Hello
I want to know what makes a Phantasy Star Online 2 Symbol Art file into a Symbol Art image.
What is a Symbol Art?
Spoiler
Symbol Arts are made up of dozens or even hundreds of shapes colored, stretched and positioned in place to make an image (250 objects max). Some of these images can be impossibly elaborate in the right artist's hands and they put incredible amounts of time into making them. For just an example of how they are made google "PSO2: Symbol Art - Evil Monkey" or something. It's probably not the most impressive symbol art, but it shows how the ingame tool is used.
I think they're pretty cool and I would like to create an online repository where people can upload, share, and search for these user-created files to use in the game. I have the general know how of how to set up a website, the database, and even interpreting the potentially decoded data to make SVG's or even an online editing tool that can be used outside of the game with better features.
Unfortunately, I have very little experience with actually decoding the files or even know if it's possible with something that is not well known. I'm 100% confident that the files contain very basic information encoded within them such as each of the objects keys used in the "image" and their respective xy coridinates, RGB color, rotation, and size as well as the title. This can be confirmed when you import SAR files created by other users, you can then edit the individual pieces (which are somewhat similar to layers) as if it were the original.
On average, a SAR file is about 2 KB, elaborate ones using all 250 of the max objects can reach up to 3 KB.
I don't know what you would need to help get this going but please ask.