AE3 Asset Lab

AE3 Asset Lab is a browser-based asset explorer for Ape Escape 3. Point it at your own game disc image and it extracts everything it needs in the browser. Nothing is uploaded, and the repository ships no game data.

The app plays the game's sequenced music, streamed audio, embedded sound effects, and all 22 full-motion videos; browses every TIM2 image and sprite sheet; and previews the complete I3D model, skeletal-animation, and collision archive. Sequenced audio runs through a WebAssembly build of the ae3-sdk synthesizer.

Music and audio

After you choose an ISO, the app extracts assets into an OPFS cache. Use clear data to close the session, remove those cached assets, and return to the disc picker. Interrupted extractions resume where they stopped, and the app reports wrong, truncated, or non-AE3 images and unplugged drives directly.

The music library contains all 68 BGM songs at their authored per-song volumes. Playback runs in an AudioWorklet with latency-aligned transport and seeking. Controls cover loops, timing, interpolation, reverb, and volume. The UI also has a loop-unwound piano roll, live voice slots, waveform and clipping meters, and exports for Worker-rendered WAV, raw MIDI, bank pairs, and decoded sample kits.

The Streams tab lazily extracts 341 MB of music, dialogue, and cutscene audio. It has waveform and spectrogram transport, pad-aware decoding, and raw .x or WAV export.

The sound-effect library contains 101 banks and 2,699 assembled bank:request entries, all played through the same 48-voice synth. Requests can use exact or console-tick timing, caller volume, bright or Gaussian resampling, and reverb. The transport seeks by time or event score. Its displays include the 48 voice slots, the live output waveform, and a 480 Hz bytecode score with command values and markers for samples, noise, source loops, and reverb sources.

Looped sound effects get a separate live panel. Each active voice keeps a stable row with its intro and loop boundaries, decoder phase, seam count, and an ADSR display that continues across source seams. The panel reports the event cycle, measured audible completion, and authored source-envelope lifetime separately. Infinite stream jumps can either loop or run once. Sample loops stay identified even when their envelopes are finite, and velocity-zero stop requests are shown as controls rather than silent effects. WAV export can render one pass or stop at 10, 30, or 60 seconds. Raw .hd and .bd bank export is also available.

Images and sprite sheets

The Images tab scans direct TIM2 files and every TIM2 member of the disc's compressed PCK packages. The searchable catalog preserves the package path, member attributes, picture count, dimensions, pixel format, and original byte size. A lazy thumbnail grid is the default; a dense flat list and a source-hierarchy tree provide alternate views. The desktop asset browser is horizontally resizable, and the grid adds or removes columns with its width. Grid and list results append automatically near the end of the scroll, while tree folders populate only when opened. Category filters first use exact UIS/I3D references in the same package, then unambiguous package context. Still-unresolved assets are checked for references from other packages. A ui_ name prefix is used only as the final sprite fallback when no format reference exists, and the inspector identifies that lower-confidence evidence explicitly. Remaining ambiguous assets stay under Other.

Previews decode locally from IDTEX4, IDTEX8, RGBA16, RGB24, or RGBA32 into a checkerboard canvas. The decoder linearizes GS CSM1 palettes and expands the PS2 0..128 alpha range to browser RGBA. A selected picture exports as PNG or as its byte-exact source .tm2; Export All PNG preserves the package hierarchy in one ZIP and avoids a second archive-sized memory copy. Multi-picture TIM2 files produce one catalog row and PNG per picture. Completed scans and the original source containers stay in the disc's OPFS cache for later ISO-free browsing without creating one browser file per texture. Declared TIM2 dimensions are preserved exactly: transparent margins authored into a texture or sprite sheet are displayed and exported rather than cropped.

Models, animation, and collision

The 3D tab catalogs 7,345 models, 8,404 animation files, and 2,254 collision meshes from the US retail disc. The SDK executes the model's PS2 VIF packets, reconstructs geometry, materials, bone hierarchies, skin weights, inverse bind matrices, and I3M quaternion tracks, and resolves TIM2 materials within the model's own package. Three.js renders the result with orbit controls, model rotation toggled by R, framing, wireframe, grid, skeleton, playback, and timeline controls.

Selecting a model lists every compatible animation in its package. Selecting an animation finds a compatible skeleton by exact track and bone names, including models in other packages, and labels that inferred association in the inspector. Camera and other non-skeletal I3M channels remain extractable but are not treated as bone rotations. Collision files render as translucent wireframe triangle meshes. Every item exports in its byte-exact source format; rendered models, collision, and paired animation also export as binary glTF (.glb) with textures, skinning, and animation embedded.

