HD UI Project by Luthee (a.k.a Eleria)

[MagicLuthee]

Goal(s) : Provide a High Resolution UI for the Ephinea PSOBB client that is decently faithful to the original.

Status : Active - W.I.P -

What has been drawn: 90 % (Estimation)

What is looking good : 75% (Estimation)

What's Currently Missing:

Spoiler: Images

What's Not Yet Planned:

Spoiler: Images

Important: Please don't edit/repack/bundle/rerelease or host alternative download(s) of any file from this project, thank you.

Download(s): First release is available: NexusMods Page

Installation Instructions: Extract right into your PSOBB game folder then set Ephinea's launcher from EN to "Custom" so that no files are overwriten by the launcher/patcher.

Note(s): Only English is supported !

 

[MagicLuthee]

(Progress) No crash, nothing looking funny...

Spoiler: Screenshot 1

A look at actions palette

Spoiler: Screenshot 2

Some inventory icons

Spoiler: Screenshot 3

Section ID (in file explorer)

Spoiler: Image

 

[Sodaboy]

Looking good so far! Can't wait to see how it progresses!

 

[MagicLuthee]

(Progress) Fixed Healing Item icon so it doesn't look bad ingame

Spoiler: Before / After

The game also uses its HUD Font to display damage numbers
With my 'HD' version they look crisp

Spoiler: Screenshot

A look at action icons (in vector drawing app)

Spoiler: Image

(Progress) Palette Modifier bloom intensified

Spoiler: Before / After

(Progress) Blast Trap is now more faithful

Spoiler: Original / HD

(Progress)
- Trap's 'Waves' have been adjusted
- Bottom bar is now thicker on all traps (matches the original art)

Spoiler: Original / HD

 

[Kevdo]

Dude this looks great! Especially the crispy damage numbers. Nice!

 

[MagicLuthee]

Hey, I've tested my HD assets at 2x the size of original assets and it looks like it's enough for 1080p (1920x1080).
For 2160p (3840x2160) a quick math would suggest 4x the original assets size would look good but I can't test it as my screen is only 1080p.
Should I include 8x assets as well ? It would be overkill for game resolutions lower than 4320p (7680x4320).

Here's a look at formats BC2 (first image) and BC3 (second image) with the third image being uncompressed PNG:

Spoiler: BC2 / BC3 / PNG

Okay so these images were taken from the smallest HD assets and then embiggened 3x to highlight BC2 artifacts, this icon is after all pretty small in game.

Which leads me to the following questions:
- Would you accept putting up with mostly invisible artifacts ?
- If not, should I even bother releasing 'lower-end' BC2 packs (which may use less VRAM but require that I update twice the amount of files) ?

Most previously posted ingame screenshots were taken using assets compressed with the very lossy BC2 scheme.

 

[Sodaboy]

I think there are a good number of 4K displays out and PSO is already so low in VRAM use. I wouldn’t even bother with the BC2

I’d think releasing it optimized for 4K would be ideal as it’d still look nice on 1080p when auto downscaled. 8K with 4K assets would also be just fine as I doubt anyone sits close enough on a 8K display to notice a difference.

If you just did a BC3 version for 4K, it’d probably be all you needed to release! (Provided PSO would still display that pack just fine on 1080p displays.)

 

[Ryan]

Seconded. If BC3 works fine in-game, just keep that. It looks way better, PSO isn't exactly graphically intensive to begin with, and this isn't a full texture pack or anything - the HUD is minimal resource-wise, even for PSO.

 

[Ender]

Can you even go up to 8x? I thought NJTL has a max size of 1024x1024 and most/all of the hud images are 256x256 already.

 

[MagicLuthee]

Thank you all for the comments, I tested a 4x pack on my 1080p display and had an issue with scaling actually.
I'm outputting my assets with supersampling anti-aliasing which doesn't seem to be that effective when the assets are then downscaled by the game from 4x to 1080p.

Edit: Oh god I should have ran some tests before speaking, it looks as if Texture Manager doesn't support BC3 textures or something because it embeds the same texture format ID as BC2 in the XVM file... And it looks garbled in game just like in the tool. Either that or PSOBB only accepts BC3 for specific textures (?)



