I had a thought...

[StolenBattenberg]

Today I started work on a theory I had a while back, it came to me a while back when I saw a post with information on the King's Field texture format, and how to convert images found in the PS1 games into standard .TIM format, this is the topic - https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/bbs/ind...19#msg6419

In this thread is a download to documents explaining the differences in file format (not much really)

if the process could be reversed; This, in theory might allow us to re-texture enemies, on the original PS1 version. (Haven't found level textures, they've got to be hiding somewhere though...)

Now I'm not sure if this would work, I do know people have successfully replaced textures on Playstation games before though.

Textures would still be limited to there original size, but you could probably fit in some more color etc (keeping in mind the limitations)

This has been the only way I've thought of, other than recreating the game (possible, but if you took the time to do it properly, you'd never want to play it again...) to refresh King's Field, if we can find the terrain textures it would be even more better.

Unfortunately, I can't extract the King's Field ISOs past the first game. the one released in Japan only, each time I get invalid MS.DOS function errors -- so for me this is but a dream.

[HwitVlf]

I think a King's Field mod/hack would be awesome, and from a technical standpoint, totally doable.

The "invalid MS DOS" message happens when you try to drag a STR (Movie) or XA format sound file off the disk. Both those file types store sound data in a special way- similar to a music CD. Windows isn't designed to handle data written in that format so it makes an error. On the King's Field(US) games, the ".S" files in the "OP" and "STR" folders are STR format movies.

Most of the textures in KF1&2(US) are in FDAT.T and RTIM.T. The ones I looked at were in a TIM format, but the header had been modified so they couldn't be extracted/edited by TIM tools. But, they have still have the palette with the image data below, and that's all you would need to edit for a mod. It would just take thinking up some fancy ways to insert the edited textures.

If you are actually interested in making a texture mod yourself, I would see if I can figure out an easy way for you to edit them.

This is a false color view of RTIM.T from KF2(US) that shows the texture image with the header/palette above.

[HwitVlf]

I just remembered this screen shot from the "see-through wall" patch for KF(Jap). It just replaced the normal wall textures with modified grid texture. ‎  Same procedure as a texture mod.

[StolenBattenberg]

I think a King's Field mod/hack would be awesome, and from a technical standpoint, totally doable.

The "invalid MS DOS" message happens when you try to drag a STR (Movie) or XA format sound file off the disk. Both those file types store sound data in a special way- similar to a music CD. Windows isn't designed to handle data written in that format so it makes an error. On the King's Field(US) games, the ".S" files in the "OP" and "STR" folders are STR format movies.

Most of the textures in KF1&2(US) are in FDAT.T and RTIM.T. The ones I looked at were in a TIM format, but the header had been modified so they couldn't be extracted/edited by TIM tools. But, they have still have the palette with the image data below, and that's all you would need to edit for a mod. It would just take thinking up some fancy ways to insert the edited textures.

If you are actually interested in making a texture mod yourself, I would see if I can figure out an easy way for you to edit them.

I'm totally interested in creating a texture mod, I've always been into editing PS1 games, and King's Field was always a favorite due to the fact it's re-playable so many times, and doesn't have many people editing for it already.

Thanks for telling me about the .S files, I had no idea, always figured it's where they stored that king's field hidden data.

Guess rather than extracting the .ISO/.BIN and .CUE, I could just get an ISO injector, to put the files back into the .ISO...

King's Field, the first one in Japan -- As I understand used the normal .tim format, rather than the edited one we see in future games, the only files I've not found are textures for enemies and objects etc, but wall textures are out in the open.

What I'd like to do some day, is create an Emulation framework around each of the King's Field games, which would make a direct emulation for them, but not other games, so there wouldn't be one single bug...

I recently played through the US King's Field I using Petes OpenGL2 plugin, for EPSXE I was able to use an Anti-Aliasing shader, it made everything look a bit more pretty, so combining that with the textures would be great.

[StolenBattenberg]

I tried messing with the japan one, unfortunately, I couldn't re-insert any files using any TIM editing programs, un-matched byte size or something like that, which is understandable, but irritating...

I guess I'd have to re-insect them using hex-editing, which I'm not skilled at, not one bit since I only just started with it.

