PERSONA PLAYSTATION - PRESERVED DISC ARTWORK
Date: 2026-10-24
Project: L:\Game Preserevation\Persona 1

Open gallery.html to browse the collection offline. No server, network,
installation or online account is needed. Search by original source filename,
filter by category, or filter by Japanese/American source. PNG links open the
image at its recovered dimensions. Extract the ZIP before opening its gallery.

RECOVERED COLLECTION

381 distinct complete images, with 797 mapped source occurrences:
  157 environment base backgrounds (93 explicit-map assemblies, 64 direct)
  101 complete illustrated card fronts and 1 card-back design
   73 static dialogue portrait illustrations
   17 ending story/setting illustrations
   16 standalone ending character illustrations
    8 complete ending scene images
    5 illustrated story panels
    2 title screens, with separate Japanese and American designs
    1 complete loading-screen design

Static portraits and complete card/ending illustrations have their own
categories. Walking/battle animation frames, packed sprite/effect sheets,
fonts, fragmented interface pages, texture atlases, blank placeholders and
plain debug grids are excluded from this curated collection. Whole authored
scenes can contain figures baked into the original picture; these are not
separately extracted gameplay sprites. Seven blank/debug EBG images and 667
other unique TIM pages were not promoted to artwork.

The blue patterned card back, abstract ending background and broken-mirror
design are preserved as complete designs, without invented character labels.
Blank/masked dialogue faces are present in the original single-palette TIMs.

FILES

gallery.html                  Offline searchable gallery with embedded index
artwork/                      Original-size RGB PNGs, organized by category
artwork/native/               Byte-exact TIM spans from extracted disc files
artwork/native-components/    Decoded EBG TIM components and BGD tile maps
artwork-manifest.json         Full local source/offset/hash records
portable-artwork-manifest.json  Relative asset paths for a copied collection
curated-artwork-inventory.csv  Curated inventory with source mappings
contact-sheets/curated-*.jpg  Reduced review sheets, not replacement artwork
persona-disc-artwork.zip      Curated portable collection and offline gallery
artwork-bundle-summary.json  ZIP size/hash and verification result

The ZIP includes only curated PNGs, their referenced native/component files,
the portable manifest/inventory, gallery, README and curated contact sheets.
Inside the ZIP, artwork-manifest.json is the portable form with relative asset
paths, and artwork-inventory.csv is the curated inventory.
Candidate sprite/font/texture previews, unreviewed layers, game executables,
full disc images and console BIOS files are not included.

Separate local candidate/research records remain outside the curated ZIP:
candidates/, tim-candidates.json, classification-inventory.json, and
work\persona-disc-art\research. They are not represented as artwork.

PIXELS AND SOURCE PRESERVATION

No AI generation, enlargement, restoration or repainting was used for this
disc-art collection. The separately requested reimagined website illustration
is stored under the project's artwork/ folder and is not part of this ZIP.

PNG files use opaque RGB with original black retained. Five-bit color channels
expand to eight bits by bit replication. Original TIM palette/color/STP words
remain intact in native files. Transparency, blending and display filtering
depend on game use and have not been invented for these previews.

224 images are decoded from visually reviewed complete TIMs found directly in
the disc files. Every selected TIM has one palette or direct color pixels.
The native TIM hashes and exact source-file offsets are recorded.

157 environment backgrounds come from ADV/EBG.BIN compressed groups. The
decoder follows the original game's MIPS decompression routine, with strict
input/output bounds and explicit terminators. All 352 groups (176 per disc)
were decoded and their TIM/BGD spans validated. Selected outputs were reviewed
independently. For 93 backgrounds, the game's explicit BGD cell indices place
16x16 tiles from the first TIM. Used map attributes are zero and all tile
indices are in bounds. The remaining 64 are complete native 384x256 first-TIM
scenes decoded directly, without guessing an external layout.

EBG background PNGs are base environments. Additional foreground/animated
layers, actors and runtime compositing are not reproduced. Decoded component
files are distinguished from compressed original bytes: each source record
contains its original compressed-group offset, size/hash, decompressed hash,
and component offsets/hashes. Exact compressed groups and other native layers
remain in the local research directory; unreviewed extra layers are excluded
from this curated bundle. This is not a claim that every possible graphic
format or runtime screen on the discs has been recovered.

SOURCE DISCS (READ-ONLY INPUTS)

American release: SLUS_003.39
Persona.bin, 707378112 bytes
SHA-256: 3ad6225542afc3704911ecc8cfbc5c47742f822fc79159a6196fa5c2690abae6

Japanese release: SLPS_005.00
Megami Ibunroku Persona - Be Your True Mind (Japan).bin, 699672960 bytes
SHA-256: 6a28c6adfdf79e94f6f38721f69aee07f56512ae7ad46b3dfde9aa17a117b3c0

Inputs remain unchanged. Japanese and American provenance is retained even
when identical images share one PNG. Original artwork belongs to its creators
and rights holders. This collection was saved locally; it was not uploaded to
the audio website.

REPRODUCTION

Use the project's Python runtime with Pillow and NumPy. Scripts are under
work\persona-disc-art. With the extracted disc-file folders already present:

  extract_tim_candidates.py     Scan/strictly decode embedded TIM candidates
  curate_artwork.py             Apply the reviewed 224-image TIM selection
  research\inspect_ebg.py       Decode EBG groups and explicit-map backgrounds
  research\ebg_qa.py            Record native parts, hashes and review sheets
  research\ebg_raw_scenes.py    Decode complete direct EBG scene images
  merge_ebg_artwork.py           Verify and merge the reviewed 157 backgrounds
  package_artwork.py            Build the offline gallery and curated ZIP
  verify_final_artwork.py       Verify source links, pixels and ZIP contents

The source-file locations in manifests are the supplied preservation copies
on L:. Keep curation-selection.json and research\decompressed\curation-ebg.json
with the scripts; those selections are tied to the reviewed source hashes.

Verification records include artwork-verification.json (original TIM source
slices), ebg-artwork-verification.json (source decompression/reconstruction),
and final-artwork-verification.json (complete gallery/ZIP). Independent visual
QA records are retained under the project's work/ directory.