Edit 2: I just read the documentation over at https://wiki.pioneer2.net/w/Custom_files and I'm confused as to how to use this custom files functionality for stuff that is in prs or xvm form outside of an AFS archive.

 

[Ender]

Edit: Oh god I should have ran some tests before speaking, it looks as if Texture Manager doesn't support BC3 textures or something because it embeds the same texture format ID as BC2 in the XVM file... And it looks garbled in game just like in the tool. Either that or PSOBB only accepts BC3 for specific textures (?)



Edit 2: I just read the documentation over at https://wiki.pioneer2.net/w/Custom_files and I'm confused as to how to use this custom files functionality for stuff that is in prs or xvm form outside of an AFS archive.

I honestly don't know about the format ID.

That custom_files wiki page is for ItemModelEP4.afs, ItemTextureEP4.afs, and the custom bullets.xvm. It doesn't support anything else yet, but even if it did, it's not really intended to extend type of files that the game can load. It's just a way to simplify sharing textures/models and fixing textures without deleting files in anyone's .afs.

 

[MagicLuthee]

Oh okay, thank you for the explanation. I'll need to mention the need for "Custom" mode in Ephinea launcher then since the following files get overwritten otherwise:


[!] First release is available: NexusMods Page
Feedback is appreciated

 

[MagicLuthee]

Hey, so I made a NexusMods page for this, mainly so that download link is less likely to go down but also to hopefully evoke more confidence than the *cough* MEGA link.

 

[Ender]

Looks great. Only issue I found in minimal testing was this corner piece at 130% hud, 1440p.

Oh okay, thank you for the explanation. I'll need to mention the need for "Custom" mode in Ephinea launcher then since the following files get overwritten otherwise:
View attachment 17375

I'll be adding these files to the data/ephinea/custom folder in a future DLL update. The launcher will still overwrite the ones in the data/ folder, but the custom folder takes priority when loading so people can keep EN/JP for their launcher language setting.

 

[MagicLuthee]

Hmm if PSOBB acts like PSOGC the corner piece is drawn from texture but horizontal and vertical teal lines are drawn by the game, I'm about to attempt mitigating the issue by making the corner piece thinner but it looks the horizontal position of the piece is off while the vertical position seems fine

Edit: I'm not sure this issue can be fixed, or rather, I don't think I can fix it so that it looks good at any resolution. What's more At 1080p the horizontal teal line the game draws has some kind of subpixel offset so it isn't aligned with the pixel grid... very frustrating...

Edit 2: I remember trying to fix this thing in my PSOGC pack without ever finding a solution.
I tried adjusting the rounded corner part of the corner piece without making it thinner... but look at this mess (all these horizontal lines are one single pixel thick before being rendered by the game, and the top part of the corner piece where it looks transparent I have no idea what's happening, it's pixel aligned in my file and should be fully opaque)

 

[CARNAGE]

Just downloaded this yesterday and it looks super clean! I have had a custom glass hud for a long time that I was absolutely in love with. Going back to the classic feeling is great. Thanks for this.

 

[MagicLuthee]

I want to add my HD Section ID Badges to the UI skin... but It's been a while since I did something for PSO/BB I don't remember which file contains them

Edit:
Oh god, every badge (including an empty one) can be located in each of these files:

Their PSO ID is always the same : 00066B00 -> 00066B0A
And they're in the following order :
Viridia -> Greenill -> Skyly -> Bluefull -> Purplenum -> Pinkal -> Redria -> Oran -> Yellowboze -> Whitill -> EMPTY

Replacing the Hunewearl Section ID badges seems to update the one visible in the UI but only when on that character class !

 

[CARNAGE]

I use a different texturejapanese.xvm font but just wanted to showcase the hud you made and some plugins. Thanks again.

 

[MagicLuthee]

A big thank you to everyone who checked out the mod already !

 

[Ryan]

I also gave it a spin last night using the same texturejapanese.xvm that CARNAGE uses. It's super cool! I also used a different HUD for a long time just because I liked the look of it better, but these icons are CLEAN, man. Good work!