Any file that isn’t an easily editable text file. Typically requires use of tools or hex editing, such as PAT files.
“Character Graphic” files. These contain all the image data used for a character in the form of indexed, paletted sprites. They don’t contain the palettes themselves.
The sprites in CGs use incremental IDs for use in Hantei-chan that are sorted in alphanumeric order within the folder you’re converting. This means that if you’re converting sprites into CG but have added files in the middle of your directory, some of the sprites may shift their ID. This may end up being an issue if you need to add sprites while making a character.
For example, let’s say you have PNGs with the filenames “A”, “B”, and “C”. These would internally have the IDs of 0, 1 and 2 respectively. If you now edited the set to have “A”, “Aasdw”, “B”, and “C”, these would now have the IDs of 0, 1, 2, and 3, meaning Aasdw stole B’s slot and the rest of the images are now 1 higher, which would be a problem if you were already using those sprites. You can circumvent this by adding sprites to the end of the CG by using prefixes such as “z” which will likely take up new IDs.
Microsoft’s DirectDraw Surface image files. They’re usually for textures in other games, but are strangely used for nearly everything in UNI2 - perhaps because they work better with GPUs. Most of the menus rely on DDS files, and so do character effects. However, they’re almost always stored within a PAT file and tend to require hex editing to replace.
They can have several compression types not unlike PNGs, however, due to how FB operates, a lot of these are bloated, uncompressed images that use DXT5 (specifically B8G8R8A8 / Linear A8R8G8B8) format. On one hand, it explains why the game can be compressed to an impressively-small size using CompactGUI, but on the other hand, it makes it easier to replace textures with PAT files without worrying about filesize offsets. In fact, compressed DDS textures can be a roadblock as UNI2 seems to change how they load.
Two programs that can easily export DDS graphics are GIMP and Paint.NET.
The developers of UNI2. Not to be confused with ArcSys who only publishes and provides ports. Usually shortened to FB.
Hantei (Animation) v6 File. This file type is a binary that contains moveset or animation data for characters and visual effects, which also includes attack and hitbox data. Is the main piece of data needed for characters to carry out actions, including state data, animation data, attack data, and manipulative effects. HA6 are the bones whereas the Mv data is the meat. They don’t contain any graphics, but typically link to other CG and PAT files, and can carry up to 999 patterns.
They can be opened and viewed with any fork of Hantei-chan.
The code name for French Bread’s data system for how characters interact with the game and other characters. Usually the word itself will refer to HA6 data, and there’s not much of a differentiation, but it’s worth nothing that Hantei data is very engrained to the point of being used since early Melty Blood, and convoluted Mv functions can call for it.
“Hantei” might come from the Judo word regarding judgement, or might mean nothing.
An open-source editor for HA6 files. It provides an interface to edit a character’s moveset, including all their patterns and data. Characters can be entirely made within it, and it will load CGs, PATs, and Palettes just fine.
Due to the nature of a niche game and differing needs, there are several seperate to the program done by different contributors.
Hexadecimal - particularly in reference to hex dumps and hex editing.
When this is brought up, it’s in regards to opening a file in it’s raw state, especially when some formats such as PATs are binary files. You’ll have to do some hex editing if you want to surgically replace files or edit particular data that you can’t with regular tools, and may be aided with use of debuggers and the such that are out of the scope of the glossary.
A “piece” of a texture when editing PAT files. Parts are chosen with X/Y + W/H data with a few other parameters which then let you use and manipulate them for PAT patterns.
“P Animation” data file. Not to be confused with “patterns” when “pats” are mentioned. PATs are always used as graphic data for images, effects and other UIs where indexed character sprites are not. They contain DDS files and lots of binary data that dictate the appearance, animations, and “parts” of graphics, among other things. Characters will use them for their visual effects, and most menu elements are using a .pat file.
Character and effect PATs can usually be opened with pani edit to create effects, while a majority of system PATs require hex editing or using scripts to manipulate.
A PAT editor, mostly for character effects. It lets you add DDS files and arrange parts for them to create dynamic, fluid animations, which are then referenced by the HA6 file.
A sprite is an image used to represent a character. In most cases, we’re talking about a PNG file that is “indexed”, which means that each pixel on the picture doesn’t have its own color, but instead references an index of a limited palette of colors. This explains how character sprites can have several palettes (or color sets), because the same sprite can have different colors without changing the sprite data itself.
Non-indexed images such as DDS used for effects are not included in this terminology. We use sprite when we want to talk about how a character itself looks or talk about the files they use, which in the case of UNI2, uses a pixellated/dot style.
Sprite IDs may also be mentioned when using Hantei-chan to choose which sprite appears during a Frame
A set of colors used for a character to have several different color options. Please refer to Sprite. In UNI2, characters will have a “.pal” file to display properly, which has a list of color information. We can convert a set of PNG images that each have a different indexed palette into this format.
This can have several meanings based on the context: