Multimedia Formats and Tools

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Revision as of 02:10, 15 March 2017 by Sandungas (talk | contribs) (→‎DDS: this small sentence about background display buffer is speculative, but for me looks like a good reason of why dds are not used in other display modes)
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This page is intended to move here all info about multimedia file formats that is commonly used in other wiki pages and the related PC tools

A lot more fileformats not added yet to the page are listed in: http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/XMB_database#Promoter

See also Game Modding

Image

TIFF 6.0 Specification:

BMP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format

DDS

Direct Draw Surface are used on PS3 (e.g. the XMB monthly wallpapers inside Lines.qrc and the XMB Manuals specific for PS3 game/apps)

It seems at the release of PS3 the DDS support in PS3 firmware 1.00 was not complete (or maybe not supported dds at all, this is hard to know), it was implemented gradually and only for a few specific display modes, the monthly background wallpapers inside lines.qrc was implemented in firmware 1.90/2.00 and PS3 manuals support around 4.00, this display modes are a bit special because uses full screen . But DDS was never implemented for RCO in PS3... the PS3 RCO's doesnt even knows what is a DSS ( because there is not an ID for them), so is not officially posible to store a DDS image inside a PS3 RCO, at the end of life of PS3 the RCO format was obsolete for several reasons and this was one of them

For PSVita the RCO format was highly modifyed, and at this point probably DDS support was added to RCO (this is speculative though). Later the RCO format from PSVita was inherited by PS4 and with it the DDS support, actually it looks like the whole interface of PS4 supports DDS (not only from inside RCO, but also for the ICON0.DDS of games/apps)

Header:

Offset Size Example Value (conversion) Notes
DDS header
0x00 0x04 44 44 53 20 "DDS " Magic
0x04 0x04 7C 00 00 00 124 Size of header stucture
0x08 0x04 07 10 08 00 compressed no mipmap Flags:
  • 0x01: DDSD_CAPS (Required in every .dds file)
  • 0x02: DDSD_HEIGHT (Required in every .dds file)
  • 0x04: DDSD_WIDTH (Required in every .dds file)
  • 0x08: DDSD_PITCH (Required when pitch is provided for an uncompressed texture)
  • 0x0010: DDSD_PIXELFORMAT (Required in every .dds file)
  • 0x000002: DDSD_MIPMAPCOUNT (Required in a mipmapped texture)
  • 0x000008: DDSD_LINEARSIZE (Required when pitch is provided for a compressed texture)
  • 0x000080: DDSD_DEPTH (Required in a depth texture)
0x0C 0x04 38 04 00 00 1080 Surface height (in pixels).
0x10 0x04 80 07 00 00 1920 Surface width (in pixels).
0x14 0x04 00 D2 0F 00 1012.5KB Size:
  • the pitch or number of bytes per scan line in an uncompressed texture
  • the total number of bytes in the top level texture for a compressed texture
... ... ... ... ...


DDS normal maps

Normal maps are a 3D effect, the word "normal" is a reference to the Y axis (of the 3D space defined by X,Y,Z axis), is also known as "elevation". Normal maps can make small areas of a surface to be displayed with a displacement up or down, they also reacts to the lights of the scene dinamycally

NVIDIA Normal Map filter plugin for photoshop

The NVIDIA Normal Map filter creates normal maps from grayscale height maps. The filter UI provides a powerful 3D preview and a variety of filtering options. For MIP-mapped normal maps, the NormalMap Filter should be used for preview only, and then the grayscale map exported via the DDS plugin with "Normal Map Settings..." enabled. This will create a normal map with maximal detail and fidelity for all texture levels, without undesirable filter aliasing.

An easy way to create normal maps in photoshop by using the Normal Map plugin: 

In tab: Filter ---> Ndivia Tools
-height generation - 7x7 / minZ-0 scale-2.2
-3D view options - animate light
-height source - Average RGB (or "Alpha Channel" in case you created an alpha channel with this purpose)
-Alpha field - height

Normal Map Tutorial (using photoshop and crazybump) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKqKJi6nh7A

DDS Cube Maps

DDS Tools

DXT

The DXT compressed textures always have the same size. This is because they have a fixed compression ratio.

