Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project v2.3 (June 21, 2019)

[Matrix2525]

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Update (June 21, 2019)

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project version 2.3 is up and fixes a few oversights I made in the previous releases.  Turns out, several of the skybox textures had seams where they wrapped around, and even after upscaling, looked like a grainy picture of the sky rather than, well, a sky.  So, I redid those textures, fixed the seams, and applied some denoising, etc to clean them up. You can find a screenshot comparison showing off the issue and one of the fixed textures in my latest post.  Enjoy!


Previous Updates:

Spoiler:

Update (April 18, 2019)


Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project version 2.2 is here, and with this release, I consider the main texture pack to be complete and this is likely to be the final version.  It's been a longer project than I ever expected, but enjoyed working on it and experimenting with new tools, and I am pleased to be able to share it with the community here.  There are a handful of things the texture pack does not cover, inlcuding story subtitle text and other related story text, plus some other textures that are dynamically generated by the game.  Otherwise, I have combed over every bit of the game I could and believe about ninety-nine percent of everything else has been retextured.  You'll find the download and instructions below, so enjoy!





Update (April 12, 2019)



Version 2.1 is here, and with it comes all of the cutscene textures, chao world textures, all of the alternate kart race karts, and a bit more.  I also redrew various characters' skin textures after I noticed the upscaling made them look blotchy.  For a bit of fun, I also changed the resource pack logo to match the style of the SA2 Dreamcast VMU icon.  New screenshots can be found in my latest update post.  With this, I'm almost ready to call this texture pack complete.  The only major additions left are the alternate character costumes for Battle Mode.  Turns out, they're going to take a bit of work and elbow grease to make look good, which is why I decided to release this update now without them.  So, without further ado, download and enjoy!




Update (March 30, 2019)

Well, Version 2.0 is here, and I am officially changing the name to the Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project, as the texture pack is no longer just an update of the UI plus some extras, but an update of almost everything in the game, from character textures to stage and environment textures.  There's updated screenshots and info in my latest post, but the newest download link and changelog are just below.  The pack has gone from 771 textures to a whopping 4672 and almost 2GB.  Also, with version 2.0 of the pack, it is now a resource pack which requires a recent development version of dolphin.  Installation instructions are below, but if you'd like to use it with earlier versions of the emulator, just extract the archive anywhere and copy the GSN folder into the dolphin textures folder like usual.  With that, check out the changelog while you wait for the pack to download and enjoy!


Update (February 16, 2019)


With the first major update I've made to this texture pack almost a year after I started it, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to unclutter the info section of the post at the top here.  So, here's the revised texture pack info:

The Sonic Adventure 2 HD GUI+ texture pack aims to do what it says on the tin.  Most of the text, menus, and various user interface elements have either been redrawn from scratch, or upscaled and cleaned up where recreating those elements isn't feasible (mostly stage preview pictures).  As of version 1.5 of the texture pack, this includes most of the single player elements (menus, in-game HUD), the default theme background, and now most of the two player Battle Mode UI (menus and in-game HUD).  While I don't update this pack often, I eventually plan to have one more major update, possibly followed by a small update or two for anything I eventually miss.  Just don't ask me for a timetable (:p).  Here's a roadmap to give you an idea of what's left before I consider the pack "complete":

- Chao World (the bulk of the remaining textures.  this includes menus and UI elements for the Chao Lobby, Garden, Race and Karate minigames.  I have no plans to redo the Chao Kindergarten area currently)
- Capsule and Item Pickup Icons (includes pickups like ring and extra-life icons, plus capsule and animal pickups.  I currently have not managed to dump all of these textures)
- Story Mode Recap Backgrounds (all the backgrounds present during the story mode recap whenever you resume a story playthrough.  I need to start another file to dump the proper textures)
- Character Theme Backgrounds (if I actually complete the above points and don't feel entirely burned out by then, I might remake all of the character theme backgrounds... might)
- General Text and Subtitles (the bane of this texture pack.  All text descriptions and subtitles in the game are dumped essentially line-by-line as individual images and no single font sheet that I can easily recreate in HD.  I will basically stick to menu descriptions and other key text.  I will not be reworking subtitles or the story recap text.  I may also miss some obscure messages in the game.  Fun fact, I think the majority of textures included in this pack are glorious lines of high definition comic sans text... (ugh))

