Soul Reaver HD Texture pack


DISCLAIMER: This is an outdated version, get the remastered textures here instead

Soul Reaver has just celebrated its 21st birthday and, unfortunately, it went largely unnoticed. I was so busy working on this project non-stop that even I am guilty of skipping it.. However, if any game deserves a remaster or a remake it would be Blood Omen (Witcher style anyone?) and Soul Reaver. The current technology enables us to go into such detail unimaginable back in 1999. Back then, Lara was just maturing from spiky polygon stage into a more rounded experience and Raziel with his tattered wings has just been released into our living rooms on 16th of August, over half a year after its planned release date. Today, I can finally announce why I went silent for almost two weeks.



I must admit, when I've recently seen a couple of LOK fans redoing textures for Dreamcast, it peaked my interest immediately. Dreamcast version has higher polygon versions of Raziel Kain and enemies but its textures are more pixelated than PC or even Playstation in some cases. In addition to that, the new Raziel's and Kain's faces were not something I was a fan of either. However, it offered 60fps and a dynamic soundtrack, something which the former is missing on Playstation and latter on PC, so either way, the game is rigged... Until now. I have previously used Nulldc and Redream but when discovering that Flycast offers the option to dump and load custom textures, I did not hesitate to make my own texture pack (comparison gallery found on the bottom).

Download SR1 DC HD Texture pack




The process


When I started working on this 2 weeks ago, I did not fully anticipate the amount of work needed at first (I poured around 200h into this projec). Within a few days of solidly working from morning till late night with a lunch break in between, it soon became apparent this will be no small feat. My wrist gave out on the fourth day and I could not use my right hand anymore. Determined to keep going, I switched to my left hand and while a bit slower, I kept working continuously. After consulting one of my friends, I ordered a vertical mouse and could not wait for it to arrive (it worked wonders).



One of the biggest time consuming things I had to do first was categorising all the textures (which area do they belong to as there are many similar looking rock textures). I had to do this twice as I was replacing Dreamcast textures with those extracted and AI upscaled from the PC version (kindly provided by Allard) and hope I categorised them both into the same folder. Their file names also did not match which meant painstakingly trying to find matching texture one by one. On top of the that, Dreamcast textures are all upside down and also some of them have completely different tile sets than the PC version to complicate matters further. Now I understood why nobody has attempted this before...




The AI upscaling is an amazing piece of technology. It has been used many times and successfully for video games and videos alike. Resident Evil Seamless HD project is something I have tried recently. Playing RE2 and RE3 in this manner was really refreshing and great to see the glory restored to those original pre-rendered backgrounds which, honestly, aged terribly. The texture tile sets extracted from PC version of SR1 and then upscaled in Topaz, however, while producing good results, also had a downside to it - the process sometimes left blue horizontal lines on certain textures which I found quite distracting while playing so I had to smooth them out by hand in Photoshop afterwards (size 7 brush was my saviour). Unfortunately, this distortion was found on many murals and countless rock textures so this task was quite repetitive and required a steady hand. Another challenge I had to overcome was the upside down orientation of the Dreamcast textures and basically playing matching pairs with them in the folders. Silenced Cathedral has the most tile sets as anticipated (155 total) and below is an example of what it looked like when I had to find two identical sets from PC and DC:



If the only thing I had to do is to flip over the textures and paste them on top of each other, it could have ended there... What further added to the difficulty was that some of the objects like any new models and parts of areas have been retextured for the DC version which made finding exact matching pair impossible and I had to find the missing textures inside others. This often resulted into comparing the light or dark scratches or indentations in a desperate bid to find the exact one (I called it fifty shades of rock textures) otherwise the tiles would not match in the game afterwards. To help me look, I had to imagine shapes or even figures on these tiles (pareidolia was really useful here). However, in certain cases the texture size did not match either so I had to resize them as well.



The result


The very first re-texture I have done was Raziel. I had a vision on how I wanted him to look like in my head already. I was always a fan of SR2 textures made by Daniel Cabuco but trying to apply them to the lower polygon count of SR1 Dreamcast Raziel was a headache. I have decided the best course of action was to combine the high res PC textures by Arnold Ayala with Daniel's high res textures from SR2. I think that this mixture fits the the rest of the game well and adheres to the overall art style.



