Graphics/Texture finders and viewers

piken · November 7, 2023

This is an archive of the useful list originally from https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=15540, which seemed a fitting first topic for graphic file formats. Some links are broken because they pointed to internal downloads on Xentax :'(, but most work :).

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Post by ikskoks » Fri Nov 25, 2016 2:13 pm

TextureFinder 1.3.2

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Designed to find textures inside any uncompressed files. Any size, any pixel bit format, any binary file. It only requires that the file be uncompressed. This tool is intended to be used by researchers and developers with a good understanding of bitmap formats.
VERSION 1.3.2 is the last one of this first series.

Formats implemented so far:

TRUE COLOUR (RGBA) FORMATS :
64bits 16x4
48bits 16x3
32bits 8888
24bits 888
16bits 565
15+1bits 1555
12+4bits 4444
08+8bits 8332
08bits 332
06+2bits 2222

PALETTE FORMATS :
P8 256 colours
P4 16 colours
P1 2 colours

QUAD FORMATS (alpha channel implemented only in series 2) :
DXT1
DXT3
DXT5

TextureFinder 2.1

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Newer and better version of TextureFinder.

Tile Molester 0.16

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Tile Molester, or TM for short, is a program that facilitates the viewing and editing of raw graphics data; that is, graphics contained in arbitrary binary files, where one usually doesn't have initial knowledge about the location and/or format of the graphics. The main area of application thus far has been videogame console binaries. In most cases, these files contain a large variety of data, not just graphics -- sound data and actual game code are two examples. Collections of data in one and the same file may be interspersed in any conceivable fashion, subject to hardware/software-constraints of the intended runtime-environment as well as the decisions made by the producers of the binary (the developers).

TM is a kind of visual explorer of such files, in that it allows the file contents to be interpreted and displayed in a multitude of ways. By perusing the file and tweaking the settings of the renderer, the binary data that corresponds to graphics may be made accessible in the way they are intended, and edited to the satisfaction of the user.

TiledGGD 2.0.3.0

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A generic graphics dumping tool, based on the elusive program GGD

TiledGGD - basically it’s GGD (General Graphical Dump tool), with some extra features: Currently working (extra) features:

* Support for tiled graphics (tiles of any size) and palettes (tile sizes are restricted, because they need to fit a 16*16 grid)

* Copy visible graphics and palette directly to clipboard

* ‘Go To Offset’ functionality

* Toggle Endianness of graphics and palette separately

* Save the entire graphics

* Built-in NCGR/NCBR and NCLR support (I’m not using all the data from the files, so there are most likely still some bugs)

* Lua plugin support

DOWNLOAD TOOLS

If you know any other useful programs to search for graphics in files, you can share here. 🙂

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Post by ikskoks » Sun Jun 18, 2017 3:39 am

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Rainbow is a tool intended to convert different graphics formats from video games assets to and from user editable images (like png). It currently supports almost every variant of the TIM2 format.

The main difference with other great tools like Tile Molester and Crystal Tile 2 is to provide direct support to proprietary graphics formats found in "new generation" consoles, like PS2, PSP, Wii, etc., instead of dealing with just the raw image data.

Features

The underlying image library has almost complete support to TIM2 texture files usually found in PS2 and PSP games. The app supports multi-layer, multi-clut, swizzled (PSP)/unswizzled TIM2 images with both linear, interleaved palettes, and segments headers eventually extended with custom user data (usually used by programmers).
Can open textures in any format supported by the underlying image library.
Can open whole folders in search of supported texture formats. All known texture files are then displayed in a list.
Can export and import textures in suitable image formats for editing (like png).
Any additional information specific to the texture is preserved when exporting/importing (like the TIM2 header data), in order to have a one-to-one correspondence with the original texture.
Customizable background color for transparent and semi-transparent images with chessboard like pattern.
Finally, Rainbow supports parameters via command line: the first parameter is the name of a texture you would like to open.

DOWNLOAD

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Console Texture Explorer (PSP/PS2) is an application that allows working with PSP and PS2 textures. It helps to minimize manual work during texture resources manual scanning and graphics data research in raw archives.

Version: 1.0b
Designed and made by: Dageron
Year: 2012

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Supported platforms: PSP and PS2
Supported formats: any texture dictionaries with 4bpp/8bpp graphics data

DOWNLOAD

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Post by ikskoks » Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:04 am

Raw texture previewer/converter

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~~Download here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16461~~

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Post by ikskoks » Mon Jul 16, 2018 2:28 am

PVRTexTool

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Download: https://community.imgtec.com/downloads/windows-installer-powervr-tools-and-sdk-2018-r1/

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Post by ikskoks » Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:29 am

Cheat Engine - Graphical Memory View

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CHEAT ENGINE DOWNLOAD

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Post by ikskoks » Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:52 am

