So, I haven't started a thread in a while... but I'd like to talk about something.
Now, I'm sure you're all looking at the thread title with the evolution of the program itself in mind, but I'd like to talk about (perhaps even challenge) the evolution of the SoM game creation, and taking a step backward to move forward.
Let me explain, but first, a preface.
Please keep in mind, the ideas I'm about to present aren't directed toward anyone and are not intended to step on any toes. This (intention) is for the growth of the community here and a perspective on origin and what this has-been-use-to-could (me) thinks our purpose here is really all about.
Having been on the board since its birth, (when I used to walk here in the snow for 10 miles uphill both ways) I've noticed how many threads based on topic went from creating games with Sword of Moonlight, to creating model pieces for Sword of Moonlight.
Nothing wrong with that. Its great and is keeping SoM alive, for which I'm grateful.
I think, as a community, we're losing sight (even if its just a little bit) of one major concept of Sword of Moonlight, and that is making a game with Sword of Moonlight.
Having been elsewhere for a while, (almost to the point of an outsider looking in), I can't help but metaphorically compare what's going on from recent posts to tattoos/tattooing. See, years ago, tattoos (in my area) weren't that common. Then over the years I started seeing more and more of them. Now, its common to see people COVERED in body art. There's nothing wrong with that....
...but if you have a room full of people covered in body art and one person in the room with no tattoos, who looks more "unique and/or innovative" from an outsider looking in? (which is ironic because a lot of people tattoo with some element of uniqueness in mind)
Same with a bulletin board covered in red, green, blue, etc. colored flyers, a single plain white flyer with them will actually catch the eye of a passerby more.
I think the same applies here with Sword of Moonlight. I've seen the occasional model/texture/mod/etc. turn into COVERED in model/texture/mod/etc., which is awesome, don't get me wrong.
....but....
With so much emphasis on textures, models, animations, additions, etc. - I believe someone would actually really be moving the SoM (what's the word) "spirit" forward if they just made a game, even with the default SoM workings.
In closing, I'd like to present a challenge (well, it doesn't have to be a challenge) with incentives.
By the end of the year, I'd like to see someone (or multiple someone(s)) create a quality Sword of Moonlight game - just from the basic install.
You can be as innovative as you want with the game's engine and textures. This doesn't have to be Skyrim epic - think King's Field epic. (That makes sense, doesn't it?)
If you want a soundtrack from me for the game? You've got it on my time. That offer is still on the table if 10 of you decide to make games.
I can give out some gifts of my craft for incentives - heck, I might even part way with some cash, just because.
I'm busy creating my levels for Rathmor (working title), and I could use some advice on maximum amounts of memory for one map. I dont mind adding or subtracting enemies if I get crashes in the runtime, but I make image maps for my maps now, so having to cut down placed map pieces would be a pain.
If anyones got a rough estimation on maximum map-piece vertices for map areas, i'd like to know
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.
Has anyone tried the Legends of Dawn PC game? It looks interesting.
I saw it got a bad review on IGN, but frankly the reviewer's reasoning sounded jaded with little substantial reason why it deserved the low score. Almost every criticism mentioned could be said about many other PC games that were well-received and enjoyable to play.
For those of you who feel scene mode games ruin the progression and feel of gameplay, then read on!
Using the warp in SOM from a darkly lit cavern to a bright, sunny outdoor area can cause a harsh flicker on the screen from dim to light. So if you are warping just before a corner from the cave to the field, and you should setup warps this way from indoor to outdoor... Then setup a lamp around the corner to have say 5 intensity, and 200 in each RGB channel. Generally you'l want something that matches your overall lighting in the field.
That way the player will see the lightly lit area and the transition wont be half as bad as just jumping straight into a lightly lit area. Sadly lamps dont work the other way - you cant darken an area with 0,0,0 so you'l need to do some work with objects for your light to dark transition.
The first screen is in a very dimly lit area with a small intensity lamp.
The second shows medium intensity lamps in a walled area.
The third shows how medium intensity lights affect the rest of the cavern.
The fourth shows that, even at a low 18 draw distance and 0.4 fog, the high intensity lamps still achieve the desired effect.
Here are a couple sites that might help with thinking up names for use in SoM games. HERE is a list of mythological creature names. HERE is a site that auto-generates names from various ethnicities. Nice if you have different countries/regions in your game and want to give each one a unique "flavor" for its names.
I just wanted to make a small section where I could place random thoughts during the creation process, and then one day when this project is complete, hopefully well get some laughs along the journey.......ML
Thought one....... It occurred to me that just one of my map tiles is larger than the entire earthworld and fireworld carts combined....... I'm already ahead of Atari.