And if, by some chance you feel like reading through my original ramblings, they can be found in the spoiler below:



Information (July 09, 2018)

In my apparently never-ending quest of seeking out Wii and Gamecube games that have gotten little or no attention in the way of custom textures, my current focus has fallen over Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.  As ...flawed as the Sonic Adventure games are, they were still a fun part of my childhood and I enjoy revisiting them from time to time.  While Sonic Adventure 2 received an updated HD release on the PC a few years ago, it's a mixed bag of changes compared to SA2 Battle for the Gamecube, and at least in my research, it never got the community support that the PC version of the original Sonic Adventure found with the introduction of a comprehensive mod manager and some amazing texture and gameplay mods.  Also, in my search for custom textures for SA2B, I did find an older project here on the forums that went defunct years ago and only had a handful of textures redone.  Therefore, I wanted to try my hand at redoing the UI and possibly some additional textures, dragging the game's fidelity into the modern era.

And boy did this game's textures need work.  I hadn't played Sonic Adventure 2 in a good long while, but taking a look at the game now with the experience of updating textures for other games, one thing immediately stuck out for me:  SA2's textures are bad, really bad.  Specifically, all of the menu and UI textures.  Even for a Gamecube-era game (well, updated from the Dreamcast), the textures are  horribly compressed, bit-crushed, and oversaturated.  And part of the problem is that from a design standpoint, many of the menu and text textures are much too busy for their own good.  As an example of what I could extrapolate, the menu text on the title (and most other) menus consist of at least four different effects: a transparent white foreground, with an offset, black outline background layer with a transparent black fill, and the lines from that background layer showing as white where they intersect the foreground.  As compressed as these textures are, the result is a mottled mess.

So, in my work to update the menus and UI for this game, I did my best to retain the original style, while simplifying and cleaning up some of the busier elements, and taking a few stylistic liberties, given a much higher resolution to work with for each texture.  It should be apparent, but that means this texture pack is not a perfect 1:1 upscale, but an attempt at modernizing the textures while keeping the feel of the originals according to my own personal sense.  I bring this up because I know some people are "purists," and don't like even the most minor deviation from the original artistic style.  To those of you I say: there is no obligation to use this texture pack if you don't like it, or better yet, feel free to spend the time recreating those textures yourselves.  As a small concession and fun fact, however, the game uses straight-up Comic Sans for EVERY subtitle in the game, from menu descriptions to dialogue subtitles.  And, every subtitle description is its own unique texture file, probably accounting for about half of the 590 redone textures in the initial release of this pack.  As it seems so fittingly late 90's and "Sonic," I have stuck with the Comic Sans font for all of them.  You're welcome.

TLDR: AKA The Important Stuff

This texture pack currently recreates "most" of the main and single player menus for the game, as well as the single player gameplay HUD (Timer, Ring count, contextual button actions, results screen, etc).  I have been dumping textures using my own personal save file, currently playing the game.  This means that some elements are missing.  This includes some unique mission descriptions for various stages, and specifically the "Green Hill Zone" stage title card.  Eventually, I may find a 100% save file or ask for texture donations, but that's for the future.  Menu descriptions and subtitles specifically are challenging, since every single one is a unique file and doesn't just pull from a font sheet.  So, I've redone every description I have come across so far.  As the initial release stands, this texture pack does NOT include redone textures for any of the Two Player "Battle" menus or two player-specific HUD elements, nor any of the Chao World UI (minus the "stage" title card).  If I release any updates to this pack, these are probably next on the agenda (though the 2 Player menus have almost as many textures as I've redone already...).  Currently, it also does not include any of the menu character themes (aside from the default), nor the Story mode recap backgrounds.

I also probably spent too much time recreating recreating the Title Menu background, default menu theme, and Stage Select background from scratch.  In-game, these backgrounds are all loaded as smaller tiled pieces.  I'm not sure who might be interested, but as a bonus, I'm including all of these backgrounds stitched together and rendered at 4x resolution as a seperate download.  This also includes a straightened Space Colony ARK (which was rotated and skewed in the original textures).

And now for my usual disclaimer: this texture pack is provided "as is".  If any other members of the community would ever like to incorporate elements of this project into their own, I give my permission, provided I am credited for any of my work used.  Enjoy!