[HwitVlf]

It should be doable without a hex editor. There are only a few things that could cause a wrong file size error when you re-insert a TIM: the image's dimension have been changed, bits-per-pixel has been changed (16 color to 256 color etc), or the number of palettes attached to the TIM has been changed. All of those problems can be fixed by using the right procedure. ‎ 

I usually use TimViewer and the procedure I use is:

- Drag the file with the TIMs off the disk (MIX.TIM in KFJ) to the desktop. You can also use ‎  CDMage to extract the file from the BIN/CUE by opening the cue, then right-clicking on the file to extract and ‎  select "Extract Files" > "Extract" ‎ 
- In TimViewer use "File > Scan Raw File" to scan MIX.TIM
- In TimViewer use "File > Save Multiple Files" to ‎  extract all TIMs from MIX.TIM
- In TimViewer use "Convert > TIM to BMP" to convert all the extracted TIMS to bitmaps
- Edit the BMPs as desired, but make sure the final image is the same size and BPP as the original TIM
- In TimViewer use "Convert > BMP to TIM" to convert the edited textures back to TIMs
- In TimViewer use "File > Insert TIM file(s)" to reinsert the edited TIMs into MIX.TIM
- Use CDMage to reinsert the edited MIX.TIM into the BIN/CUE file (Right-click on file > "Import File")

Looking at the weapons/items from KFJ, I'd say most of them don't use textures, but have the colors applied directly to the 3D models polygons. ‎  There are some exceptions like the wood texture handles or stone textures on the Dragon Sword and Dungeon key. I would expect those are somewhere in the regular TIM files.

In King's Filed Japan, it looks like the enemy textures are the last TIM in the MIX.TIM files. I see the skeleton's shield texture there and also the Man Trap's skin and mouth insides, mummy bandages etc.

[StolenBattenberg]

It should be doable without a hex editor. There are only a few things that could cause a wrong file size error when you re-insert a TIM: the image's dimension have been changed, bits-per-pixel has been changed (16 color to 256 color etc), or the number of palettes attached to the TIM has been changed. All of those problems can be fixed by using the right procedure. ‎ 

I usually use TimViewer and the procedure I use is:

- Drag the file with the TIMs off the disk (MIX.TIM in KFJ) to the desktop. You can also use ‎  CDMage to extract the file from the BIN/CUE by opening the cue, then right-clicking on the file to extract and ‎  select "Extract Files" > "Extract" ‎ 
- In TimViewer use "File > Scan Raw File" to scan MIX.TIM
- In TimViewer use "File > Save Multiple Files" to ‎  extract all TIMs from MIX.TIM
- In TimViewer use "Convert > TIM to BMP" to convert all the extracted TIMS to bitmaps
- Edit the BMPs as desired, but make sure the final image is the same size and BPP as the original TIM
- In TimViewer use "Convert > BMP to TIM" to convert the edited textures back to TIMs
- In TimViewer use "File > Insert TIM file(s)" to reinsert the edited TIMs into MIX.TIM
- Use CDMage to reinsert the edited MIX.TIM into the BIN/CUE file (Right-click on file > "Import File")

Looking at the weapons/items from KFJ, I'd say most of them don't use textures, but have the colors applied directly to the 3D models polygons. ‎  There are some exceptions like the wood texture handles or stone textures on the Dragon Sword and Dungeon key. I would expect those are somewhere in the regular TIM files.

In King's Filed Japan, it looks like the enemy textures are the last TIM in the MIX.TIM files. I see the skeleton's shield texture there and also the Man Trap's skin and mouth insides, mummy bandages etc.

Ah, so that's where the enemy textures are, that's good to know, should be able to get something done with this information.

It would appear the problem was with the editor, it changed the color settings somehow -- TIM plugin for GIMP I found this morning.

[StolenBattenberg]

After doing some work on texturing for a short while, I finally understand how painful it must of been to texture design for Playstation titles, the 16 color limitation is really, really... well, limiting....

I wonder how Crash Bandicoot got it's images to look so good?

One Tim file for each texture I guess, so they'd have a bigger color palette to work with...

[HwitVlf]

King's Field textures are definitely "minimalist", but the Playstation does support 24bit (16million) color graphics, developers just used low color ‎  TIMs when possible because they take up less space in Video RAM. The Playstation only has 1MB of VRAM, and only about half of that is usually available for textures. Small 4 bit textures also reduce disk load times so KF probably used them to enable streaming whereas games like Crash that use high color TIMs, usually require load screens between each area while they swap out all the textures.

I've never done it, but it might be possible to swap 3D models between KF games- that would be cool!

[StolenBattenberg]

I was looking a little into modeling too, I found a program for editing the TMD models, but I'm not sure how Playstation did animations, weather i was done in code by selecting vertices etc or if it was framed based like an MD2... I'm quite sure they didn't have skeletal based animations back then.