Raziel was originally meant to crack open his shoulder pad and use it to hold his cowl in place. However, this proved too much to animate for the intro and while this idea has been dropped, the expanded shoulder pad was still part of the original Raziel sketches which were used for the textures on PS1, PC and even Dreamcast. I have decided to completely paint the cowl from scratch, added a slightly thinner Razielim symbol and made the cowl more brown to match the intro. I did consider a version with a shoulder pad as well, but could not make it fit properly on the model. Another thing which I always wanted to fix were Raziel's claws. One of the earliest renders has them as white but ever since then, every in-game model had them in his body colour (they didn't fix this until Defiance), while according to the intro FMV and sketches they were supposed to be white/grey. The new textures reflect this now accurately. 


His facial textures and eyes were another thing I never really liked so I have tried to fix them as much as possible. It is not ideal due to the limited polygons on his head, however, this layout I have found works and looks the most natural on this model. One last thing which I have also changed is I added grooves on the bottom of his feet. None of the games have them for some reason but they are seen in SR1 FMV intro. Overall, I am pretty happy with the way Raziel has turned out but am curious to see what other fans can come up with (there is already one with the Hylden's textures applied). Ben Lincoln already tried to apply Water Glyph statue textures and others to Raziel with success.


While I knew which direction I wanted to take with Raziel from the start, Kain was a different story. Bringing him closer to his SR1/SR2 intro self proved to be almost impossible due to lack of any good shots of his body, so I had to resort on using the frontal body sketch by Daniel Cabuco which was used for PS1 version, minus the head, as that one was re-skinned completely, so I had to use the original Dreamcast skin. I have at least added new eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth from a high res render of him. 

The Soul Reaver sword I always felt needed a make over and while the developers were severely limited by the polygon count, I have somehow managed to apply the SR2 texture to it in the end. I always felt it looked more like its BO1 counterpart, while the intro had the awesome new design. The way the texture is applied to its model is by no means perfect and is even used for its brief spectral appearance which looks strange, but I think it worked out in the end. The rest of the enemies and characters were more straightforward and some of the bosses even uses HD skins released by the devs themselves (Melchiah and Zephon). 


Another thing needing improvements was the font. For some reason the Dreamcast default one shows up really badly in the emulator, so thanks to AesirHod, this font has now been fixed up and letters no longer bleed over each other. Also, the in-game buttons and arrows did not look best even upscaled, so I have drawn brand new ones. The only thing which I could not touch is the particle effects - any attempt at upscaling them or just using higher resolution texture for them would result in various screen artefacts (square ripples, square fire, corrupted looking glyph symbols, etc.).

 

There are also a few alpha textures applied on some objects and some minor adjustments present in this pack. Originally, I wanted to include a lot more alpha textures but the way the objects have been re-textured made it impossible to apply them (especially the Oracle's cave side doors, they now use 4 repeating textures to save memory). Long time ago I also asked Convalise if I could use his high res warp gate symbols for Soul Revenant, while that is on currently hiatus, some of his symbols have been reused in this texture pack (Abyss, Sarafan Tomb, Chronoplast, Stone and Sunlight Glyph). 

In the end, I got so absorbed into this project that I had to turn off any distractions, steam, discord, even my browser. If I wanted this to be done fast, the only prospect was to keep on working. I am glad that it is done now and any future updates won't be nowhere near as hard to implement as the initial organising and tile cutting. When I have replayed PS1 version to get comparison shots for this article, I had a small shock from how pixelated the whole game looks now to me. I got so used to the new visuals that forgot what it was like to work with 2MB of RAM (1MB of VRAM) which is absolutely insane and to this day I have no idea how the developers made it work together with a seamless shifting world. Soul Reaver will always be that special game for me which I just can't ever forget. I hope Soul Reaver fans out there will find this texture pack to be enjoyable addition.


Gallery











97 comments:

  1. Very impressive result !
    thank you !! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is there a guide on how to do this exactly?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, download the Read Me file in the link provided.

      Delete
    2. Seria posible reemplazar el modelo de soul reaver por el de lara croft?,de esa manera muchos entenderian que tomb raider aniversary podria haber salido para psx1,creo que es mismo motor que luego se usaron en otras plataformas

      Delete
  3. Is there a guide on exactly how to do this please?