FMV playback and export

The FMV tab scans the 22-movie catalog without loading every movie, then reads and caches only the one you select. Clicking a movie carries the play request through the source read, decoder startup, canvas attachment, and priming, so it starts without another click. Keyboard selection prepares the first frame but does not start playback.

A dedicated worker decodes bounded batches from the original MPEG-2 elementary stream with a custom LGPL libav.js/FFmpeg WebAssembly build. WebGL2 presents the packed I420 frames while the decoded WAV supplies the master clock. The SDK's 7:6 sample aspect ratio sets the displayed picture box; the WebGL backing store keeps the coded source dimensions. Interlaced video uses bob deinterlacing at 59.94 fps. Local captions are available for the ten subtitled scenes.

The two-row transport sits below the picture. It stays with the captions and picture controls in fullscreen. Four export options are available:

• Original ZIP preserves the .str, .bin, and .sbt files byte for byte.
• Masters ZIP contains the original MPEG-2 stream, decoded WAV, and SRT captions.
• Lossless MKV remuxes the original MPEG-2 with decoded 16-bit PCM and optional embedded WebVTT captions.
• Fast MP4 uses browser-encoded H.264 and AAC.

MKV and MP4 exports run in a separate worker, so export work does not share the playback worker. FMV playback and export live in the Asset Lab's FMV tab. Monkey TV appears as a disabled, in-development option.

Offline use and browser support

The app is a PWA. After the first visit, its shell works offline and cached assets play without the ISO. The MPEG-2 decoder and movie export modules are not part of the initial precache; the app fetches and caches each one on first use.

Chrome and Chromium are the reference browsers. Core audio, playback, the UI, and Lossless MKV export do not require WebCodecs. Fast MP4 does require AVC and AAC encoding through WebCodecs in a worker. When those encoders are unavailable, the app says so and keeps Original ZIP, Masters ZIP, and Lossless MKV enabled.

Safari creates its AudioContext inside the first click because autoplay permission is tied to the gesture that created it. A context created at page load may remain interrupted under stricter per-site Auto-Play settings. If audio does not start, check Safari Settings > Websites > Auto-Play and the tab's mute state. Promise.withResolvers requires Safari 17.4 or newer. OPFS writes require Safari 18.2 or newer and may still be declined by the browser; in that case, the app reads from the ISO again on the next visit.

Testing on July 21, 2026 covered original MPEG-2 playback in Chrome 150, Firefox 152, and Safari 26.4. The tested paths included progressive video, bobbed interlaced video, captions, seeking, cache resume, and complete movies. The one-click startup path was also tested in all three browsers with a delayed source read and a cold decoder. Each browser reached playing without getting stuck at ready or suppressing an autoplay rejection.

Architecture

• src/ contains the Vite and TypeScript app: disc sessions, OPFS extraction, worklet control, timelines, media stores, the movie playback pipeline, lazy export, and the UI. It does not use a framework.
• src/vendor/extract/ is the bundled TypeScript source for @ae3/extract.
• public/synth/ contains the unbundled audio path: the vendored @ae3/synth binding, ae3synth.wasm, the app engine, and its AudioWorkletProcessor. These files are served verbatim. See public/synth/README.md for details.
• public/libav/ and vendor/libav/ contain the reproducible minimal LGPL MPEG-2 decoder, its deployed source bundle, pinned configuration, checksums, and build script.

Run npm run sync-sdk to refresh vendored SDK artifacts. Set AE3_SDK if the SDK checkout is not in the default sibling directory. The command records the source revision in src/vendor/SDK_COMMIT.

The private research repository contains the audio equality gate because it needs a disc. It checks engine output against the SDK's native wavdump, along with worklet-quantum rendering and seek continuity.

Development

npm install
npm run sync-sdk   # only when bumping the SDK
npm run dev        # or: npm run build && npm run preview
npm run typecheck
npm test

npm run build also generates dist/sw.js, the precache service worker, through scripts/gen-sw.mjs. GitHub Pages deployments use .github/workflows/deploy.yml on every push to main. Once the repository is public, Pages must use the "GitHub Actions" source.

Licensing

The application source is MIT-licensed. FMV playback and Fast MP4 frame extraction use a custom libav.js/FFmpeg build under LGPL-2.1-or-later. Movie muxing includes parts of Mediabunny and the MPEG-2 Matroska codec registration in scripts/patch-mediabunny-mpeg2.mjs, under MPL-2.0.

The notices retain the former @ffmpeg/* GPL source offer because one older service-worker cache can still serve that release. Exact versions, license links, checksums, and corresponding-source links are in public/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.

License: MIT.