Arena Ultimax Sprites

[Skyla Doragono]

Hello all!

I've come across the raw data files for the sprites from Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, but I have no idea how to properly view the images.  The format for these are .hip and .hpl files, which I assume are the actual image and the pallet respectively.

Could anyone point me in the right direction?

[supersmashball]

Could you upload some?

[Skyla Doragono]

Could you upload some?

Here!

I'm assuming those files are for the same character, based on the file name.

EDIT: Now with hopefully the right link.

[puggsoy]

I can confirm that the .hpl files are definitely palettes. 32-bit big endian ARGB, I think. Not sure about the .hip files though, they look compressed but can't say much more than that.

[Ploaj]

These are the same kind of files that the Dragon Ball 3ds used.
They are structured extremely similar too, but yeah, I don't recognize the compression used for the pieces. Dragon ball just used RLE.
It doesn't look like an lz variant, and it's not zlib. No magic byte for them either, so that doesn't help.

What system are these from?

[Skyla Doragono]

Not sure; if I had to guess, PS3, if only because the PS3 version was more popular at time of release than the 360. It's hard to tell because the other graphic pack that came with these raw files (that the provider was actually able to decompress) had both PS3 and 360 icons in it. However if the first game is anything to go off of, the 360 version may have been easier to get data files off of; again, I'm not entirely sure.

Game is made by Arksys, if that helps any.

[Skyla Doragono]

Has anyone had any luck with this?

I know one person has successfully ripped the newer characters (though not all the Personae to go with them), but they refuse to share how they did it. :\

[Skyla Doragono]

Okay, I just heard back from the person that originally ripped select files from the game.  Maybe  you guys can help me find a program to do this?

It’s been a while so I don’t remember if the game has a large file that needs to be unpacked like BB, but what you want to do is:

-Unpack the .pac files
-Unpack the .segs
-Decompress the .hip files

The .hip files are actually .segs, so whatever program you used to unpack the .segs (like offzip or one made specifically for them) you use on those as well.

That last part is the part I'm stuck at.  I tried the offzip they suggested here, but it either doesn't run right on my computer or I'm just not sure how it works.  Or I even downloaded the wrong program; that's a possibility.  Anyone have suggestions on a program to use for this?

[puggsoy]

hey hey i did it


You can unpack the .hip files using one of the tools in the .zip found here, namely exsegs.exe. This'll produce an extensionless file with "+00000" added onto the end. I stuck this file into TiledGGD and used its corresponding .hpl as the palette, messed around a bit with the settings until it read it right and got this.

I can make a converter for it tomorrow (it's too late for me right now), but if Ploaj or Daxar get round to it first that's fine. The format is really simple, it's just 8bpp using the palette (which is indeed big-endian ARGB), and I expect that all images just have a constant width of 512.

(Looking at the source code for exsegs, it does seem to be a format that uses some raw version of zlib. No idea how it's actually decompressing it though, and there might not be implementations for it outside of C.)

[Dazz]

This could be incredibly handy for a number of other games that use a similar format. GG!


edit: Just remembered the old application that somebody showed me. It can view the .pac files and several animations that are in them that aren't the segs style "hip" files. It's called hipster:
http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/blazb...677.0.html


This raises the point - there are actually 2 kinds of .hip files, those with the segs header, and those without. A converter for both kinds would be handy - if example files are needed for both, I'd be happy to provide those from another game by the same dev.

[Struggleton!]

Great job Puggsoy, I've also been looking for these sprites too

[Ploaj]

These are same as Dragon Ball, but with ZLIB (raw) compression and in big endian.

I have a tool that works; aligned and everything.

To use it first drag a hpl on it. It will display the palette to make sure it's the one you want.
Then drag a folder containing hip files onto it and it will convert and align all the ones in that folder.
So it's best to organize the folders based on the animation.

If it doesn't work, or if there's something that can make it easier to use, let me know.

[Skyla Doragono]

Oh man I would accidentally throw up an Adachi sprite.

I'll give that tool a try.  I've tried some others, but I've had so little luck; either the program comes up and immediately closes, or I get a .DLL error.  If I have any luck, I'll share it with this site.

EDIT: oh my freaking god it actually worked.  brb converting EVERYTHING

EDIT 2: Okay, so everything works out pretty good so far, but there's a little bit of a positioning issue.  I've uploaded one of the worst of them; one of the sprites is missing entirely because the positioning was off.  To test it, you can use the same .hpl file that I uploaded before.

I'm going to be trying the other ones, but I'm so excited for this now.

[Ploaj]

Fixed.
There were 2 odd things about those first 3 files that none of the others had. (Mostly the first one)
The thing is, this update might have broken some? I did some guess work and it still works on the ones I have.
Let me know if any others mess up.

[Skyla Doragono]

Almost got this, Ploaj!

Ran into a new problem when I got to Magatsu Izanagi.  Here's the compressed zip; note that the images included are from the old version of the program.  The new version won't open it at all.

I'll go through the rest of Adachi and Magatsu to see if there are any other cut offs or ones that won't open.  FYI when it comes to the pallets, it looks like char_ad_pal+ad00_00 is for Adachi, and _01 is for his Persona.  Not sure what the other pallets in the group are for; I'm guessing a mix of filler or pallets for the attack effects, because some of them are completely blank while others the colors make no sense.

EDIT: Okay, went through the rest of Adachi's files, and I've got one that still has cut off (there were a number of these on the side), one that didn't seem to change, and one that still may be missing panels.  The last one may be a non-issue, though; I think it's just showing his gun flying off into the ether, and the panel is intentionally blank.

As for Magatsu, in addition to the ones that won't process in the new version, there's still some cut off on the bottom and sides on certain ones.