Help to view/edit the font0.bin file of You-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters (PS2)

[Alpha 1001]

Hello everyone, someone can help me to view/export the attached file to a common format as the png? This file is the font (glyphs) of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters GX Tag Force Evolution (PS2 release). It seems this font is compressed, this game has others compressed files, there is some tools to edit the others files, but there's no tool to edit the font. Thanks in advance!

font0.rar

[piken]

I concur some variable length compression is likely, seeing patterns like this, making the compressed files part of this forum appropriate for that (these wavy artifacts are often indicative):

Though, I also see some uncompressed glyphs in the file, like Hiragana gu and ke:

Some observations that may help you and/or others figure it out:

- 0..4468h - 8-byte records, presumably containing glyph offset, size, and format info

- 4468h..7AD0 - variable size glyphs probably compressed

- 7AD0..11BA4 - 4bpp uncompressed variable size glyphs

- 11BA4.. - variable size glyphs probably compressed

[Alpha 1001]

There is a tool to dump files EHP archives used by this game, many dumped files I can make the decompression using the WinRAR. I tried to attach a header used by zip format to try decompress this font, but the WinRAR says "The file is corrupted". Maybe the compression algorithm is Deflate.

[piken]

On 4/28/2025 at 12:42 AM, Alpha 1001 said:

Maybe the compression algorithm is Deflate.

Those might be informative then.

 

 

[Gil_Unx]

I, together with AI, have created a tool to export/import PNGs from FONT0.bin.
The compression method is similar to LZ (though I'm not sure about the specifics).

Editing steps:

1. Export.

2. Edit the PNG — the edited PNG must be in indexed format.

3. Edit the JSON — it contains information such as width, height, left, and top. Adjust these to fit the new characters.

4. Save.

Note:

Try to make the edited font smaller than the original.
It seems the game allocates a fixed amount of memory for fonts.
Fortunately, the compression works correctly.
 

 

FONT0_Tool.zip

[Alpha 1001]

Awesome! Thanks very much indeed, this is the ultimate solution to this font filé!!

Edited May 20 by Alpha 1001

[piken]

Alpha: Remember to mark Gil's post as the solution.

[Wesker Bad]

On 19/05/2025 at 14:12, Gil_Unx said:

I, together with AI, have created a tool to export/import PNGs from FONT0.bin.
The compression method is similar to LZ (though I'm not sure about the specifics).

Editing steps:

1. Export.

2. Edit the PNG — the edited PNG must be in indexed format.

3. Edit the JSON — it contains information such as width, height, left, and top. Adjust these to fit the new characters.

4. Save.

Note:

Try to make the edited font smaller than the original.
It seems the game allocates a fixed amount of memory for fonts.
Fortunately, the compression works correctly.
 

 

FONT0_Tool.zip 320.4 kB · 9 downloads

Why does this error occur? I extract the textures, edit them, edit the json, but when I extract them again, the edited texture comes out like this.

Edited May 22 by Wesker Bad

[Gil_Unx]

On 5/21/2025 at 7:16 AM, Wesker Bad said:

Why does this error occur? I extract the textures, edit them, edit the json, but when I extract them again, the edited texture comes out like this.

 

 

"It seems to be from the palette. Try to keep the palette order intact. Use an application like GIMP so that the palette order stays the same as the original. Some image editing tools tend to change the palette colors using their own algorithms."

Edited May 22 by Gil_Unx

[Wesker Bad]

14 hours ago, Gil_Unx said:

 

 

"It seems to be from the palette. Try to keep the palette order intact. Use an application like GIMP so that the palette order stays the same as the original. Some image editing tools tend to change the palette colors using their own algorithms."

Even using Gimp, it still gives the same error. I asked a friend of mine to try, and the same error happens to him, even though he is very skilled in editing PS2 game textures. Were you able to edit without any problems? If so, it must be done in a very specific way.

[Gil_Unx]

20 hours ago, Wesker Bad said:

Even using Gimp, it still gives the same error. I asked a friend of mine to try, and the same error happens to him, even though he is very skilled in editing PS2 game textures. Were you able to edit without any problems? If so, it must be done in a very specific way.

The tool you're using sorts the palette from the lowest value 000000FF = black to FFFFFFFF = white, but  default tool color order is from white to black. Use the second color type so it matches the tool you're using. Extract from a fresh font0.bin using FNT.exe -e 2, edit the PNG and JSON, import, and save. If possible, try not to change the color order, because font files usually use multiple palette colors.

Second color palette.

.