Used on PS2 classic as manual, they are texture files (DXT1, no mipmap?) with a minimalistic header of 0x08 byte (width*height)

For viewing them on computer, you can rebuild/create/paste (from an .dds dxt1 no mipmap existing file) an header following .dds header specs:

  • On your dxt files, remove the first 0x08 bytes (which has the width and height hexadecimal information), insert on top of it the .dds header. Edit the .dds header, see the .dds section, to get the proper width, height, and texture size)

Sample: http://rghost.net/58928544 (.dxt files are original, .dxt.dds are edited for viewing)

e.g. (quick note, should be move to emulation/PS2 page once figure out) 

001.dxt -->  256KB -->instruction screen: 544*960? (Surface height (in pixels).*Surface width (in pixels).)
002.dxt -->  256KB -->information screen: *544*960?
003.dxt --> 1441KB -->game manual: 1536*1920?
...
008.dxt --> 1441KB -->end of the game manual
009.dxt -->  256KB -->Notice screen: 544*960?

GIM

Graphic Image M...?

Used inside Resource Container (RCO) files (see RCOXML Images), PlayStation 3 Theme (P3T) files, etc...

The tool used to manage GIM image conversions is GimConv.exe see GimConv page

  • Gim Viewer v0.8 by HSreina: http://hsreina.shadosoft-tm.com/display/cat/103
    • Created for PSP it has partiall support for PS3 gim's, allows to view the most common .gim images used in ps3 (the standard format used by most gim's inside .rco's)... is not able to display gims inside rco's that doesnt uses the standard gim format (dxt5 based are displayed full filled with white)
Version 0.8 / by Hsreina - Hontoshadow

What is Gim Viewer
===============================
Giw Viewer was designed for view (*.gim; *.mig) files from "Fantasy golf Pangya portable"

How to use
==========
just Drag & Drop a (*.gim; *.mig file) on the main window of Gim viewer or use the Files/open menu to found a  picture;
you can use spacebar or backspace for display the previous or next file in the current folder. 

for anybugs please mail to "[email protected]"
Copyright (c) 2005 - 2012 Shadosoft tm. All rights reserved. http://pangya.shadosoft-tm.com/

GMO

Graphic Model Object

Used inside Resource_Container_(RCO) files (see RCOXML Models)

GTF

Graphics Texture Format (GTF) is a container for storing one or multiple textures ("pack GTF") data in a layout that can be used as is by RSX.

Header (for single texture):

Offset Size Example Value (conversion) Notes
GTF header
0x00 0x04 02 02 00 FF Version
0x04 0x04 Size of texture (not included header)
0x08 0x04 00 00 00 01 Number of textures embedded
0x0C 0x04 00 00 00 00 Not used?
GTF specification
0x10 0x04 00 00 00 80 Size Header
0x14 0x04
  • For V.02 02: Size file (without header & ending padding)
0x18
0x19
0x1A
0x1B
0x1C 0x04 Remaps:
DDS specification
0x20 0x02 00 40 64 in decimal Size image width
0x22 0x02 00 40 64 in decimal Size image height
0x24 0x02 00 00 0 in decimal Size image depth

GXT

Gxt is a container for storing one or multiple graphic textures for the PSVita and PSP. See GXT

JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG

JPEG markers:

MPO

Is a 3D JPG embedded format by Fuji or Sony. Since fw 3.70 with specifics sixasis controls (on PlayMemories but also from XMB), PS3 as well as Nintendo 3DS or some Sony & Fuji camera can read MPO images as specific format.

On the Sony MPO format Multi Angle : the picture is 15 embedded Jpg Exif images with no padding (but can be modulate probably).

The MPO MA for 3DS is Fuji format?

MPO Splitter by Christian Steinruecken:

PNG

PS3 supports PNG images in 24 bits (for RGB channels), and 32 bits with transparency (24 bits for RGB channels + 8 bits for an alpha layer). "PNG Interlaced" and "APNG (Animated Portable Network Graphics)" formats are not supported by the PS3.

PVR

PowerVR Texture Compression files: PVRTC and PVRTC2 are a family of lossy, fixed-rate texture compression formats.

TGA

Audio

AC3

Used for coldboot sounds

AT3

Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony.

Can be created by saving the file as a .WAV container using the ATRAC3 Codec @ 66Kbps.