AMD Compressonator --> https://gpuopen.com/compressonator/
https://github.com/GPUOpen-Tools/compressonator

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Post by ikskoks » Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:35 am

Some new tools are listed here --> https://tcrf.net/Help:Contents/Finding_Content/Finding_graphics

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Post by ikskoks » Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:01 am

RAW pixels viewer
This application allows you analyze raw image data, you can display memory dumps of frame buffers, video buffers and uncompressed video files. Play with image parameters below to explore world of colors.

https://imgur.com/a/ZJQtO8B

http://rawpixels.net/

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Post by ikskoks » Thu May 20, 2021 10:32 am

TileShop and ImageMagitek

TileShop is a WPF application for Windows that implements ImageMagitek and allows end-users to manage specialized graphics in a modern GUI environment. ImageMagitek is an internal .NET library written in C# to view, edit, and organize common and complex retro videogame system graphics. Emphasis is given to the features most valuable to the common, cumbersome tasks when encountering graphics embedded within binaries without any distinguishable headers or identifiers. Exporting and importing is supported to allow advanced editing features to be performed in third-party image editors that operate on standard PNG.

https://github.com/stevemonaco/ImageMagitek

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Post by th3ru » Sat Jun 05, 2021 11:33 am

Raw Image Viewer module of Kuriimu2.
+ live preview as you change parameters.
- no drag&drop, to be launched from K2, extracts only to png.
https://github.com/FanTranslatorsInternational/Kuriimu2

image.png.610bb780912bd4813daa4c70f2362c6c.png

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Post by ikskoks » Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:25 pm

Mumm-Ra's Game Graphics Tool

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Download:
old version -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZeRQcU-cqOO5gdRGV_kgvsrq_jBoCFgH/view?usp=sharing

version 96 -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kw1YVDzPATMCS5fZYDTiPwosqhGjVpmO/view

version 100 --> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mc8gGTt_O7HpcthqXQfEc30TgV_2f4ze/view

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Post by Sharppy » Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:51 am

Pixel Reader by Leo2236

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Open any file to view it in pixel format

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Creator Site
http://lgt.createaforum.com/index.php

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Post by ikskoks » Fri Dec 23, 2022 4:23 am

TextureFinder by Durik256 (Noesis)

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[updated 2023-11-26]

Download: https://github.com/Durik256/Noesis-Plugins/blob/master/tool_TextureFinder.py

Original usage instructions: https://web.archive.org/web/20231012104059/https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=26113

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Post by ikskoks » Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:33 am

GIMP - Load Image from Raw Data

How to use this functionality:
1. Download GIMP 2.10
2. Change your file's extension to *.data
3. Open GIMP
4. Go to File > Open in GIMP
5. Load your *.data file in GIMP
6. Click "Open" in the new window.

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Post by th3ru » Mon Mar 06, 2023 7:47 am

PixelDbg - view any type of file as image data, using a number of different formats.

Downloads: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pixeldbg/ (source + binaries for Windows and Linux)

(originally found on tcrf | not tested personally)

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Post by ikskoks » Tue Oct 24, 2023 4:16 am

Game Extractor

Edited November 27, 2023 by piken
Update download link for TextureFinder by Durik256

Durik256 · November 24, 2023

"TextureFinder (Noesis)" available on my github at the link: tool_TextureFinder.py

solidus · November 24, 2023

Can anyone explain for dummies how to find an exact offset values? Sure i can guess by going from 0 to X, but that seems impractical and can take a lot of time.

Edited November 24, 2023 by solidus

piken · November 27, 2023

On 11/24/2023 at 7:16 AM, solidus said:

Can anyone explain for dummies how to find an exact offset values? Sure i can guess by going from 0 to X, but that seems impractical and can take a lot of time.

@solidus: That sounds like a good addition to the ResHax tutorials section if somebody wants to write a walkthrough using a real example ⏳.

Briefly, you generally either (a) know where the graphics start because some other part of the file has an offset that points to the beginning or (b) you scroll through looking for suspicious patterns, then adjust the width, format, and base offset until it aligns. Yeah, you definitely don't guess from 0 to X 😉. One aspect I find lacking in many of the viewers above is easy explorability - that is, the ability to use the arrow/page up/page down keys to quickly spelunk through the whole file. Many of the older graphics viewers for retro consoles did (yy-Chr.NET, Tile Layer Pro by Kent Hansen, Tile Molester by Kent Hansen, Naga Sprite Editor by Louis Bontes, Nana by Neill Corlett, JagView by 2kdox, Maptapper by Codetapper...), but many newer ones (supporting DXT* formats and layout swizzling) seem to have dropped that convenience, and some don't even have the little up/down arrows beside the offset, making it especially tedious 😢. So depending on what pixel formats you need, if you can, start with one of the viewers that treat the file as one virtual huge wrapped bitmap and let you skim/scroll through it.

Edited November 28, 2023 by piken