Tutorial: How to extract Tales of Crestoria stickers (stamps), videos, and more asset files

This is the official English translation of a post. The original post in bahasa Indonesia can be found here: Stiker (stamp) dan video Tales of Crestoria, dan cara mengambil berkas aset lainnya.
Note: You can always translate any article using Google Translate tool on the upper right corner (or lower part for mobile view) of this blog.

Welcome back to Isamu no Heya. Have you read our previous post on How to map the route of Twine based visual novel games? Well, on this occasion we will still discuss a Game thing. However, it's not about games in general that are made with a certain engine, but a specific game, called Tales of Crestoria.

A glimpse of Tales of Crestoria

Apps icon of
Tales of Crestoria

Tales of Crestoria (テイルズ オブ クレストリア) is the newest mobile game (mobage) from Bandai Namco Entertainment released on 16 July 2020. Even though they have separated apps and the server, the Japanese and global versions are released at the same time. Thus leads them to a less localization. In this game, the voices are still dubbed in Japanese, not being translated into English. The theme song also still had vocals included, not made instrumental only like in the previous Tales of series.

For the storyline itself, Tales of Crestoria focuses on sin and how the main characters who is excluded by the society for committing a sin, called Transgressors or blamed men (togabito — 咎我人), find fellow companions to survive and understand the rules of the world. On their way, they will be hunted down by the Enforcers or executors (shikkou-sha — 執行者) and acquire the embodiment of sin in the form of weapon, called Blood Sin, by a person who is nicknamed the Great Transgressor or blamed demon (togaoni — 咎我鬼).

Videos in Tales of Crestoria

You can play the playlist of several videos below that have been uploaded to YouTube to get a better overview of the story.

Playlist: "Tales of Crestoria" Codex Movies

Watch directly on Youtube
At the end of this post, we will also explain how to retrieve (extract) and export the asset resource files in this Tales of Crestoria game, such as images, music, conversations, and videos like this one.

Means of communication in Tales of Crestoria

If you ever played previous mobages from Tales of series, you must have noticed that there have been many developments in the means of communication in this title. In Tales of Link, for example, there is no way to connect with other players. In the Japanese version of Tales of The Rays, each player has their own board that can be written by their friends by visiting the player's respective room. To reply, you can do it on your own board, as well as on theirs. This is similar to the Wall concept on Facebook in the old days.

The view of chat menu in Tales of Crestoria

In Tales of Crestoria, the means of communication is actually a chat system. You can chat with fellow friends on the "Friends" tab, or in an open room that can accommodate up to 500 active players on the "World" tab. Besides that, you can also start a group chat in "Guild", and talk to people who are fighting the same enemy in "Raid".

Stickers (stamps) in Tales of Crestoria

Besides sending regular text (which has character length in every send that has been greatly improved, compared to Tales of the Rays) in the chat, you can also send some kind of stickers. Here, these stickers are known as stamps. The stamps are in the form of characters from the previous Tales of series (called "key characters") as well as new original characters in this series (called "main characters") accompanied by various different text full of colors.

Oh, if you are interested in stickers from games like this, maybe you will be interested in reading the previous post from Isamu no Heya: Achievement Stickers from Salah Sambung Apps.

These are all 31 stamps in the worldwide/global version of Tales of Crestoria.

KANATA Hi there!	MINT Pretty please?	LEIA Well pLEIA'd!	MEREDY Hweel!
GUY Enter the amazing...	RAVEN Love ya, baby!	VICIOUS Let's dance!	MIKLEO & SOREY Yay!
ASBEL   I couldn't protect them...	MISELLA Is that MEAT?!	SHIRLEY OK!	LEON NO!
FARAH No problem!	SOPHIE ?	KOR I don't try, I DO!	RUCA I'm sorry!
EIZEN Oh?	MAO Nice!	RITA Sheesh...	CAIUS Sounds good!
LUDGER & ELLE Good luck!	LUKE It's not my fault!	JUDAS Unthinkable!	ZELOS Hey, Honey
AEGIS Stay strong!	YUNA Adieu!	ORWIN You got this	JUDE & MILLA On it!
MARTA & EMIL Thanks!	CLAIRE & VEIGUE Clap Clap Clap	BARBATOS Brraaaawwr!

