[HD Texture Project] Xenoblade Chronicles (v5.0U - May 17, 2014)

[narcku]

(04-19-2014, 07:07 PM)Bighead Wrote: @narcku - That looks great narcku. I'm wondering... which point in the game you are at with Alvis? In makna forest, there is a small segment where Alvis is in your party with Shulk to battle a Telethia. No HD portrait was ever done for that fight, and I don't have the IDs because for awhile I was dumping and deleting periodically and it didn't cross my mind at the time. I would like to make a portrait for that segment, so if you or anyone has the IDs then I want them.

Yes, that's the one.
Actually, I've already included those portraits in the last link, though I only use same picture for all combat portraits, since I could only find one official image of Alvis

I will put the original Alvis portraits in the attachment.
Also, I'm playing using English voice, so the IDs might be different for Japanese voice.

[Bighead]

Oh nice, one less task . I'll see if I can edit it for high tension like I did for Melia.

Edit: narcku can you test these for me if you can? Your portraits were using a resolution of 176x152, so I remade them with a higher quality image to match the size of Echoes (348x300). Also, we shouldn't replace the "sad" portraits. There is no matching art for it, but without it in game you won't know if an ally needs encouraged because the music doesn't always play. Guess it doesn't really matter much for Alvis since it's one battle, but for the sake of integrity.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/bv5y54b35endg9f/AlvisPortrait.zip

[narcku]

(04-19-2014, 08:10 PM)Bighead Wrote: Edit: narcku can you test these for me if you can? Your portraits were using a resolution of 176x152, so I remade them with a higher quality image to match the size of Echoes (348x300). Also, we shouldn't replace the "sad" portraits. There is no matching art for it, but without it in game you won't know if an ally needs encouraged because the music doesn't always play. Guess it doesn't really matter much for Alvis since it's one battle, but for the sake of integrity.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/bv5y54b35endg9f/AlvisPortrait.zip

Yes, I forgot about that since I put the files together in a hurry, but like I said, it's because I couldn't find any other image.
I actually didn't replace any "sad" portrait in my own game. I'll leave it to you to sort it out.

Yeah, the portraits I use are 176x152 (Not Echoes' I think). And to be honest, anything bigger than that wouldn't really make much of a difference, since the original art isn't even that high res, so unless you redraw it, it will be simple upscaling.

[Bighead]

I forgot to thank you for the names in the first place, so thank you. The ID in question is SX4P01_4bf95483_9 because it has a sad face in the original that you sent me. Also, I didn't upscale just found a higher quality pic: http://nintendoartwork.com/gallery/xenoblade/xenoblade-alvis-1.png

Also those portraits are Echoes' but they are his first version. He released a v2 with higher quality pics but I failed to update the old portraits before compiling v4.5U. This is fixed for the next. There are a few portraits in the pack using these versions, but not many.

[narcku]

(04-19-2014, 10:27 PM)Bighead Wrote: I forgot to thank you for the names in the first place, so thank you. The ID in question is SX4P01_4bf95483_9 because it has a sad face in the original that you sent me. Also, I didn't upscale just found a higher quality pic: http://nintendoartwork.com/gallery/xenoblade/xenoblade-alvis-1.png

Yes, like I said, I made that error when preparing the files for upload. My own game doesn't have that texture replaced.
Well, that's odd. That's the one I'm using too and I was under the impression that it was already upscaled, my bad
I can't test it now, maybe later or tomorrow.

(04-19-2014, 10:27 PM)Bighead Wrote: Also those portraits are Echoes' but they are his first version. He released a v2 with higher quality pics but I failed to update the old portraits before compiling v4.5U. This is fixed for the next. There are a few portraits in the pack using these versions, but not many.

Maybe, I don't know the details, that's why I couldn't say for sure.
All I remember is that the pack I use is quite outdated (certainly not 4.5) because I dl-ed it long ago.
I just leech the files directly whenever someone contributes, because the thought of having to download the whole pack again is just..

Anyways, I'm only here to share the files, so in case I make a small error in organizing the files, I expect the others to know what they're doing.

