Extracting .tex textures from the legend of spyro a new beginning (ps2)

[Voxelated]

Hi. I've been trying to extract/convert/view .tex files from the ps2 version of the legend of spyro a new beginning (develpoed by Krome) with very little luck. After trying out numerous .tex file handling pieces of software only Raw texture cooker was able to make something out of the file, more specifically a colourful mess of pixels in .dds.
As far as searching the XeNTaX forums go, it seems that Noesis should be able to handle cases such as mine, given it has the right script(s) to work with. Script(s) that I do not have and am unable to find. At least other people seemed to have successes using Noesis to deal with some other .tex files developed by Krome.
So if you could point me to the direction of scripts and/or programs capable dealing with this, it would make my day.

Thanks in advance.

[episoder]

you got some file samples?

[Voxelated]

https://mega.nz/#!UGYnwQxR!n25PMLan1Ivm ... wSk-zoZeQ4

[episoder]

well. have a noesis plugin. it extracts only this texture right now. if it needs more formats, like 4-bit or swizzled, i need more samples.

btw... voxels and spyro? i could make a wrong guess here, who you are.

[Voxelated]

Thanks episoder, you're super. It seems this script is able to decipher most/all of the skins for the characters, so that's something. Then again it runs into problems handling some other .tex files. Take this for example:
https://mega.nz/#!dOAxQICK!qxd1pIQyGpyW ... l8086UL2Zc

It always weirdly manages to put together a different picture, sometimes it looks somewhat sensible, sometimes pretty much nothing at all. I am quessing this is to do with the formats, bits and whatnots you mentioned.
Before asking other people to do all the heavy lifting for me is there any easy enough way for me to know and/or deal with formats, swizzles and stuff myself for example by modifying the noesis plugin you gave me. I say "easy enough" for I am not a code whiz at all, (though I read the hexadecimal thingy for beginners from Discord) but I think I could manage if it was about changing some words in the script as long as I know what to change them to.

And as to guessing my identity I just picked a random name that came to mind. It doesn't have anything in particular to do with Spyro.

[episoder]

wait what? no... i will not try to explain ps2 hex formats. that's madness. i will check the new sample file tmr (need for sleep) tho.

[Voxelated]

It's that complicated a matter? Well that's a shame, I wish I could have been some use. Thanks for looking into these files and making scripts, I hope it's not too much of a headache.

[episoder]

well it's not very complicated if you know what to search for and do. like *cough* depuzzling the bitplanes, cause noesis' 4-bit decoder doesn't do it. *cough* there's also the cross pointer dance to do to resort the ps2 palette. this format being straight bitplanes is rather easy too. the swizzled formats are a tad more complicated to detect and figure out. there are other formats with chunks all over the place out there, that make you go crazy. i still haven't managed to decode the dmc backgrounds yet, for example. capcom is pretty nuts when it comes to complications.

anyway, v2.

[Voxelated]

Not very complicated huh? If you say so.
Okay, after converting the textures it seems we're about two thirds through. Here would be the next case previous scripts were unable to solve:
https://mega.nz/#!cCICVSga!UfdXgUCNFzmu ... KbWeT9_ptk

[episoder]

alright. v3. i got the format byte wrong and it's using the 'internal' format enum. in case you come across rgba32 textures, it should do those too. 16 bit flat memory textures are pretty rare. i'm not fuzzed to include those rn.

[Voxelated]

Looking good, now the script can manage the entire .tex library without running into errors when using Noesis' batch process. However a couple hiccups remain. Take this for example:
https://mega.nz/#!4DYjRSwJ!ega96aw_Xi5R ... LawvCVVbcY

And some of the results look rather weird, but not unreasonably so. I'll let you be the judge of if these are "translated" correctly:
https://mega.nz/#F!FDAHiY7Y!UiIu-N3SX_3yv29iNbdvpg

[episoder]

Looks correct to me. It's a lookup texture for ramp shaders. The rest like gradient textures used for fx like this. https://imgur.com/a/6URo6Ht

[Voxelated]

They're supposed to look like that? Okay. Here would be other curiosities I would like to have off my chest.
First up are... health- and shield potions? I have completed this game multiple times and as far as I know there aren't any potions in it. Then again there seems to be some texture files associated with Crash Bandicoot (Krome's previous project) or maybe some concepts that never came to be. Anyway these don't look like quite right to me:
https://mega.nz/#!lCg3RaBY!KobLQ_BsTaXi ... pwg_awvv28
https://mega.nz/#!dGoBhYAZ!uwp0rl3d2TyO ... q_dRev_luM

These are text on a checkerboard and just a number:
https://mega.nz/#!BO4nXCxD!m_p68WimvzvX ... L3U2ihkO_g
https://mega.nz/#!4P4RHahQ!qP7pMwSU19KR ... 6mlUuBYuwg

Last one is a smoke texture, but the converted version is full of holes (I can see why this could be the case, but I would rather be sure it's not some translation error):
https://mega.nz/#!MboHnaSB!G8m5_hPkUD77 ... Bv8YeGz7bU

[episoder]

woulda been smart to zip them up. and they all seem correct. i dunno if and where those textures are used. the env cloud looks just like a cloud with some dustmotes in it. the potion textures contains 8 parts of an animated particle in the lower portion. in case they are not used they just forgot to remove them from the build. the smack block is definetely an editor or debug texture they probably forgot to remove too. and the number is just a number. what's wrong with that? seems all good to me.

we done here?

[Voxelated]

All right. Thanks for checking those out for me.
After I have made my edits in .png format I will need to change them back to .tex format. Can the noesis script be somehow reverse engineered to handle such task or is there another way?