For those of you who want to download all the sticker image files above, you can get them as a .zip archive via the following Mediafire link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/suhbnw4wcfeo5l9.

How to retrieve asset/resource files in Tales of Crestoria for Android

The asset files of Tales of Crestoria are stored in the "downloads" folder of User AppData. Depending on your Android version, the full path might be: "/data/user/0/com.bandainamcoent.crestoria_ww". To access this directory, of course, you have to use a rooted device. And, for those of you who may still have doubts about rooting, I recommend reading the following Isamu no Heya post: My rooted Android phone and how it came.

If you already have the access, all you have to do is copy the files to a computer with Windows operating system for further processing. The directory structure itself is arguably quite neat. There are CHARACTER containing 3D models of both playable characters and the enemies, MOVIE containing full motion videos used throughout the game as well as in summon/gacha clip, SOUND containing background music, sound effects, conversation recordings, and UI containing images and effects.

First of all, what you need to do is uncompress the files. As explained by akderebur in XeNTaX forum, you can use the TOCDec Tool from akderebur (available here). Just drag and drop the mentioned directory (SOUND, for example) onto the application, and the results will be found in the same directory with "_unpack" suffix.

Next, you will need to export and convert these unpacked files into common file format. The processing method for each of these asset file types is quite different. After this, we will explain it for image, sound/audio, and movie/video files. Meanwhile for 3D models, you can read it on XeNTaX forum because I think it is clear enough.

How to process AIF, CSF, and IPK image files inside UI directory in Tales of Crestoria

Tales of Crestoria image files have AIF extension. Nevertheless, this is not the audio file format developed by Electronic Arts and Apple that we are familiar with, known as "Audio Interchange File". This AIF is a kind of container that holds the KTX files. It is the same for CSF and IPK. Yes, this time it's a real KTX, "Khronos Texture" file.

One of AIF image files inside UI directory in Tales of Crestoria, fcst001_009.aif

As explained on the same XeNTaX forum, to extract this KTX out of the container, you can use the TOCImgEx Tool from akderebur (available here). Just drag and drop an image file into the application, and the results will be found in the "Textures" directory with "tex{sequence} - {width}x{height} - {color format}.ktx" format.

The problem arises when several images have the same resolution and color format. For example, the main story scene images (files with the "fcst" prefix) always have size of 1684x972 pixels and color format of RGB. When you drag several of these files consecutively to TOCImgEx, you will only find one final file in "Textures". This is because the previous result will always be overwritten with the preceding result because of the same name.

Because of that, I also created my own program which you can use: batch_toc_image_convert from Isamu no Heya (available here). Just put batch_toc_image_convert in the same directory as TOCImgEx and the image files you want to process, then run it, and the results will be found in "Textures" directory with the same filename as the original source file, for example "stamp_0001_en_unpack.aif" will become "Textures/stamp_0001_en_unpack.ktx". Especially for IPK which possibly stands for image pack, the result will also have a number suffix, for example "stone2560.ktx", "stone2560_2.ktx", "stone2560_3.ktx", and so on. No more need to do manual drag and drop for each existing file, and rename the final files one by one so they don't get overwritten.

The final step is to convert these KTX files into a common image format. For RGBA color formats which contain transparency, it is recommended to convert them to "Portable Network Graphics" PNG format, while for others it can be converted to "Joint Photographic Experts Group" JPG format. I use Mali Texture Compression Tool (available here) for the conversion.

How to process AAC and SPK audio files inside SOUND directory in Tales of Crestoria

Tales of Crestoria sound (audio) files have two extensions, AAC and SPK.

Files with AAC extension are used for background music. For example, "bgm_1000_menu_title.aac". They are Vorbis audio files that you can listen to directly through your multimedia player without any extraction or conversion. I use Media Player Classic with the K-Lite Codec Pack (available here) to play them.