Thought two..... That same map tile has more colors than the entire Atari 2600 color pallet.... Just a thought.
PS if anyone cares earthworld is a whopping 8kb and fireworld was 7kb and the map piece in question was 21kb and had 33 colors ... Oh how times have changed huh :-)
Welcome to a "TheStolenBattenberg" late night guide writing, without morning proof reading!
V0.8 - It shall be spell checked soon, I just don't got the time right now.
Enjoy ~
You're reading this because you want to know how to Extract Textures from Playstation 2 games (in this guide I use Resident Evil: Outbreak as an example) using TexMod and GIMP/Photoshop!
-- Part One: Getting TexMod, installing it, and configuring! --
Quote:First you're gonna want to download TexMod, this is the program that's gonna intercept textures being sent to the DX9 renderer used in PCSX2, and allow you to grab 'em!
I'll give you a few links here, and I'll check the post every so offen to make sure it's still avalible, also because you can't rely on outside hosting, I'll attach it to this very post.
Alright, so I'm going to jump ahead to when you've installed the program, I can't really show that as I don't have Windows 95,98, XP, Vista etc... so the steps would be different.
When you've installed the program, you're gonna want PCSX2, if you don't have that, go and get it, I won't explain how to install it as their is plenty of guides avalible, here; I'll link one.
When you've installed that, or if you already had it, it's time to open TexMod, it should look like this -
If that's not your screen you made a mistake somewhere, go back and check then continue.
In that window you're gonna want to click on the button called "Logging mode", this is what we use to get textures from the PS2 game, but package mode has some intresting features I may make an "Extras" part about, as they really are quite fun to mess with.
Now you're in logging mode, you'll notice quite a few things to configure -- chill, it's not complicated at all, I'll run you through the steps.
First of all you're gonna want to change the target application, for this you'll want to select the PCSX2 exe, which means going to it's location.
For me it's install on my programs drive, which is E:\ so, for me the directory PCSX2 is in are "E:\games\PCSX2\pcsx2-r5350.exe" heres a picture if you don't get what I mean.
When you've selected it, you should be able to mess around with the options, here's what we're gonna pick.
"Draw control and texture info " put a tick in this box.
"Translucent " put a tick in this box.
"Alternative method " DON'T tick this box.
"Show texture in upperleft corner" This is user preference, it shows you the texture you're extracting. tick it or don't, I prefere not too.
"Replace texture (With a green texture) " this'll help you locate what texture you're getting, tick this or don't, I suggest ticking it.
"Output format" I'd suggest setting this to DDS, it's small in size and has nice quality, you can use what ever you want for this, but if you do use .DDS, you'll need a DDS loader plugin for photoshop or GIMP.
"Log with " What ever you want, I use Enter.
Alright, that's mostly it for config, you can change the output if you want, otherwise it just goes into a folder called "out" within the texmod directory, when you're done, it should look like this, unless you choose a few different options --
You're ready to click the Run button!
Ah, but I should mention you're not done prepairing yet, if you try rushing in now it's not going to work, or if it does you were lucky enough to have the right settings!
when PCSX2 opens up, you're going to want to go into the config window, open Video (GS) and click "Plugin settings".
These options are very specific, I've not played around with them and don't know what else will work -
and that's it, here's a screenshot to compare too --
Now we're ready for part two, using TexMod withing PCSX2!
Phew, this is a lot of typing for me, not looking forward for doing the second guide for 3D Ripper DX...
Onwards to part two!
--Part two: Ripping the Extracting the textures --
Quote:So you've set up Texmod, you're in PCSX2, what now?
First you're gonna want to load in your ISO or DVD drive, jsut like you would when you play a game normally with PCSX2, but when you load the game in and run the emulator, you're gonna notice something different... --
Yeah!
If you're seeing that you did the configuration stages, well done -- but the textures aren't yours just yet unfortuently!
You need to find them, so they get loaded and sent to D3D.
I'm using Resident Evil: Outbreak as my example, since I don't have KF: The ancient city at the moment, or any of the armoured core games, I can assure you they work how ever.
I'm going to snag the character profile images which are displayed on the character select screen, they were Texture indexs 33 and 34, here you can see 34 being highlighted by the replace with green option we selected in Texmod.
That's my textures stolen, here they are for your viewing --
But wait... there's something not quiet right about that... Why are they blue? Surly they didn't get zombied before the game even started... and why are they transparent like ghosts!
Gah, I knew it wasn't this simple!!!
I'll explain the blue before part two ends, the transparency I've not read up on yet.
The blue tint is caused by the way textures are loaded and stored on the Playstation, the regular image format for color we think of is "RGB", this is pretty standard.
Those textures are using "BGR" which is apprently less intensive on the GPU...
