The idea of a texture finder and renamer

[charlie12]

..for the conversion of texture packs from NTSC to PAL and vice versa.

Unlike other emulators a texture pack created for the pcsx2 emulator can't innately be used for both the NTSC and PAL version of a game. The texture packs are only compatible with the version which they are created with. While the textures are the same the file names are different.

So what I was thinking of is a tool which does something like that:

The tool has 3 input folders..

• folder A: NTSC texture dumps
• folder B: PAL texture dumps
• folder C: NTSC (or PAL) texture replacements

Now the tool compares the textures in folder A and folder B (there is already a bunch of tools which can find duplicates). If there is a match between two texture dumps, the tool takes the name of the NTSC texture dump and searchs in the replacements folder for this file name. If it finds a texture replacement witch this name, it renames it to the one from the PAL version.

The user would still need to play the game by himself to dump all the textures in his version and he also needs the texture dumps from the texture pack author, but once he did that, he could simply throw them in this tool and is getting a texture pack which works with his version.

Why not doing this process by hand instead of writing an extra tool for that?
I think in face of a growing number of texture packs, creating a tool like that would be worth it in the long run. Doing this by hand would be pretty exhausting for more than one texture pack and not many people would do that. A tool which automates this process is a quick way to solve this problem for all kind of texture packs, once it is built.

At the moment only half of the users can use these texture packs and that's pretty sad.

Maybe a skilled coder reads that and is willing to do that. Would be dope

PS: Sharing welcome

 

[JuanchoTexHD]

..for the conversion of texture packs from NTSC to PAL and vice versa.

Unlike other emulators a texture pack created for the pcsx2 emulator can't innately be used for both the NTSC and PAL version of a game. The texture packs are only compatible with the version which they are created with. While the textures are the same the file names are different.

So what I was thinking of is a tool which does something like that:

The tool has 3 input folders..

• folder A: NTSC texture dumps
• folder B: PAL texture dumps
• folder C: NTSC (or PAL) texture replacements

Now the tool compares the textures in folder A and folder B (there is already a bunch of tools which can find duplicates). If there is a match between two texture dumps, the tool takes the name of the NTSC texture dump and searchs in the replacements folder for this file name. If it finds a texture replacement witch this name, it renames it to the one from the PAL version.

The user would still need to play the game by himself to dump all the textures in his version and he also needs the texture dumps from the texture pack author, but once he did that, he could simply throw them in this tool and is getting a texture pack which works with his version.

Why not doing this process by hand instead of writing an extra tool for that?
I think in face of a growing number of texture packs, creating a tool like that would be worth it in the long run. Doing this by hand would be pretty exhausting for more than one texture pack and not many people would do that. A tool which automates this process is a quick way to solve this problem for all kind of texture packs, once it is built.

At the moment only half of the users can use these texture packs and that's pretty sad.

Maybe a skilled coder reads that and is willing to do that. Would be dope

PS: Sharing welcome

In dolphin only the textures from another languages than english has to do extra working, the base game textures loads well bcos are the same hashes but in pcsx2 there is 2 possibilities: the devs dont care a S#it this function and improve it (puritanism) OR technically is impossible the dolphin mechanism in ps2 and there is no way to join the hashes. in the discord server maybe someone answer, but prepare to receive an "use software mode" in most cases.

 

[charlie12]

Yea, that's how I started. I asked in the pcsx2 forum if it's possible to make texture packs compatible for all regions.

I can't link it here, because I haven't enough posts

Anyway according to them it's technically not possible. So a tool as I described above is probably the best we can get, I guess..

 

[rantex92]

it could be done via a bat file i know the oot 3ds texturmod by henriko magnifico uses one to turn usa into pal textures

another way would be possible a renamer tool wich works with textfiles wich gives the programm the insructions
( texture001usa <-> texture001pal) but you would need to write those lists manually(and for each game) wich would contradict the whole thing since renaming the textures manually by hand would be done in same estimated time

 

[JuanchoTexHD]

Yea, that's how I started. I asked in the pcsx2 forum if it's possible to make texture packs compatible for all regions.

I can't link it here, because I haven't enough posts

Anyway according to them it's technically not possible. So a tool as I described above is probably the best we can get, I guess..

I not investigate it but, the hash is totally different between versions or the hash has some sector pattern to renaming?

 

[charlie12]

it could be done via a bat file i know the oot 3ds texturmod by henriko magnifico uses one to turn usa into pal textures

another way would be possible a renamer tool wich works with textfiles wich gives the programm the insructions
( texture001usa <-> texture001pal) but you would need to write those lists manually(and for each game) wich would contradict the whole thing since renaming the textures manually by hand would be done in same estimated time

Yea that's why I thought of a tool which includes the ability to find duplicated images. Except some language specific textures, 99% of the textures between NTSC and PAL should be nearly identical. Good conditions for such a tool and our use case.

And there are already lots of tools which are able to find similar images, probably also some which are open source and could be used for our goal. We just had to add the function to save the name of the duplicated image and transfering it to another one. Should be doable I guess (for someone with coding knowledge).

I not investigate it but, the hash is totally different between versions or the hash has some sector pattern to renaming?

I can't say tbh. A forum member just said that it's not possible and nobody corrected him, so I trust his words.

 

[LuismaSP89]

Yea that's why I thought of a tool which includes the ability to find duplicated images. Except some language specific textures, 99% of the textures between NTSC and PAL should be nearly identical. Good conditions for such a tool and our use case.

And there are already lots of tools which are able to find similar images, probably also some which are open source and could be used for our goal. We just had to add the function to save the name of the duplicated image and transfering it to another one. Should be doable I guess (for someone with coding knowledge).



I can't say tbh. A forum member just said that it's not possible and nobody corrected him, so I trust his words.