Files with SPK extension are used for sound effects and conversation recordings. For example, "system_common_se.spk" and "voice_main01001.spk". For this kind of files, you need to use the TOCDec Tool again. The result are ISF files which contain several more files, such as AAC, MPAC, and MOU, which are concatenated as a whole. If the first file (A) has six size unit and the second file (B) has three, it will be compiled into AAAAAABBB. For example, in "voice_main01001_unpack.spk", there are "voice_main01001_045.aac", "voice_main01001_027.aac", and "voice_main01001.mpac" files respectively.

These files must be extracted as standalone files. To do this, I split it by " CAA" delimiter which is always there at the beginning of every AAC file. Unfortunately, this method only works if that AAC file is followed directly by another AAC file. Thus, "voice_main01001_045.aac" will be playable because it can be separated right before the " CAA" string belonging to the next file. However, when processing the next file, no more " CAA" remains. As a result, the files "voice_main01001_027.aac" and "voice_main01001.mpac" cannot be separated from each other so they cannot be played properly.

I use the VGM Toolbox (available here) for the splitting. Just open the menu Misc Tools > Extraction Tools > Generic > Advanced Cutter/Offset. Under Criteria, use " CAA" as the Search String. Under Cut Options, check Extract Files and type ".aac" as Output File Extension. Under Cut Size Options, also use " CAA" as Terminator String. Finally, drag and drop the desired SPK file into the VGM Toolbox. The results can be found in the directory with the name according to the initial file with "_CUT" suffix.

How to process USM video files inside MOVIE directory in Tales of Crestoria

Tales of Crestoria movie (video) files have USM extension. However there are two types of USM used here, those with single track, and those with multiple tracks which have been multiplexed (muxed) together.

One of USM video files inside MOVIE directory in Tales of Crestoria, pickup_cp3001_01.usm

A single track file contains only the video without sound, used for the summon/gacha video clip. For example, "pickup_cp3001_01.usm". You can just wrap it back into a multimedia container, and the video will be ready to play. I use mkvtoolnix-gui from Moritz Bunkus (available here) to wrap it into MKV format. Just add the desired USM files into the Source files on the Multiplexer menu, then click Start multiplexing.

File with multiple tracks has at least a video and a audio tracks. Some of them even have subtitle attached. These files are used in the storyline throughout the game. For example, "mov001_001.usm". Unlike files in SPK which are directly concatenated as a whole, the files in USM will be concatenated per part, the first part of the first file will be followed by the first part of the second file before moving to the next part for both files. If video file (A) has six size unit and the audio file (B) has three, it will be compiled into AABAABAAB.

If you wrap it right away, you can only play the first few seconds, which is the first AA part before B appears in the above example. What needs to be done is to break up each part and glued it back together with the rest parts of the same track, so that you get a video file with AAAAAA content and an audio file with BBB content. I use the VGM Toolbox (available here) to do this. Just open the menu Misc Tools > Stream Tools > Video Demultiplexer. Under Options, use "CRI Movie 2" as Format, then drag and drop the desired USM files into the VGM Toolbox. The results can be found in the directory with the name, with M2V extension for the video and HCA for the audio. Unfortunately there is no easy way to extract the subtitle.

The M2V file itself is a second generation of "Moving Picture Experts Group" MPEG format without audio. Your multimedia player should be able to play it as it is a fairly common format. I use Media Player Classic with the K-Lite Codec Pack (available here) to play it. The HCA file is "High Compression Audio" format. Not all multimedia players support it. I myself use HCAデコーダ from にゃが (available here) to convert it into WAV file.

Next, just provide the same filename for both of the video, audio, and subtitle. When opening the video, generally a multimedia player will also play the audio and subtitle simultaneously. If not, of course you can put them all back in a container. I myself use mkvtoolnix-gui from Moritz Bunkus (available here) to wrap it into MKV format. Just add the desired M2V and WAV files to the Source files on the Multiplexer menu, then click Start multiplexing.

Closing

So, it is quite easy to retrieve the asset files in Tales of Crestoria, isn't it? If anything is unclear, don't hesitate to ask in the comments column below. Finally, thank you for reading and see you on the next post from Isamu no Heya.