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Screenshots

View the full album [color=#3399ff]Here[/color]

Spoiler:

Before / After

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

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Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project Downloads

Important: This texture pack requires a [color=#3399ff]Development Version[/color] of Dolphin to work correctly.  Please use revision 5.0-4894 or newer.

Version 2.3 (06/21/2019)
Resource Pack: Download
*Important Note: This texture pack is a resource pack in compliance with Dolphin's new format.  Simply drop the .zip file into "*\Dolphin Emulator\ResourcePacks".  Load up Dolphin and go to "Tools - Resource Pack Manager".  Finally, highlight "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle HD Project" in the list and click on "Install"  When the title turns green, everything's set to go (make sure you have "load custom textures" checked in the graphics options).

Previous Versions

Spoiler:

Mediafire Folder: Link

Extra Downloads

HD Background Pack: [color=#3399ff]Download[/color]

Individual Images (Warning, these are pretty big)

Spoiler:

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Changelog

Version 2.3 (6/21/2019

- 6680 textures redrawn and upscaled
- Various skybox textures re-upscaled, edited, and fixed seams


Previous Changelogs

Spoiler:

Version 2.2 (4/18/2019
- 6680 textures redrawn and upscaled
- All Battle Mode alternate costumes upscaled and redrawn
  -  inc: Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, Rouge, Tails, Eggman
- Additional Battle Mode stage textures upscaled (previously missed)
- Assorted UI elements redrawn (previously missed)


Version 2.1 (4/12/2019)
- 6506 textures redrawon and upscaled
- All story cutscene textures redrawn and upscaled
- All unique Battle Mode stage textures redrawn and upscaled
  - inc: Grind Race, Pool Quest, Planet Quest, Pyramid Race
- Chao World textures upscaled and cleaned
  - inc: Kindergarten, Hero, Dark, and Neutral Gardens
         Chao Karate, Chao Race Lobby and Courses
- Many Chao textures (but not all, game appears to generate
    an infinite number of slightly different body textures)
- All alternate kart minigame karts upscaled and cleaned
  - inc: Sonic alt, Shadow alt, Knuckles alt, Eggman alt,
         Chao, Egg Robo
- Various character skin textures manually redrawn and fixed
    from rough upscale result
- Changed Resource Pack logo to look like the Dreamcast VMU Icon


Version 2.0 (3/30/2019)
- 4672 textures redrawn and upscaled
- Major characters and vehicles upscaled and redrawn (Standard Costumes)
  - inc: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Eggman, Rouge
         Amy, Metal Sonic, Tikal, Chaos 0, Chao Walker
         Dark Chao Walker, The Tornado, Egg Walker
         Big the Cat, Maria, Rouge Story Kart, Omochao
- Chao World UI (Lobby, Gardens, Race, Karate, Kindergarten)
- Boss Titles redrawn
- Pickup Icons redrawn (rings, 1-ups, etc)
- Collectibles Icons upscaled (animals, chaos drives)
- Additional UI elements
- Most Animal textures upscaled and cleaned
- Chaos Drive textures upscaled and cleaned
- Enemy textures upscaled and redrawn
- Mech Bosses (Bigfoot, Hotshot, Flying Dog) upscaled and cleaned
- King Boom Boo textures upscaled
- Chaos Emerald textures upscaled
- Standard Kart Race karts upscaled and redrawn
- Character Menu Themes upscaled and cleaned
  - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Eggman, Rouge, Amy
    Omochao, Secretary, Maria
- Story Recap Backgrounds redrawn
  - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Eggman, Rouge
- Most Stage and Environment textures upscaled, touched up, and redrawn
  - Inc: All single player stages, all boss stages,
         Downtown Race Battle Stage, Chao Lobby

Note: Many textures now sourced from the original Dreamcast release of SA2
      and blended with the SA2 Battle textures because they do not
      contain the compression artifacts of the Gamecube release.
      Dreamcast textures ripped by Shadowth117.