    ReplyDelete
  4. many thanks :3

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fernandes, Gabriel30 August, 2020 18:46

    Não sabia da versão de Dreamcast, Good Job!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi, thanks for this wonderful work, i'd like to ask you how to use the buttons mappings, i don't know where to copy the .cfg files as it's not mentioned in the Readme, i'm using an Xbox 360 controller

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just download the whole mappings file and unzip it into the emulator directory so it is flycast > mappings > cfg files.
      I put a wireless and wired options in there for xbox360. You might need to map yourself if it does not work but at least you can use it for reference on how it should be done.

      Delete
  7. Your a fan of the first

    so what do you Think about the other 3?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The order from best to worst for me is SR1, SR2, Blood Omen, Defiance, Blood Omen 2. What about you?

      Delete
    2. Blood Omen, Soul Reaver 1, Soul Reaver 2, Defiance, Blood Omen 2

      Delete
  8. Nice work! Any chance of this mod working on the original dreamcast via optical disc emulation hardware like the GDEMU?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not sure, to be honest, but I doubt it. Somehow I think the original dreamcast could not possibly handle textures of such upgraded size.

      Delete
  9. My game is crashing in the beginning when it comes to going up the path. Do you know how to solve it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is really strange! I finished the game several times with custom textures enabled and did not crash once. Is this on pc or android? Is it always in the same place? Are you using PAL version of the game?

      Delete
    2. I got the same problem, i manage to get up just running the vanilla emulator and game; and when you get to the portal room you can instal/activate the HD texture using the tutorial, you can use the save/load state emulator tool aswell to continue from that room.

      Delete
    3. I had the same problem, i tried to start version with Russian translation. Then, i downloaded USA version, and it works correctly.

      THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WORK, Raina Audron!

      Delete
    4. Glad to hear that Razya! I only tested this with US/UK version, sorry it does not work on others!

      Delete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Your work is great. My only criticism, if I may allow myself, is about Raziel's chest and abdomen area. In the original versions, even with the limitations of low resolution, the impression is that of stretched skin over the ribs and the battered internal structure of the character while in this version that feeling is lost.
    Really impressive work nonetheless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your comment! Raziel has no skin left, just muscle, so I think it works but you can always replace the textures with your own.

      Delete
  12. Apart from the fact that I love it and that I wish you could do this for the PC as well, this line from you cracked me up :)))) "When I started working on this 2 weeks ago, I did not fully anticipate the amount of work needed at first (I poured around 200h into this projec)." Does it sound familiar?! :D *ahem *SR2intro *ahem

    ReplyDelete
  13. Can you get this to work on retroarch? i cant find flyleaf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It should work in retroarch as well. Flycast you can find on the emulation gametech wiki, go to dev builds.

      Delete
    2. Where do you go to make it work on retroarch i cant find out how to enable the enhanced textures

      Delete
    3. Once the game loads, press F1, options, enable custom load textures, F1 to close.

      Delete
    4. ok ive done that , i enabled it but i dont see a change.

      Delete
  14. On Android, Retroarch is the only way I can get this to work. Unfortunately, the widescreen option will not work sadly through Retroarch.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Has anyone got this working on an Nvidia Shield? I followed everything I did to get it to work on my Galaxy S10+, but the textures are just not loading. This is also through Retroarch. My anxiety level has been through the roof since this was released. Lol Please help!

    ReplyDelete
  16. do you think it is possible to adjust the resolution of the textures to 480p and make them run in the original Dreamcast ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do not know how to insert textures into an already existing disc image, sorry. It is solely handled by the emulator, not the game itself.

      Delete
  17. Thanks you so much, impressive work :D Also one of my favorite game.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Raina and many thanks for the HD Pack!

    It works fine using T36802N serial (USA), but I'm having troubles using T36803D13 (Italy) version. Any hint?

    I'm using Flycast on RetroArch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have tested this with UK and USA versions and it works fine for both. It technically should work with others too, though. Extract the textures and compare them and keep the original text file.

      Delete
    2. I got this working on T36803D13 (Italy) iso using the original T36802N folder name with RA/Flycast... this is quite strange, as the game/hdpack association seems to be serial-based.

      But it works, and I'm very happy :) Thank you

      Delete
    3. Amazing! Glad to hear you got it working :)

      Delete
  19. So this is not for the pc version?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Alguém poderia disponibilizar a rom já patcheada? :/
    Não consigo fazer isso

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The textures are loaded externally by the emulator so that is not possible, sorry.

