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

[frozenwings]

Yes, I've read dev posts before stating that dolphin itself assigns the file ids when dumping. Something to do with the type of texture is being used by the game itself, and the final number in the file Id identifies the texture, usually a 5,9 or 0 in this last case. I believe it was files ending in 9 (those used for the most part by dolphin when playing xenoblade) are the types that often have multiple ids for the same texture. I'll have to dig through some posts to find my source though when I get home.

Eh, I can't find the post. I'm not sure if all of the above is 100% true. It's been a year or two since I read into it, so I maybe mixing some up some details. The only thing I'm sure of is that dolphin itself assigns the ids and there is more than likely not hundreds of instances of the same texture on the game disc itself

[Flanqer]

Incidentally, I recently resumed playing Xenoblade after a long absence. (Distracted mostly by Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate; meant to play it for just a few hours to see how it looked, wound up playing for over 700 hours.) I was going to start working on the maps again, but I see someone else has been doing them so I'll focus on other stuff for now.

One thing I've been working on is a massive reorganization of the texture dumps, both Messiahgov's and my own. I'm giving each texture a semi-descriptive name, dropping all the duplicates, and recording all the IDs for each texture in a text file. For example, "Melia-torso-A-1--256x256" would be torso armor for Melia, style "A", color variant "1", and it's 256x256 pixels. "Melia-torso-A-2--256x256" would be another color variant ("2") of the same armor. I considered using the actual names of the armor pieces, but this scheme ensures the variations will be grouped together, and in some cases there are several "different" pieces of armor that look identical. Including the original image dimensions in the filename makes it easier to tell whether retextures have been scaled correctly and consistently. It also makes it easier to spot whether the User Pack is missing anything from a group of related textures, like the GUI elements for the skills screen.

My eventual goal is to write installer scripts that will do the reverse: take an HD retexture named "Melia-torso-A-1--256x256.png" and copy it to SX4P01_3d9f0e40_14.png, SX4P01_8cb99b09_14.png, SX4P01_9e86e2b3_14.png, and SX4P01_cbb52689_14.png (or SX4E01_ for those of us with the US version of the game), placing them in the right folder. It would make the User Pack smaller for downloading and easier to examine. I also want to let the user choose which optional retextures will be installed (like Wii vs. PS3 vs. Xbox buttons).

[Bighead]

Updated the affinity bars because some of them were slightly lopsided. Also an experiment with Upper Bionis, I used in game screenshots for the icons. I'm not sure if I like them, but if others do then eventually I may do them all. Ma'crish and Talyonyth are missing because I already sent them to Colony 6. I've also uploaded the GIMP project files if anyone wants to mess around with them.
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/HPSev7p.png
Affinity Bars/Icons: http://www.mediafire.com/download/co0mhchtq4pb109/Affinity_v2.zip
GIMP Files: http://www.mediafire.com/download/2o45hisjwdheg9h/Affinity+GIMP+Files.7z

(04-20-2014, 11:28 AM)Flanqer Wrote: I was going to start working on the maps again, but I see someone else has been doing them so I'll focus on other stuff for now.

That's my bad, your maps of Colony 6 and Tephra Cave made me lust for more HD maps so I had an immediate need for them. I tried to model my work from yours, you set a standard that I tried hard to replicate. At first I was frustrated, wondering how the $%@ did he do this? I failed with Bionis Leg and Colony 6, the edges are pretty jagged and to me they are ugly. Ether Mine is when I finally started to meet the standard, I spent almost two days on that tiny area learning new methods to improve. Then I began to realize how bad the default maps really are. Starting with Makna Forest, accuracy became a high priority and I found myself running along every single wall in every area since then, adjusting all the borders to the minimap cursor. Simply tracing the old maps no longer became an option, they gradually get worse as the game goes on.

There are still a few areas left: Agniratha‎, Bionis' Interior, Central Factory‎, Mechonis Core, whatever else I might be missing. My maps of Bionis Leg and Colony 6‎ are pretty shoddy because they were my first works, they also need to be remade. If you still have an interest and want to create more, it would definitely speed up the process of getting them all done. Just let me know which ones you would want to work on to avoid us ending up doing the same areas. I'm currently working on Mechonis Field, and since I already have half of Prison Island done that's the only other one I really want to do.

[Flanqer]

(04-21-2014, 12:15 AM)Bighead Wrote: (...) I failed with Bionis Leg and Colony 6, the edges are pretty jagged and to me they are ugly. Ether Mine is when I finally started to meet the standard, I spent almost two days on that tiny area learning new methods to improve. Then I began to realize how bad the default maps really are. (...)

There are still a few areas left: Agniratha‎, Bionis' Interior, Central Factory‎, Mechonis Core, whatever else I might be missing. My maps of Bionis Leg and Colony 6‎ are pretty shoddy because they were my first works, they also need to be remade.

In that case maybe I'll try to finsh the Bionis Leg map, I think it was about half-finished before I got distracted, and then I can think about doing some of the others.

