ToCS HD Texture Pack v6.12 (7/08/2023)

[Bighead]

Description

This is a texture pack for The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel that targets the UI, battle effects, and eye textures to bring it more in line with a modern PC game.

Notice

• There is now two versions of this texture pack: SenPatcher mod format (P3A) and the standard "overwrite files" version that replaces game files.
• Steam users should use the new P3A version over the standard version to prevent their files from being overwritten periodically by Steam.
• There is two sub-versions of the P3A version, the difference being the compression used: LZ4 or ZSTD. Differences between these are explained below.
• LZ4: Compression is not as good as ZSTD, but should peform better than LZ4. Use with mechanical drives. If unsure, use this version.
• ZSTD: Better compression than LZ4 but performs slightly worse. Use with solid state drives. If unsure, use the LZ4 version.
• The HD "Thor" master quartz texture is broken by default in the "Standard" version. See Prerequisites to fix this.

Prerequisites

• THE "P3A" MOD VERSION MUST BE USED WITH A CLEAN/UNMODIFIED INSTALLATION OF THE GAME! COMPLETELY REINSTALL IF YOU HAVE TO!
• The game must be updated to v1.6 or textures will not scale correctly.
• To fix Thor master quartz with the standard version, install any mods with SenPatcher or use the included patcher I created (either or both works).

Downloads

P3A Mod Version (LZ4)

Download Link[drive.google.com]
Download Mirror[drive.google.com]

P3A MOD Version (ZSTD)

Download Link[drive.google.com]
Download Mirror[drive.google.com]

Standard Version

Download Link[drive.google.com]
Download Mirror[drive.google.com]

How to Install:

P3A Mod Version

• Copy the "mods" folder to the game's root directory.
Steam version is usually at: ..\Steam\steamapps\common\Trails of Cold Steel
• Download latest SenPatcher from:
https://github.com/AdmiralCurtiss/SenPatcher/releases
• Use the "Patch Game" button to select the launcher (Sen1Launcher.exe).
• Choose any patches. Adjust font spacing for HD Cuprum should be checked.
• Press the "Patch!" button. This creates "DINPUT8.dll" in your game folder.
• And that's it. The "DINPUT8.dll" file is for patching and loading textures.
• Play the game!

Standard Version

• Copy "ThorPatch.exe" and "data" folder into your Cold Steel installation folder.
• Overwrite any and all files.
• Run "ThorPatch.exe" to patch "ed8.exe" with the fix.
• Play the game!

Screenshots

Main Gallery[imgur.com]
Update v5.00 Gallery[imgur.com]
Blade Retexture[imgur.com]

Latest Changes:

v6.12
• Fix random noise surrounding some quartz icons.
• Replace orbment cover icon with a higher quality icon.

v6.10
• Add back HD version of Thor master quartz. Requires patcher by AdmiralCurtiss or
  the texture will be broken! This can be downloaded at this link:
  https://github.com/AdmiralCurtiss/SenPatcher/releases

v6.00
• Updated maps used in Trista (academy and town maps).
• New redraw of the side bar used for the battle turn order.
• Replace HD font with one that better matches the original.

Final Notice:

As of v6.00, I am finally considering this texture pack "done". If anyone finds any issues from this point on, I will gladly try to fix them, but it is very doubtful that I will create any more textures. At this point the entire UI and all battle effects are finished.

Working With PKG/Phyre Files

If you want to learn how to mod textures using the phyre format, click below!
PKG/Phyre Tutorial and Tools[forums.dolphin-emu.org]

Miscellaneous

PNG Textures[drive.google.com] - Textures in PNG format. Not usable by the game.
GIMP Project Files[drive.google.com] - All the project files I've actually saved.
Alt Font[www.dropbox.com]- Preview[i.imgur.com]- This is a font by Durante I found by accident. While the HD font in the texture pack is much better, this exists so may as well preserve it.

Donate

If you enjoy my pack, consider supporting my work! This is not a requirement and my packs will always remain free for everyone always.
Paypal Link[www.paypal.me]

Also check out my pack for Trails of Cold Steel II here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/748490/discussions/0/2860219962081641200/

[Professor Prinny]

Oh heck yes!
Thank you very much for this.

[Keio]

Thank you! No more pixelated 2D arts.

[Void Cat]

Was looking forward to this, thanks man.

[masterotaku]

Woohooo, its great! I'm already using it :).