      Delete
  21. Can you use this in the steam version of the game?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, no. Texture sets for Dreamcasts are slightly different than for pc so they won´t fit pc models. Use Eagle Eye´s HD texture pack (it´s on steam) instead.

      Delete
  22. Will this work with Retroarch Flycast Core?-If so where do I put the folders? Can't seem to find the Flycast emulator individual download.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes it will work.

      Decompress them in RetroArch/system/dc/textures/T36802N

      Delete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Got the game to run through a flycast core for retroarch on Steam with this HD mod. Thanks for your efforts :)
    I am playing on Windows 10 and what I did was:
    Got to steam retroarch directory then go to the following folders
    system>create 'dc' folder>create 'textures' folder>place T36802N folder in there

    In 'dc' folder, place all VMU files and necessary stuff to have flycast run games.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Got a question. I'm on 5900X, 3080 PC, with 32GB 3733MHZ CL16 RAM. On a SSD as well. So I think specs wise, I'm covered. Oh yeah, W10.

    So I am using Flycast, your recommended instructions. I get weird audio popping and speedups and slowdowns. I.e, drops to 58FPS and then speed ups to like 63. Very awkward.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is weird. Have you tried forcing V-sync maybe?

      Delete
  26. A really AWESOME job. You have achieved what not even Eidos herself has done with her saga ... One question ... Will these textures also work on RetroArch's PCSX-ReARMed or on PC's ePSXe? Would be great...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the kind words! These textures can only be used for the Dreamcast version played through Flycast.

      Delete
    2. You're welcome, "Al Cesar what is from Cesar" and with this pack you have achieved an impressive job. Too bad they can't be used with the ePSXe, but at least I'll be able to enjoy the Flycast version [it looks so good it looks like another game]

      Delete
  27. Cant seem to get the core to load the custom textures on retro arch or flycast. Please help!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are your textures in the correct folder? It should definitely work on Flycast.

      Delete
  28. Maybe I appear as a noob but where do you find the game file of Soul Reaver?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hey, thank you for doing this because I love LoK games and it's really great to see you went carefully through all of it. And thanks for mentioning our RESHDP, I clearly wasn't expecting that ! Good job !

    ReplyDelete
  30. Thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Hey, thanks for this incredible job! I'm running flycast on a MAC but the HD textures seem not to work. I'm on a french version of the game. Do you know how to solve this problem? The T36802N folder is on desktop/flycast/data/textures. Thanks for the help, I'm so frustrated!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you also tried it on English version? I only tested it with English (US/UK), sorry!

      Delete
  32. Hi. I have the us version of the game and I've done everything according to the guide and the textures load correctly. but I still have the crashing problem. I checked and even when I disable the custom textures it still crashes all the same. and my system runs switch emulation smoothly so I don't think it's a compatibility issue. any tips?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When does it exactly crash? I have been using different builds of Flycast and none of them crash for me. The only thing I can recommend is to alter the graphics or some other settings.

      Delete
  33. Hi! Thank you so much for your job and sorry for my poor english language, I'd like to ask you a question concerning the introducing vidéo on the game it's seems to be in a very low quality, regarding to the video from the french youtuber AtOmium it's seems to be in very good quality, have you got an idea for this issue? For the rest of the game the textures a very good so far.
    Thanks by advance for your response.
    Best regards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! No worries at all. Unfortunately, all SR DC videos are compressed. I assume that the youtuber has replaced the original DC intro video with a higher quality version in a video editing program.

      Delete
  34. Hi Reina! I published some screenshots of your marvelous HD texture pack for Soul with enhenced graphics powered by Mega Bezels Reflection Shader under RetroArch Flycast. I used a combination of CRT filters and resolution downsampling and I think the final result is pretty, pretty nice!

    https://forums.libretro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/0/e/0ec841c397999c0ba57682010f4f4a052500f900.jpeg

    https://forums.libretro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/5/0/50c1c976bcc13d458411a82c909cba33aeba592c.jpeg

    https://forums.libretro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/f/d/fdd5a98c4a408ed9a36cdbb341ad17cea21f50e8.jpeg

    Libretro thread https://forums.libretro.com/t/hsm-mega-bezel-reflection-shader-feedback-and-updates/25512/2658?u=thenamec

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey TheNamec! That actually looks really good, any guide out there on how to set it to look this way? I do not use retroarch myself but it might be useful to others! Thanks for sharing :)

      Delete
    2. I can give you the shader preset for Retroarch to make it like in the screenshots. How can we arrange this?