Mono and stereo channels are supported

AT9

VAG

Used for sound effects such navigational sounds on XMB inside a theme , on \dev_flash\pspemu\flash0\logo\remaster_op.bin and some .rco (e.g trophy unlocking)

  • Format
Offset (h) Size (h) Example (h) Value (conversion) Notes
VAG header
0x00 0x04 56 41 47 70 "VAGp" Magic
0x04 0x04 00 00 00 06 0.6? Version
0x08 0x04 00 00 00 00 - Reserved area
0x0C 0x04 00 00 04 50 1104 bytes Waveform data size (bytes)
0x10 0x04 00 00 BB 80 48 000 Hz Sampling Frequency (Hz) (hex to decimal)
0x14 0x0A 00 00 ... 00 00 - Reserved area
0x1E 0x01 00 1 ch Number of channels
  • 0-1 : 1 channel
  • 2 : 2 channels
0x1F 0x01 00 - Reserved area
0x20 0x10 53 45 30 34 5F 42 61 63 6B SE04_BACK Name
Waveform data (AIFF/WAV) starts


ADPCM data format (16 bytes block)
Decoding coefficient

(1 byte)

Loop information

(1 byte)

Sound Data

(14 bytes)

Decoding coefficient Loop information:
  • 00: default?
  • 01: last block of the file
  • 03: ending block of the loop
  • 06: starting block of the loop
  • 07: playback ending position

Because ADPCM uses sample blocks that are aligned one after the other, a wave compressed with ADPCM may have an unfinished, partial block at its end. The ADPCM decoder generates silence for the remainder of this partial block, which keeps the wave from looping seamlessly.

Sound data


Video

BIK

Bik is a video and audio container designed specifically for consoles. It can contain multiple video and audio tracks and assign an ID each of them, this way the system choose which one will be loaded. This allows to store multiple audio languages in separated tracks, and multiple audio modes with separated channels for stereo, 5.1, etc...

Bik files do not have any protection, PS3 games do not verify any kind of security over them. They can be fully edited and replaced, usually people replace the video track by a downsampled version of the same video to reduce the game size, it is also possible to remove the audio tracks from "foreign" languages.

PAM

Pam files can contain audio or have the audio separwted in a .AT3 track, used in Content Information Files

Interactive

SWF

Shockwave Flash, used in Content Information Files and Widgets and some games (e.g.: Doki Doki unverse)

  • Irfanview supported format

3D/OpenGL

DAE

DAE (Digital Asset Exchange) is an XML file that contains COLLADA content. COLLADA is an open standard created by sony for interactive 3D applications. Is used to export and import files from 3-D authoring applications in .dae format, see: https://collada.org/ and https://www.khronos.org/collada/

Collada usually is implemented as a plugin, some 3-D authoring applications supporting collada are: Blender, Google SketchUp, Maya, Rhino, 3D Max, SoftImage

FPO

VPO

MNU

Playlists

M3U8

Tools & Tips

  • Audio:
Audacity: The tool can be used to record live audio, record computer playback, 
edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3 or  Ogg Vorbis sound files, cut, copy, 
splice or mix sound together and also change the speed or pitch of a  
recording, plus a number of other useful features.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Wavosaur: is a cool free sound editor, audio editor, wav editor software for editing, 
processing and recording sounds, wav and mp3 files. Wavosaur has all the features 
to edit audio (cut, copy, paste, etc.) produce music loops, analyze, record, batch convert.
Wavosaur supports VST plugins, ASIO driver, multichannel wav files, real time effect processing.
http://www.wavosaur.com/
  • Image:
Irfanview: View, convert, batch processing ...
http://www.irfanview.com/ (there is a plugin for .DDS)

Imagemagick: Create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images
http://www.imagemagick.org (typically utilized from the command line)
  • 2D animation
animata: an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, 
interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances.
http://animata.kibu.hu/
  • 3D Modeling:
   Maya - http://www.autodesk.com/Maya
   3ds Max - http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/
   Blender - http://www.blender.org/
   Wings3D - http://www.wings3d.com/
   Modo - http://www.luxology.com/modo/
  • Texturing:
   Photoshop - http://www.photoshop.com/
   Paint.NET - http://www.getpaint.net/
   GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/
  • Tutorials and Online Digital Communities:
   http://www.polycount.com/forum
   http://forums.cgsociety.org/
   http://www.3dbuzz.com
   http://3d-coat.com/forum/
   http://www.cgfeedback.com/cgfeedback/
   https://forums.station.sony.com/playerstudio


SCE File Types
Certified File
NPDRM
NPDRM · App Types · ACT.DAT · RIF
PKG
EDAT
RCOXML
CXML
XMBML
XMB Config
DB Config
Databases
System Data
XMB Preload
Licences
 ·
Games/Apps
PS3
Emulators
Web
Unsorted
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