Skies of Arcadia HD v0.06 (June 27, 2020)

[Pyrii]

(10-11-2016, 01:24 PM)frozenwings Wrote: Thanks!

The portraits was sort of a lose/lose situation that we ultimately had to make a tough call on. We would have loved to stick with the originals, unfortunately we lack the skill to upscale them properly, so we were forced to use official artwork.

Well I'd assume that's what would be good to do if you can't upscale. So no argument from me.

(10-11-2016, 01:24 PM)frozenwings Wrote: We messed around with the audio, unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to play the sample audio files on pc. Which obviously means there isn't a way to convert the mp3s we have from the original (DC) game back to the .samp format. There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of work being done on it either. There looks to be a few different ways to replace DSP files on an image file, but those don't really help us out here.

We've both been pretty busy with other stuff too lately, so it's up in the air when we'll be back to doing anything new here.

Well I have literally spent an entire day looking into both the GC formats and the Original DC format.

There are official tools (dspadpcm) to encode dsp audio, even an audacity plugin. So finding an FLAC copy of the soundtrack and encoding some better versions of the intro/title/credits/ending music is easily possible. Though DSP audio supports higher sample rates, that will affect fidelity, not quality.

As for the other music. It appear the Dreamcast also used seperated audio files. I have a feeling this is due to the fact that music could change based on the situation, along with the fact this reduces filesize.

The real problem is that googling has given me rays of hope and taken them away again as lots of old tools and files specifically for SoA have been taken down. HCS64 has kept the official tools, but there's nothing specific for SoA. There's still a Model Viewer for the DC version. But eh.

I've spent all day on this, my brain hurts. I have some theories about the sample/info files, but it will require some work. And the magic/skill streams are pretty much the same on DC (4-bit, 22khz streams) so there's nothing to be gained there sadly.

[frozenwings]

If you manage to actually find a way to deal with those sample files, definitely let us know. I spent an entire day trying to find something out there to convert them to anything with pc playback, or a player specifically for .samp files, but I'm not sure if anything exists like that. It's such an obscure format.

[Pyrii]

Well I think trying to find existing tools is a lost cause, I aim to actually understand, document and possibly emulate those files myself.

I have a feeling the .samp file is just DSP audio without a header and that the .info file contains that information and mixing information.

Sadly my reverse engineering experience is most in data structures, I have no idea about making audio data usable. If the actual audio isn't dsp, we could be boned.

[frozenwings]

Just a heads up that I've semi-resumed work on this. I was working on a so called "Dumpedia" last time around while Bighead was finishing up some faces that we had dumped up to the point I was up to in my game.

The Dumpedia is basically a collection of save files (22 so far) and all the files dumped in between each save.

WARNING: The below images contain (minor) spoilers for the early game

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

List of all the saves (So far)

Inside each folder contains a folder of dumps between the current save file and the save file contained in the next folder down the list.

While I go through the game I also pull out (Copy to another folder) any noteworthy textures that I feel should be textured sooner rather than later. Mostly these are faces, weapons, clothing, UI, and text. So when we get around to retexturing a certain file, we can use windows search in the main dumpedia folder and find where the dump came from and then load the save file in that folder to see how the retexture looks in game. This also allows potential collaborators (if this ever happens) to look through the dumpedia to find textures they would like to contribute.

Either way, it's not a terrible amount of work and I want to finish my current playthrough (it's been around 5 years since I last finished an SoA run), so I might as well finish this dumpedia out while I play and maybe retexture a few things while I go. I can't speak for Bighead, but I hope he feels like retexturing more faces someday soon

[XSFOX]

Looking great man.

You probably already know but there is decent sized artwork in a JP artbook of a few crew members like Lawrence, Bella... A shame that all the crew members and a lot of even the side cast had official art drawn for them but searching for them on the internet now, except for like 10 or so images that are in a nice and gigantic resolutions the others are thumbnail worthy or JPG artifacted to hell.

Not sure if this is also a spoiler but

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

The credits sequence also has images for every crew member I believe? Possible some of those could be more adequate if resolution is high enough? They may not be fitting for portrait icons though.

[frozenwings]

Yeah, we found the best scans we could from the artbook for all of the main cast and the crew members.

If we could find someone to scan us some higher quality artwork, that would be awesome.

[gamemasterplc]

The NTSC-U code that unstretches the UI is the most recent post with a Gecko Code of the Unofficial Widescreen Development Topic.

[frozenwings]

That's awesome. Thanks for the heads up.

[newtype06]

I found your thread on Reddit, /u/Newtype06. I basically made an account just to reply. Feel free to message me on Reddit to verify.
I'd love to participate in any way I can.
I've been personally wanting to tackle this project and since you're far more experienced I'd rather just offer my services to you for free.
I've got somewhat of a short portfolio album on imgur to show some of what I'm able to do.

Skies of Arcadia is my all time #1 favorite RPG. It's the one RPG I always come back to, regularly. I try to beat it every couple years just because I love it.
The best part is that I'm now no longer single, and am getting married in 10 days or so.
I finally get to share this amazing adventure with someone else, my fiancee and soon to be wife.
Helping this project along would mean a fresh crisp HD experience for us both. 
Video games are special to us as they're one of the things we bonded over, especially sharing our favorites.  
She's played a few hours of it with me as is, but life happens (aka wedding stuff)
We just planned on coming back later when we're less busy and it'll be even cooler with us both being able to tell the differences between the originals and the HD textures.

Anyway, I'll do what I can if you need me. I know this project is gonna be a long haul, but I'm in it to win it.
I'd also like to add that I'm an extremely fast learner, so if I don't know something I can learn it quickly.

[frozenwings]

I'm not sure where we stand currently on accepting contributions quite yet. Initially we wanted to get as far as we could with the two of us, but like you mentioned, real life gets in the way. Neither one of us has done much over the past few months, even though we keep talking about wanting to do more.

I personally wouldn't mind taking contributions towards anything that isn't done, but Bighead would have to agree and obviously it would have to fit in with the original game style and match our personal styles as well. We try really hard to make it so these packs don't look like different art styles, despite having two or more people working on them.

We've got most of the UI done, and Bighead has done a lot of faces for Aika, Vyse, and Fina. Mostly what we would need done from this point is environment stuff, some of the ships, and weapons. I do have a nice, organized collection of all the dumps up to where I as at back in July, but I'm leery of posting them here since I'm pretty sure the original textures are copyrighted. If you come back later (after your wedding stuff) and are still interested and Bighead gives the okay, I can probably supply you with what I have so far of my Dumpedia (see above).

Also, congrats on the marriage. I got married last year so I know how busy it gets.

Good luck!

Edit - Also a big Gundam fan, so I like your name