      Delete
    3. Just send it over via email (on the bottom of the About & Contact page), thanks!

      Delete
  35. Awesome work, man! Thank you so much! I was looking for info about the rumoured Soul Reaver remaster and I found about you project. I am new to emulators and I installed Flycast and RetroArch today for the first time, just to try your texture pack.

    I was able to load the textures on Flycast and it looks amazing! However, I can't seem to find a way to run Flycast in fullscreen, without the title bar, which is killing me.

    That's why I tried RetroArch with the Flycast core, but I can't get the textures to load. I enabled custom textures in the options and placed the T36802N folder in RetroArch-Win64\system\dc\textures, but it's not working. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot! Unfortunately, I can´t help with RetroArch as I do not use it myself, but with Flycast, just press alt+enter to go full screen :)

      Delete
    2. Awesome, that worked! Thank you very much for the tip, and for the hard work!

      Delete
  36. Hi, is there anyway you make this a texture pack that can be used for the windows version? It's the most convenient one with wrace's patch and the only problem is the texture quality. I'd also be happy with flycast, but it crashes for me at the beginning. I think it's because I'm using an old build of the emulator. I don't really know where to download it. Could you provide any link or whatever? I downloaded it from a random site and it doesn't update. (Or I don't know how to update it) and the retroarch version doesn't seem to have any of these configuration settings for adding custom textures. Thank you in advance, and thank you for keeping the franchise alive. You're a gem sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello! PC version does not support higher texture resolutions, but there has been a recent discovery so it might be possible in the future. Problem is that the texture sheets from DC, however, do not fit PC version as there were some changes made to the models. EagleEye made a pc texture pack available on steam if you would like to try that as well. Please note that the pc version lacks the dynamic soundtrack and I do not recommend it over the console versions. Grab the latest build here: https://flyinghead.github.io/flycast-builds/ Thank you for the kind words!

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Thanks for answering so soon! I downloaded the latest build and it works like a charm.

      Delete
    4. Amazing! Glad it works now, enjoy :)

      Delete
  37. Hi Raina,
    Does it work with a keyboard ? I have only a PS4 controller and it does not work with it.
    The game launches very well, with the HD textures and all, but I can only watch Raziel scratching the ground after the intro... :'(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ok now the PS4 controller is recognized but I cannot tilt the camera up and down.
      It seems that RetroArch does not recognize your mapping files... Any suggestion ?

      Delete
    2. Hey! Glad to hear you got the controller working. However, in SR1, you can´t tilt the camera, only rotate it left and right.

      Delete
    3. Hi Raina, thank you for your reply.
      We can't tilt the camera ? Isn't that a problem to defeat Rahab ?

      Delete
    4. You can only look up and down in the view mode (L2+R2).

      Delete
  38. teach how to put texture in game :( [in video please]

    ReplyDelete
  39. Soul Reaver's Amazing Graphics: "Unbound at last... I thank you, brother..."

    ReplyDelete
  40. I can't find the red me file

    ReplyDelete
  41. wher is it please

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When you click on the link, it is in the folder: SR1DCHD-RA-Read Me.txt.

      Delete
  42. I'm a bit lost as to where to load the cfg controller mapping in flycast as the emulator's setting do not have the ability to select and load an external controller configuration from a file. Thanks for the work on the mod!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Last line is genuine, not intending sarcasm lol

      Delete
    2. The controller configs are found in the mappings folder. You can also make a new one through emulator itself too. Np, thanks for downloading!

      Delete
  43. muchas gracias me a encantado mucho mucho

    ReplyDelete
  44. Excelente trabalho, ficou muito show

    ReplyDelete
  45. Hi Raina and congratulations for the work you have done, it is truly exceptional 👍🏻. I wanted to ask you with redream emulator on android you can't use it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey! Thank you! Sorry, Redream does not support external textures, only Flycast can do that.

      Delete
  46. Hi, i have problem with black bars on cinematics. I've tried turning on only widescreen cheat like you suggested but the game change to 4:3. I don't know what to do.....

    ReplyDelete
  47. Hi there!
    I have a Bin+Cue Soul Reaver USA game, and put the T36802N exactly on correct folder (retroarch/system/dc/textures but looks like flycast core doesn't load the texture, even after I enable the Load Custom textures on Core options.
    Someone knew why this is happening??

    ReplyDelete