[frozenwings]

(04-19-2014, 07:07 PM)Bighead Wrote: @frozenwings - It took awhile but I got them all sorted and updated to v2 of Echoes' portraits. I made a script that can filter out files by searching for an exact size in bytes so that sped things up. Your dumps were extremely helpful because its 1000's of IDs that didn't need to be found again, and I basically just picked up where you left off with the rest of the stuff as well (menu palette icons, skill tree bars, quest icons, etc..). I'm also searching for gem crafting stuff like "Heat" and "Mega Heat", the "New" text in tutorials, and a few other things. I don't believe you screwed anything up, everything was pretty consistent from the start and quite frankly you did a tremendous job. It was actually your work, Echoes' portraits, and Flanqers HD maps of Colony 6 and Tephra Cave that really got me interested in updating this project to hopefully near completion (in terms of missing IDs for existing textures + some new stuff). Add to that a love for game modding, and also when I started to realize there were some IDs not in the pack and maps starting with Bionis Leg were back to being pixelated. I was now too spoiled, and started dumping textures from that point and learned how to use GIMP. I've gotten a lot better since I started, my only previous experience with image editing was hours and hours of Mario Paint back in the 90s. I can draw really well with my hands, but this is the first time doing it in a computer program. It's actually much easier.

The only major difference between v1 and 2 of Echoes portraits that was slightly confusing was the reversal of Shulk, I just had to take that into consideration when organizing them. Converting them all to v2 did increase the overall filesize of the texture pack but only by a few 100 MB, which is well worth it to have the best quality versions IMO. And you are correct when you said "I'm sure you're familiar with the process by now, reloading different maps, entering different areas from other areas, etc... It gets old and there is no way to know if you're missing any." Haha, all too true.... I also noticed u can get different names for the menu palette just by saving the game, shutting it down, and loading up the game. And walking through a door from one area to the next is != to fast traveling between them. Loading a save state can also sometimes seem to generate IDs as well, but I'm not going that far as to saving/loading constantly.

So far the entire pack that I have yet to upload is 1.22GB uncompressed, which isn't too huge considering modern hard drive capacity. Yes there are no low quality versions in the pack. That pic I linked from before was from the old texture pack forum and I was just using it as an example for Shulk's reversal. I have everything pretty well organized ATM to avoid personal confusion, so far I'm up to 17,164 textures broken into 32 category folders. I only have a few areas left in the game to finish, and a few maps left to make (and 2 to remake), and probably some new IDs to find along the way. It shouldn't be much longer before I put a new pack online, hopefully no more than 2-3 weeks. All depends on how much free time I have, this project has been gobbling it up.

I also found a number of textures in the pack that were not actually HD or even a remake for that matter so I removed them. I made sure to triple check that they were indeed the original dumps before making this decision. If they are in the texture pack, then they will never get dumped for those in the future that may want to make HD versions. None of them were major, and were mostly paletted textures (the _9 suffix) that would probably require 100s-1000s of variations anyway.

Haha, I too haven't really done any editing of any sort. Only, I still suck at it :p. I figured out how to mess around in GIMP and some how managed a few decent simple textures for things that were bothering me (quest menu icons, a couple ability icons, etc.), but yeah, I needed people with talent like you and Flanqer (and Narcku here) to help finish the good stuff. At the time, there wasn't a whole lot of interest while I was dumping and people only started showing up a month or two after I was already getting burned out with the game. So I basically was stuck mostly using previously existing retextures.

Also, here's a list of factors that I suspect of having influence on different IDs -

-Weather (clear, rain, storms, fog, extreme heat, blizzard, meteor showers)
-Night/Day
-Loading screen
-different areas of the world
-different locations/landmarks in an area
-story events
-returning to a previously visited area later on in the story
-combat
-quick traveling
-reloading

Also, not all the screens are linked. For example, just because you have a new set of main menu IDs, doesn't necessarily mean the quest menu will also have a new set of ideas. Sometimes you'll find an entire new set by coincidence, but yeah. It's completely insane and random.

Anyway, I think I'm going to hold off on playing for a few weeks until you release the new updated pack. Hopefully you'll get your maps in there too, I'm really looking forward to those. Also, Narcku's contributions will be nice too. I'm going to start following this thread closely again, very interesting and good stuff going on.