I was that user xD, and yes, it works on that way.

When I did the first test between PAL and NTSC games and noticed this, I also thinked on an app like that, comparing images (Since the name is totally different but the image is exactly the same) like some software do with duplicated images, but like you I'm not a skilled programmer. I think for one person with a minimal programming skills this is not difficult to do, since there are already a lot of programs to compare images. But we need to way to someone who has the time and the interest to do this task.

 

[LuismaSP89]

I was that user xD, and yes, it works on that way.

When I did the first test between PAL and NTSC games and noticed this, I also thinked on an app like that, comparing images (Since the name is totally different but the image is exactly the same) like some software do with duplicated images, but like you I'm not a skilled programmer. I think for one person with a minimal programming skills this is not difficult to do, since there are already a lot of programs to compare images. But we need to way to someone who has the time and the interest to do this task.

PS: Here you can also find useful info, (I tested this methods without success, because it has a a very technical content)

https://superuser.com/questions/106...-and-rename-them-to-the-name-of-the-duplicate

https://github.com/kennethrapp/phasher

https://forum.scootersoftware.com/f...8040-compare-folders-with-renamed-image-files

 

[LuismaSP89]

https://help.acdsystems.com/en/acds...nage_mode/Searching/IDDH_DUPLICATE_FINDER.htm

Just tested that software, the duplicated image finder works very nice, it shows you both names and lets you to rename the files. But one by one...

 

[LuismaSP89]

Another curious finding:

https://evilgames.eu/texture-packs/oot-reloaded.htm

https://evilgames.eu/texture-packs/mm-n64hd.htm

This guy creates texture packs for N64 zelda games and others, after downloading one of them and analizing with the sotware of the previous post (acdsee photo studio 2022 ultimate) I realized that there is a LOT of duplicated images since this packs supports the Ocarina of time NTSC and PAL versions. So, the same case as here. Identical images with different names depending on the version. (Image attached) and since there is hundreds of them on each pack he created, I don't think he did manually, maybe we can ask for help.

 

[LuismaSP89]

Ok, just asked for info on this forum: https://discord.gg/R4U4J59C

I have very interesting info for converting textures between regions. In case someone wants to test:

 

[LuismaSP89]

I DID IT!!

Using the Luni's toolbox image comparison program together with Notepad++ renaming feature I did a .bat file replacing successfully the names of the PAL textures with the NTSC USA ones!

All I need now is a complete texture dump from the PAL and NTSC versions. Anyone who can help on this?

 

[rantex92]

I DID IT!!

Using the Luni's toolbox image comparison program together with Notepad++ renaming feature I did a .bat file replacing successfully the names of the PAL textures with the NTSC USA ones!

All I need now is a complete texture dump from the PAL and NTSC versions. Anyone who can help on this?

congrats it sounds promising

and from wich game you need the texture dump?

 

[charlie12]

Sounds great! Need to test this myself tonight. Thanks a lot for your research

 

[LuismaSP89]

congrats it sounds promising

and from wich game you need the texture dump?

Oh, I though I posted the name, sorry.

The Dragon Quest VIII would be a great first try, with a complete NTSC and PAL texture dump I can convert the texture packs on the forum for this game, for example this one:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/dragon-...rk-texture-finally-complete-and-proud.612509/

 

[JuanchoTexHD]

I DID IT!!

Using the Luni's toolbox image comparison program together with Notepad++ renaming feature I did a .bat file replacing successfully the names of the PAL textures with the NTSC USA ones!

All I need now is a complete texture dump from the PAL and NTSC versions. Anyone who can help on this?

Congratulations! the big amount of textures different each other is solved, the repeated textures still needs manual work but now is MUCH easier! good discover.

 

[LuismaSP89]

Congratulations! the big amount of textures different each other is solved, the repeated textures still needs manual work but now is MUCH easier! good discover.

But how can be solved the textures different each other? I solved it for all the repeated/shared textures with different hashes between PAL & NTSC games wich are I think the 99% of textures in a game, but not for different textures (For example differences in texts between regions, different textures for a sign in different languages, etc)

 

[charlie12]

All I need now is a complete texture dump from the PAL and NTSC versions. Anyone who can help on this?

yea, I would help with dumping pal textures good thing is that the savegames in pal count for all languages. so whenever you encounter a language texture, you can save the game, boot into pcsx2 bios, change the language, load your savefile and you get the same texture for another language. still a bit tedious but this way you can convert a texture pack quite fast into 5 pal languages (in case of DQ8 english, french, german, italian and spanish).

 

[LuismaSP89]

yea, I would help with dumping pal textures good thing is that the savegames in pal count for all languages. so whenever you encounter a language texture, you can save the game, boot into pcsx2 bios, change the language, load your savefile and you get the same texture for another language. still a bit tedious but this way you can convert a texture pack quite fast into 5 pal languages (in case of DQ8 english, french, german, italian and spanish).

Nice, thanks for helping with the PAL textures.

Regarding the language textures, I think for now is not the priority, because the most NTSC PS2 games only have english. So the textures for spanish, french, german, etc cannot be replaced or compared. You can use only these textures for doing yourself the job. I have for example an UI upscaler and works very nice. But the shared textures are the most important in this case.

Now we only need somebody who can share the NTSC textures. I already asked on another post on this forum, but with no answer yet.

 

[JuanchoTexHD]

But how can be solved the textures different each other? I solved it for all the repeated/shared textures with different hashes between PAL & NTSC games wich are I think the 99% of textures in a game, but not for different textures (For example differences in texts between regions, different textures for a sign in different languages, etc)

ahh i undertsand wrong. question: dupeguru has some function to do some what you need? i only use it for find duplicates by name, maybe have another functions.