So there's your explination.
And that's the end of part two, using Texmod to get the textures.
Here starts part three, in which we shall fix the textures we lifted from the game of our choice, in my case - Resident Evil: Outbreak.
This step of the guide is going to involve one of two programs, GIMP or Photoshop.
First I'll cover how to do it with gimp, it's mostly going to be pictures.
-- Part 3: The GIMPY way --
Quote:Alright, first you'll need to load your image up, i'm going to assume you know how to use GIMP, if you don't then go read the Help Manual.
When you load up your image, it's going to look something like this in GIMP --
That doesn't look very good now does it?
So lets start by making the colors not reversed [BGR] - [RGB].
To do this you're gonna want to go to the Colors tray, and open up the "Components" list, inside there you'll wanna pick "Channel mixer".
It should look like this --
in that window, you're gonna want to switch the Red and Blue values round, so [Red = 0], [Green = 0] and [Blue = 100]
Your texture will probably turn a purply shade, depending on what it is --
then you're gonna want to select the blue channel, rather than red (output channel drop downbox) and reverse what I said then, make blue red and red blue.
now press okay and your final image will look normal, like this --
Now lets sort that opacity problem, obviously we don't want that with our textures!
To do that, you're going to want to look under the tab - "Tools" and click "GLGE Operation", Find opacity in the list of commands it gives you, then change the slider to what ever you feel like, moving it towards the right makes it solid.
Press okay and there you go, your texture is done, and you've come along way, I'd save if I was you! (Get my reference? *wink* )
Here is my finished result.
Now lets learn how to do this with Photoshop, if you've got money or "SWIM" downloaded it for you. *wink*
-- Part 3.5: The Photoshop way --
Quote:For the photoshop way, repete the same steps as in GIMP, load up your image.
Again, I won't teach you how to use Photoshop, read a manual.
Since I wrote the GIMP one, I'm going to cut this one shorter, GIMP is pretty much a free and better version of Photoshop anyway.
Open photoshop, load the image and it will look like this.
Open "Color mixer" (Image - Ajustments - Color mixer), and do swap the Red values to the blue for the red channel, then the blue values to the red, for the blue channel.
with that you'll change the setting to true RGB, rather than BGR, which is great, I'll show the final result.
And thats it for Texture Extraction for PS2 with Texmod!
Remember what you've learned here isn't something everyone knows, be proud that you can say "I know how to stea..." Oh... uhm, maybe not then...
Here are my final images, the GIMP one turned out better IMO... Guess it's the DDS importer. GIMP FINAL:
Quote:
PHOTOSHOP FINAL:
Quote:
From me,
Happy texture ripping
- TheStolenBattenberg
P.S - Soon I'll do a full tutorial/guide on PS1 texture ripping, it's a little more advanced and I'll probably only show the GIMP version as I'm thinking more people use that, as photoshop is expensive. (student discounts for the win!)
As it might show by the fact I've only got one forum post and I've only made the account today, I'm new here.
I don't like joining forums when I've just found them, so I've been spying on you, since late 2009.
Anyway, I'm not sure where the forum posting rules are, I'm probably not looking hard enough, I'd be quiet grateful if someone were to direct them to me.
The following is Kings Field related, well -- resources from Kings Field really. (that's why I wanted the forum posting rules!)
Anyway, because I want to be nice, I thought I'd give these textures out here, I'm not sure if someone has ripped them from KF before, but it's a collection of terrain textures I got for a game I was working on, but stopped because I lack C++ knowledge, and I'm not very experienced with Sword of Moonlight.
If you want to know the way I got these, it wasn't with hex editing or .TIM extraction, I used 3D Ripper DX, then used some photoshop trickery to make them tile seamlessly etc.
it includes:
- Water texture from west coast (water01.png).
- Stone texture from west coast interior areas. (stone01.png)
- Stone texture from west coast lower interior areas (stone02.png)
- Stone texture from west coast exterior areas. (stone03.png)
- Dirt floor texture from west coast (dirt01.png)
and finally:
- a sky texture, from... you guessed it -- the west coast. (sky01.png)
Well that's it, you should know all textures apart from the sky are 64x64 pixels, the sky is 256x256 pixels, scale that down if you want -- they all tile, but can get a little repetitive.
It's a relatively small archive as I have pretty bad and cheep internet, and I understand how annoying it is to get a download which takes hours, and if not days to finish.
I'll probably extract and correct some more of the textures, as I'm going to play through the game again, which would be a perfect time for extracting textures.
Well that's it from me, Enjoy, if someone else hasn't posted this stuff before me!
P.S - The preview only includes the dirt01.png, stone03.png and water01.png textures, I didn't have time to finish it off.
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