      Texture upscaling done with a combination of Waifu2x and ESRGAN

Version 1.5 (2/16/2019)
- 771 textures redrawn adn upscaled
- Most (98%+) Battle Mode UI textures redrawn and upscaled
- Most Battle Mode-specific HUD elements redrawn
- All Story Mode Chapter thumbnails remade
- Various minor errors in previously remade textures fixed

Version 1.0 (07/09/2018)
- Initial Release
- 590 Textures Redrawn and Upscaled
- Most of the Single Player UI redrawn and upscaled
- Title Screen background redrawn
- Default Menu theme redrawn
- Stage Select background redrawn

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Installation

1. Extract the archive to a convenient location
2. Copy the entire "GSN" folder into "'Username'\Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Load\Textures\"
3. Enable custom textures in Dolphin
  Open Dolphin -> Graphics Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Check Load Custom Textures
4. Start the game and enjoy!

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Bonus

Widescreen Geck Codes (Created by gamemasterplc)

16:9 Gecko Code Sonic Adventure 2 Battle NTSC-U:
040EDCA8 C3A20000
043B6520 3FE38E39
04121AD8 60000000
04121ADC 38600000
040329FC 60000000
04032A00 38600000
041219BC 60000000
041219C0 38600000
Fixes More Clipping

21:9 Gecko Code Sonic Adventure 2 Battle NTSC-U:
040EDCA8 C3A20000
043B6520 40155555
04121AD8 60000000
04121ADC 38600000
040329FC 60000000
04032A00 38600000
041219BC 60000000
041219C0 38600000
Fixes More Clipping.

48:9 Gecko Code Sonic Adventure 2 Battle NTSC-U:
040EDCA8 C3A20000
043B6520 40AAAAAB
04121AD8 60000000
04121ADC 38600000
040329FC 60000000
04032A00 38600000
041219BC 60000000
041219C0 38600000

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[Asylum96]

This is very nice work.
Do you think you can do Sonic Heroes as well? That game desperately needs some HD GUI.

[adalgarcia1997]

I do really appreciate your work, this game is one of my favorites and starting to playing it again in real HD it is beautiful. Thanks

[hyperspeed]

Gorgeous work @Matrix2525. 

+1 for Sonic Heroes and Sonic Adventure DX HD Gui. 

[hyperspeed]

The dl link seems to be dead so I reuploaded it!
Mirrors

[Matrix2525]

@hyperspeed, I'm not sure if it was a hiccup with you and mediafire, but I double checked all my links for this pack and the others I have up. They're all live and download fine for me, so you might want to take another look. Otherwise, glad you and everyone else who've downloaded the pack are enjoying the textures. Unfortunately, I haven't had any real time to devote to making more or do much on the forums here aside from lurk occasionally. I would like to update the pack again when I can, but until then, I'll at least make sure the download links keep working.

[hyperspeed]

I dunno what it is but the link http://www.mediafire.com/file/7e3q2ab3c1...DS.7z/file

Doesn't work for me via Google Chrome but via Jdownloaded it works.

[Matrix2525]

Well, that's more than a little strange. I took another look, and it looks like mediafire's url structure has changed a bit since I put up my original links. I already changed the link in the topic post, but does this one take you to the file?

http://www.mediafire.com/file/7e3q2ab3c1...1.0+DDS.7z

[hyperspeed]

Well, that's more than a little strange.  I took another look, and it looks like mediafire's url structure has changed a bit since I put up my original links.  I already changed the link in the topic post, but does this one take you to the file?

http://www.mediafire.com/file/7e3q2ab3c1...1.0+DDS.7z

Yes, now it's fine, thanks for take your time to fix it!

[Matrix2525]

Well, for everyone still interested in this texture pack, have I got a surprise for you... and update!  I present version 1.5, which I'm dubbing "the Battle Update" (...because why not).  I've gone through and updated the vast majority of the Battle Mode UI and related textures, including Battle Mode specific HUD elements such as the "round won" star icons.  I've also gone back and fixed up a few errors I noticed on textures I previously reworked.  And finally (for now), I went through and updated every Story Mode Chapter thumbnail with captures from high resolution dreamcast footage.  Only a few thumbnails differ in any significant way from the originals where camera angles were changed between the original build of the game used and the final release version.  So, without further ado, here's some screens:

Spoiler:

    
    
    

and the download:

Version 1.5 DDS: [color=#3399ff]Download[/color]

The original post has been updated with the changelog as well.  Enjoy!