Silhouette Stories PS1 PAK files

[AFruitaday!]

Hello there,
Is there any method of opening these PAK files from a PS1 game Silhouette Stories? I've been trying to do this with multiple programs but it doesn't work.

[AFruitaday!]

So what I hear from what a PAK file is, it's either a PS1 file that's found in multiple PS1 games or a compression system. What I discovered in the PAK files in this game is there's .ATI files stored inside the PAK file. This can possibly be the data (e.g. gfx or sound) that's stored in there.

[AFruitaday!]

I sadly tried using PAK decompressor programs to look into the files but neither of them work. By the way, speaking of CD graphics, why do the gfx in the decompressed file in every CD game look like this below in the left? Is there any easier way to get rid of the line and space? Been using a hex editor to get rid of it. Compare the left and right images (left is extracted from the bin file and the right is from JPSX tim file)

[Vehek]

I suspect you dumped the files the wrong way. Basically, disks/discs are divided into sectors, and these sectors contain not just file data, but some other information. A typical console CD-image used in emulation is of the type that retains all that raw information.

If you try to run a media-scanning tool on the raw disc image, or on files extracted with jPSXdec when the "save raw" box in the save tab is checked (which appears to be the default setting), then that information interrupts the actual data and confuses the tools. So uncheck that box or dump them with another means of viewing the files on a disc image.

[AFruitaday!]

I suspect you dumped the files the wrong way. Basically, disks/discs are divided into sectors, and these sectors contain not just file data, but some other information. A typical console CD-image used in emulation is of the type that retains all that raw information.

If you try to run a media-scanning tool on the raw disc image, or on files extracted with jPSXdec when the "save raw" box in the save tab is checked (which appears to be the default setting), then that information interrupts the actual data and confuses the tools. So uncheck that box or dump them with another means of viewing the files on a disc image.

Oh ok! I'll try dumping the images raw this time! Thank you!

---

Oh it worked! Thank you so much Vehek for letting me know. Or I saw it. Why didn't I think of that earlier?

[AFruitaday!]

So once I extracted all of the games files without the raw input, I started to use programs in order to open files. Sadly, none of them worked and i'm still trying my best to work it out as soon as possible. With that in mind, the PAK files contains the primary data. An example is this image right here below:

This is under the name CAP_G01.PAK and it's taken from a hex editor (at 0x0) by the way. If anyone knows a game that uses this, please let me know.

[Dazz]

.TIM is a standard image format on PS1. You can use "Texter" (https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/659/) to try and scrape any tim files from the file. PAK is a generic file format name, probably means nothing to go on as it's a simple abbreviation of "Package" which could be any package file format.

[AFruitaday!]

.TIM is a standard image format on PS1. You can use "Texter" (https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/659/) to try and scrape any tim files from the file. PAK is a generic file format name, probably means nothing to go on as it's a simple abbreviation of "Package" which could be any package file format.

I tried to do it, but it says Read Only or is used by another application, or it doesn't exist. The TIM file is inside the PAK file. It's not only TIM, it's ATI and sound files inside.

[rufaswan]

Hey @AFruitaday!, how are you? I see you are still working your Kaneko Ripping Project as usual.

The .PAK files are just file extension for this game, it doesn't mean anything outside of it. OpenBOR games also uses .PAK . Lunar 2 (Eternal Blue) also has .PAK, but it is actually .UPD + .IDX + .PAK set. There are nothing similar between them at all.

Anyway, I tried to run the game with no$psx, but the game has a bunch of missing graphic and visual glitches, so it is pretty much unplayable. BUT that's good enough, because I can locate the decompression code already.

And the code is... pretty easy! I decoded everything in one evening. I uploaded the scripts to my github, so you can run them like this:

Code:

php  psxtools/silhstry_pak.php  *.pak
php  psxtools/silhstry_ati.php  *.ati
php  psxtools/silhstry_sil.php  *.sil
php  psxtools/psx_tim2clut.php  *.tim

Here is the decoded files
https://www.mediafire.com/file/sdglqjarj...36.7z/file

Have fun organize them ;p
- Rufas

[Barack Obama]

If Silhouette Stories is so easy to do and Lunar 2 belongs to these easy games too, then I guess you already have a decoded folder with all sprites too? If so, can you post them here or send them per PM? I would love to organize and put them on sheets.

GhaleonVane already uploaded perfect sheets from your archive, but has stopped after Hiro and Red Fiend:
https://www.spriters-resource.com/playst...lunar2ebc/

[rufaswan]

If Silhouette Stories is so easy to do and Lunar 2 belongs to these easy games too, then I guess you already have a decoded folder with all sprites too? If so, can you post them here or send them per PM? I would love to organize and put them on sheets.

GhaleonVane already uploaded perfect sheets from your archive, but has stopped after Hiro and Red Fiend:
https://www.spriters-resource.com/playst...lunar2ebc/

You shouldn't judge the ripping difficulty by in-game graphics. Lunar 2 ends up more difficult than Xenogears because Lunar 2 uses quads while Xenogears uses XYWH, like this:



Also on Xenogears, every graphic files are self contained, all gfx + palette + data is neatly packed to one file. Lunar 2 shares its palette. Playable characters reuses system palette and map objects reuses map palette. So Lunar 2 has palette problems.

And Lunar 1? That's even WORST! Not only the decompression is in bit stream, and it is a MONSTER that involves constructing 3 main dictionaries + multiple mini sub-dictionary before you can start decoding. This behemoth code ends up taking weeks to get it right!

https://github.com/rufaswan/Web2D_Games/...lunar1.inc

Anyway, I'll poke GhaleonVane a bit to see what's up. At the mean time, here is the Lunar 2 decoded files for anybody interested.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/s8j8ty8lm...46.7z/file

Take care!
- Rufas

[Barack Obama]

Thanks for the archive. Btw I was referring to the decoding difficulty, since I am not able to judge the extracted ingame graphics (haven't seen them so far).

I'll take a look and upload some sheets soon, Torizo from Super Metroid is my last rip from this game anyway.

EDIT:

Same as Xenogear's Lucca, Horam map actually have 2 black colors in the palette - the 0th one is the transparent background, and 30th one is gfx black color.

Here you go - maps are re-rip with the 0th color become transparent:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/c33klb7l2...38.7z/file

Come to think of it, all the data are still intact when my script convert result *.CLUT to *.PNG. As long as you leave the image mode as "Indexed", not converted to "RGB", you can edit it via "Colormap" tab. After that, you can use "Select by Color Tool" to remove that background.

Had some problems with the transparency since the black ate some of the background. Thanks to rufaswan for fixing it.

[AFruitaday!]

Hey @AFruitaday!, how are you? I see you are still working your Kaneko Ripping Project as usual.

The .PAK files are just file extension for this game, it doesn't mean anything outside of it. OpenBOR games also uses .PAK . Lunar 2 (Eternal Blue) also has .PAK, but it is actually .UPD + .IDX + .PAK set. There are nothing similar between them at all.

Anyway, I tried to run the game with no$psx, but the game has a bunch of missing graphic and visual glitches, so it is pretty much unplayable. BUT that's good enough, because I can locate the decompression code already.

And the code is... pretty easy! I decoded everything in one evening. I uploaded the scripts to my github, so you can run them like this:

Code:

php  psxtools/silhstry_pak.php  *.pak
php  psxtools/silhstry_ati.php  *.ati
php  psxtools/silhstry_sil.php  *.sil
php  psxtools/psx_tim2clut.php  *.tim

Here is the decoded files
https://www.mediafire.com/file/sdglqjarj...36.7z/file

Have fun organize them ;p
- Rufas

Oh thank you so much for this!