[narcku]

Ok, I just tested Bighead's Alvis portraits in Makna forest.
No problem, normal and tension portraits are working correctly.
Thanks.
Here's a screenshot of how it looks in game(I flipped the portrait back though, just personal preference )

It was quite troublesome trying to get the tension to high with Monado III

(04-20-2014, 03:36 AM)frozenwings Wrote: Also, here's a list of factors that I suspect of having influence on different IDs -

-Weather (clear, rain, storms, fog, extreme heat, blizzard, meteor showers)
-Night/Day
-Loading screen
-different areas of the world
-different locations/landmarks in an area
-story events
-returning to a previously visited area later on in the story
-combat
-quick traveling
-reloading

I'm not 100% sure, but I think loading a save(from title screen, after starting dolphin) which uses Japanese voice also causes the game to use different ID.

[Bighead]

@frozenwings - Thanks for the info, I'll keep that in mind when I go all out ID hunting (bookmarking your post). For now I'm just gathering what I find as I make my way through the game, making sure to pop through the menus every so often just in case more stuff gets dumped. And yes, the maps will be in there. The rest seem pretty easy to make, and brushing up a few things on the finished ones shouldn't take long.

@narcku - Nice, it looks good too. The reason I flipped it around is because everybody else faces to the right, and OCD wouldn't allow any other way.

I discovered that scaling everything to a multiple of 4 also fixes a few anomalies such as this:

This only happens in OGL to my understanding, but shouldn't anymore with any textures using the new dimensions.

And last, I took the time today to finish a small side project I started about 2 weeks ago.
It uses the HD bars and icons by whoever it was that did them for the characters.

Edit: Updated the bars because some of them had the wrong rotation and were slightly lopsided. Also added an experimental set of icons for Upper Bionis. I dunno if I like them, they use in game screenshots. But if others do I'll eventually do the other areas as well.
HD Affinity Bars: http://i.imgur.com/9TKZKj5.gif
Upper Bionis: http://i.imgur.com/HPSev7p.png
http://www.mediafire.com/download/co0mhchtq4pb109/Affinity_v2.zip

[frozenwings]

Oh nice. I was wondering if anyone would attempt to retexture the affinity bars. I tried a couple times and they always looked bad. I still have the dumps on my pc. Yours look really nice; makes me impatient to play through again.

I also noticed a couple placeholder icons I created when in first started working on this stuff made it into the official pack. The collectibles and gems I was never sure about, more or less showing off some ideas I had. I guess if people are satisfied with them, that's fine though.

Sorry for any typos, using my phone and it is terrible.

[Flanqer]

(04-20-2014, 03:36 AM)frozenwings Wrote: Also, here's a list of factors that I suspect of having influence on different IDs -

-Weather (clear, rain, storms, fog, extreme heat, blizzard, meteor showers)
-Night/Day
-Loading screen
-different areas of the world
-different locations/landmarks in an area
-story events
-returning to a previously visited area later on in the story
-combat
-quick traveling
-reloading

I've observed a few more things about texture files:

- Two files containing the same texture aren't always identical. They look identical, the pixels are identical, but for some reason they're stored in the file differently. The System, Save, and Load icons are the worst for this. Because of this I can't rely on a simple file comarison to identify the duplicates, I have to use a program designed for comparing images.

- Sometimes two files appear to contain the same texture, but differing in some way that's clearly unintended. For example, in two textures of what appear to be the same rocky cliff face, a few random pixels are different, but not enough to be noticeable when you're playing the game. Or two of the arm armor textures are essentially the same image and have the same height & width, but one is blurred and the other is sharp.

- Today I discovered two texture files that gave the SAME ID. I only found it because I was processing two different texture dumps; if I'd just done one big continuous dump, there'd have been only one file with that filename. I've attached them below (renamed to keep them separate). One is a mask for Reyn's Guardis Helm, the other is a mask for Dunban's Climb Gauntlets. They differ in the size and shape of the cutout, but both have the ID SX4E01_3e8a4d63_0. This means it's impossible to retexture those masks to have a smoother edge along the cutout.

I'm strongly tempted to study the Dolphin source code and figure out how Dolphin assigns these IDs to the textures. I'm sure it must be done by Dolphin, not the game itself.