About mipmaps, I think there are still some missing in that city: benches and flower pots (at least using my eyes and not checking the available textures).

[ztdz800]

Thanks dude i was waiting for something like this.

[MabinoZerk]

I tried using this mod, but my FPS tanks when it first loads the updated character portraits. Plus I'm not sure how to remove the huge FPS counter on the bottom right corner of the screen.

[devSin]

Honestly, the floating icons is something that XSEED should have originally done.

The current ones just don't scale well at all. Anything other than default size or perspective and they start to look awful.

[Bighead]

@masterotaku: Thanks for the heads up. I didn't examine too many textures so there could be plenty with missing mipmaps, so far I only looked into the ones in Bareahard that tile along with the trees since you already conveniently pointed those ones out. I'll try to find them all in one go once I have a full dump of the game and create a way to automate my search (a simple modification to my script should do the trick).

@MabinoZerk: I do get a slight stutter when loading the camp menu for the first time (maybe less than half a second?). It's one of the unfortunate drawbacks of HD texture mods, they require a somewhat powerful GPU. The portraits there are only 2x the size of the original (1024x1024 > 2048x2048), but as the resolution doubles, the number of pixels is quadrupled. And at first I was actually considering going to 4x the original size, maybe it's a good thing I didn't.

@devSin: I'll agree with that, a lot of the issue is that the texture uses mipmaps and the original size is pretty small. Most tools automatically generate mipmaps to 1x1. The floating talk portrait for example can load down to level 3 (counting the top layer) depending on how far away it is from the camera. Most of the other icons are usually closer to the camera, and use between level 2-3. Even my custom texture was looking very bad at this distance, so in the end I only included 1 mipmap. I was torn between this and no mipmaps, and ultimately decided that 1 level strikes a nice balance. At least in most scenes I tested.

[masterotaku]

Originally posted by Bighead:

I'll try to find them all in one go once I have a full dump of the game and create a way to automate my search (a simple modification to my script should do the trick).

OK, thank you for your effort :).

Originally posted by Bighead:

The portraits there are only 2x the size of the original (1024x1024 > 2048x2048), but as the resolution doubles, the number of pixels is quadrupled. And at first I was actually considering going to 4x the original size, maybe it's a good thing I didn't.

Ooooh, I might want those textures :p. Please, make them a downloadable option, if that's their original quality (where did you get them from?). It's good for future proofing (whenever I have a monitor >1440p) and for fun. If they behave badly, I just have to replace them with the smaller ones.

[Bighead]

The large portraits on the camp menu are the original portraits dumped from the game, with a combination of waifu2x upscaling + manual edits. I didn't give many of the other portraits the same love yet as I really wanted to get this out there. For example you can see some distortion in Rean's chin here because I have not yet fixed these ones outside of simply upscaling: http://i.imgur.com/Naz4HuE.jpg

Some of the other portraits also need work such as the smaller ones. The current large portraits are "good enough" that a 4k version should look rather well with little effort. There is slight quality loss but it's still pretty sharp. I added a link to the first image here: http://imgur.com/a/fAwBB

[lightstep]

im getting a repeating crash in CH 5 Right before the duel between Rean and Lauras dad triggers.

Is there a way to disable this temporarily without uninstalling? or any other fix

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

There are a lot of DL links on the page from the first link, so I downloaded the SpecialK_ToCS 7z. Do I just stick that folder in the main ToCS folder and then get the texture pack and install those?

[Bighead]

@xvop: That crash is not related to textures and has been reported several times. I made a save just before that place to test so I could try to reproduce it. I did manage to with some combination of graphics settings even at 60 FPS, and lowering MSAA fixed it. Others have reported locking to 60 or even 30 FPS fixed it for them.

@Vigi React: That is correct, both the contents of SpecialK and the pack go into the Cold Steel install folder. Maybe I should directly link to SpecialK like Drogean did in his thread.

[lightstep]

Originally posted by Bighead:

@xvop: That crash is not related to textures and has been reported several times. I made a save just before that place to test so I could try to reproduce it. I did manage to with some combination of graphics settings even at 60 FPS, and lowering MSAA fixed it. Others have reported locking to 60 or even 30 FPS fixed it for them.

Oh ok thanks

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

Originally posted by Bighead:

@Vigi React: That is correct, both the contents of SpecialK and the pack go into the Cold Steel install folder. Maybe I should directly link to SpecialK like Drogean did in his thread.

Thanks!