Outrun 2006 - .SZ Sprite Archive (.dat + .dds files)

[Habanero]

EDIT: I've made some progress with a recent Emuline thread I found, which contains a Python script. Apparently it's GZLIB. I wonder if the 3D models are also the same?

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could provide insight into this format that is used by Outrun 2006. The only mention I could find about this format is this thread where Square Enix is mentioned as the originator of the format, with an HCS64 script that 404'd. Otherwise it seems not much is known about the format. A quick Google says that szs is also a compression format released by Google in 2011, but that was after this game so it's probably not related.

The game stores its textures in .sz archives, which can be extracted with Outrun X 2.2 by Howard_Casto. with varying degrees of success.

The Unpack feature will produce a folder with a .DAT and .DDS files that seem to may or may not render/extract properly.



Inside the two zips here are the files that result when using the Decompress function (a DAT + a DEC file), and the results of the unpacking attempt alongside the original sz file and its filecutter output.

Here's what the hex looks like in the beginning, but that's probably not useful as a partial screenshot.



Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

https://mega.nz/folder/d8pXyShI#d044IX8KE5mnOR17Vk6_0w

[ferguu]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... =130891.40 makes reference to texture editing in OutRun - maybe you can ask the guys in there for some help - theyre still fairly active.