxt
/Inducer/Themes/Emus.dxt
/Inducer/Themes/Games.dxt
/Inducer/Themes/Mainmenu.dxt
/Inducer/Themes/Apps.png
/Inducer/Themes/Demos.png
/Inducer/Themes/Emus.png
/Inducer/Themes/Games.png
/Inducer/Themes/Font.png (unless you have changed the directory structure of this file in your dxt files)
/Inducer/Themes/Exit.png

Now, you need to add your own files. Place all of your new images in your own directory (called “YourTheme” for the purposes of this tutorial). You should at least have the following files in this directory: “Main.png” (or whatever you call your main image), and “Loading.png”. If you choose to have multiple images (Fore, Back, Time, etc.) this is where they go as well.

Double-Checking

Make certain that all of your dxt files refer to the correct directory paths. Remember that “/Inducer/” on your harddrive is the same as “/cd/” in your dxt and dxi files.

Compressing the Theme Package

Now, you are ready to create your SBT. Simply zip the Inducer directory using WinZip (or a comparable program). Make sure that your program will retain the directory structure within the zip file. This is extremely important. If the directory structure is not maintained, then the file will not extract properly when Selfboot Inducer tries to extract it. Then, rename your “Inducer.zip” to “DreamInducer_YourThemeName.sbt”, replacing “YourThemeName” with the actual name of your theme.

If you need more information on compressing your archive, please visit my tutorial on creating SBI files. There is detailed information (with illustrations) on how to compress these archives located within that tutorial.

Testing Your New Theme

If you want to test your SBT, you can use Selfboot Inducer to extract it, along with one app, one demo, one emu, and one game. Then, use your CD burning program to burn everything inside the “C:/SBInducr/Inducer/” directory onto a multisession disc. Many CD Burning programs do not support extended filenames, so if you are planning on using this method to test your themes, make sure that none of the files or directories within your theme are longer than eight characters (plus the three characters for the file extension).

Then, use DemoMenu to boot your Dreamcast. Once the DC has booted, remove the DemoMenu disc, and insert your theme test disc. Hit “A” to go to the parent directory, and then go to “1st_read.bin” and hit “A” to load DreamInducer. If you do not have a DemoMenu disc, already, you should create one for this purpose. It will be extremely useful in the long run. You can get the necessary files from Consolevision or DCEmulation.

You can use this method 9 or 10 times on each disc. Once your sessions begin to get into the double digits, it will no longer read the correct session.

Side Notes

Make sure that none of your filenames contain hyphens or spaces. These will be changed to underscores when the disc is burnt, so your dxt files will not be referring to the correct file locations when the theme is being used.

Make sure that your theme archive ends with the SBT extension, otherwise it will not be extracted in the correct order.

Make sure that your theme archive filename begins with the words “DreamInducer”. I don’t know for sure if this will affect the way it is extracted, but it appears to.