Yeah, I noticed the accuracy problem when I did Tephra Cave, where the soldier warns you about the monsters that react to sound. Like you, I had to run around the edges to figure out exactly where to draw the lines, but I only did it for that one small area. Sometimes you have to strike a balance between making it more accurate and finishing it in a reasonable amount of time.

[StripTheSoul]

Heya guys, I only recently realized that this game seems to have profited from recent changes (especially the sound) and now even seems to be playable on my old machine.
So, I just wanted to try hi res textures with Dolphin for the first time (last time I was fiddling with those, it was in the good old N64 emu days ^^). I got everything downloaded and renamed and all and they do load. However, some of them seem to be corrupted; see image below. I'm sorry if it's something that's already been fixed somewere in this thread, it's a tad long.
Maybe there's a simple graphics setting I need to check. I've tried quite a few already, though.
I should add: Everything seems to be working fine on older Dolphin builds (like Dolphin-x64-3.5-1124 which often use because of its old audio system). But those older versions don't work so well with the game otherwise. Now I'm using Rodolfo's 'DX9-final-build', but I also tried the most recent Master Build, same result.

[narcku]

+Melia (Hair)

If Melia were Homs:

I tried, but it didn't turn out too well
If anyone's good at texturing/photoshop wants to try, I've got the IDs for Melia's headgear(Not all, but most).

[Bighead]

(04-21-2014, 01:57 AM)Flanqer Wrote: Sometimes you have to strike a balance between making it more accurate and finishing it in a reasonable amount of time.

Haha yeah I have that problem... Sometimes I get carried away and obsess over every little detail. Valak Mountain and Sword Valley were the worst. I probably spent as much time on those 2 as all the other ones put together. I hated the original Valak Mt. map. Every border was off just by a little bit, and they didn't even put borders around some of the areas. To me it was hard to read. And Sword Valley, well... it just had so much stuff in it.

(04-21-2014, 02:06 AM)StripTheSoul Wrote: Heya guys, I only recently realized that this game seems to have profited from recent changes (especially the sound) and now even seems to be playable on my old machine.
So, I just wanted to try hi res textures with Dolphin for the first time (last time I was fiddling with those, it was in the good old N64 emu days ^^). I got everything downloaded and renamed and all and they do load. However, some of them seem to be corrupted; see image below. I'm sorry if it's something that's already been fixed somewere in this thread, it's a tad long.
Maybe there's a simple graphics setting I need to check. I've tried quite a few already, though.
I should add: Everything seems to be working fine on older Dolphin builds (like Dolphin-x64-3.5-1124 which often use because of its old audio system). But those older versions don't work so well with the game otherwise. Now I'm using Rodolfo's 'DX9-final-build', but I also tried the most recent Master Build, same result.

If you are using the DDS version, delete and use the PNG version. If you are using the PNG version, there are 14 DDS files in it. Those grass textures are one of them. I have converted these textures to PNG and fixed a few things in them. Search the texture patch folder for "DDS" and delete the 14 textures and replace with these ones. Hopefully that's the issue.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/uuvr66zjaej44vb/Bionis+Leg+PNG.zip

(04-21-2014, 03:23 AM)narcku Wrote: I tried, but it didn't turn out too well
If anyone's good at texturing/photoshop wants to try, I've got the IDs for Melia's headgear(Not all, but most).

You are too hard on yourself, I like every one of your hair mods. I personally think it looks at least 10x better than the original. It makes her hair look very detailed. The only thing that looks slightly off is the bright glow in the center of her bangs. If you could make that a bit more silver like the rest of her head it would be perfect.

[frozenwings]

Hey, Bighead. I sent you a PM if you want to please check that out and get back with me. Thanks.

[poweredbykimchi]

(04-21-2014, 03:23 AM)narcku Wrote: I tried, but it didn't turn out too well

They look good. I don't know what method you're using, but as long as it looks sharper, it works.

[StripTheSoul]

Quote:If you are using the DDS version, delete and use the PNG version. If you are using the PNG version, there are 14 DDS files in it. Those grass textures are one of them. I have converted these textures to PNG and fixed a few things in them. Search the texture patch folder for "DDS" and delete the 14 textures and replace with these ones. Hopefully that's the issue.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/uuvr66zjaej44vb/Bionis+Leg+PNG.zip

I was using the DDS version. Now I tried the PNG version, but it's even worse: Firstly, there's even more corrupted textures and secondly, it totally kills my performance. It took about 2 minutes to get ingame and then I had 1 fps ^^
Dunno if that's to be expected with my specs or if it has something to do with the issue that's also messing with the textures (the game otherwise runs at a pretty stable 30 fps).
Strangely, in the PNG-version, the options menu is without corruption whereas it isn't in the DDS version...

BTW, I don't think it has anything to do with the textures themselves, because I'm also having issues with the hi res textures for Super Mario Sunshine. They also work fine on the older Dolphin version. So I guess there's just an issue with the way newer Dolphin versions are handling the texture loading. Or do you guys not have any issues with newer versions of Dolphin?