AE3 Asset Lab

Explore audio, FMV, images, stage previews, models, animation, and collision from an Ape Escape 3 disc image.

Open AE3 Asset Lab

The app reads a user-supplied disc image in the browser. It uploads nothing, keeps extracted assets in private browser storage, and includes no game data.

Features

Area	Capabilities
Audio	Sequenced music, streamed audio, and embedded sound effects; WebAssembly synthesis; live visualizers; WAV, MIDI, decoded sample, and source exports
FMV	Original MPEG-2 playback, captions, seeking, source and master archives, lossless MKV, and fast MP4 export
Images	TIM2 textures and sprite sheets from direct files and PCK packages; PNG and byte-exact source export
Stage previews	IPC stills with TIM2 title art; separate, composite, and source exports
3D	I3D models, TIM2 materials, skeletal animation, and collision; interactive preview and GLB or source export
Disc report	Reproducible local compatibility scan for images, effect banks, and FMV metadata; complete JSON and Markdown table output

Use the app

1. Open the hosted app.
2. Drop or select your own .iso file.
3. Choose a library from the sidebar. Asset Lab extracts each larger collection only when you first open it.

The disc reader accepts plain ISO9660 images with 2048-byte sectors. CHD, CSO, raw BIN/CUE, and 2352-byte-sector dumps are not supported.

Completed extraction phases are cached in the browser's origin-private file system (OPFS). Later visits can use those cached assets without the ISO. If a library has not been cached yet, the app asks for the same ISO again. Use clear data to remove the local session and its cache.

AE3 Asset Lab is an installable PWA. The application shell and any resources already fetched by the browser remain available offline.

Browser support

Chrome and Chromium are the reference browsers. Core playback and the ZIP and MKV export paths do not require WebCodecs. Fast MP4 export requires H.264 and AAC encoding through WebCodecs in a worker.

If OPFS is unavailable or the browser declines a write, the app reads from the attached ISO for that session instead of persisting the extracted data.

Disc build support

This matrix records client-side browsing through the real application flow. Generate the automated portion from the app's Report tab or the equivalent ae3-report command in ae3-sdk. The measurements below used ae3-sdk revision 5b2207e3580ae4cc1d588641f4fe3f898350e501. Named playback and rendering observations remain manual. Untested means no claim is made for that build or asset family.

For each regional serial below, measurements cover one observed asset family only. A serial does not establish whole-disc support; unmeasured families remain Untested. The UI keeps a conservative partial/untested warning for every non-US or unknown serial, including builds with one measured family in this table. The PAL beta reports the same SCES_536.42 serial as retail; the measured PAL row applies only to the retail build, and the beta remains untested.

Build	Images	Effects	FMV
US retail (SCUS_975.01)	Tested: 11,931 textures / 11,950 pictures	Tested: 101 banks	Tested: 22/22 inspected
Japanese demo (PCPX_966.57)	Tested: 3,518 textures / 3,527 pictures; 22 declared entries without TIM2 signatures listed	Untested	Untested
Korean retail (SCKA_200.62)	Untested	Tested: 101 banks; boss_specter inspected	Untested
PAL retail (SCES_536.42)	Untested	Untested	Tested: 22/22 inspected; new_play01 played
PAL beta (SCES_536.42; serial shared with retail)	Untested	Untested	Untested
All other builds and regions	Untested	Untested	Untested

The Images tab reports package members that are declared as TIM2 but do not contain a TIM2 signature. They stay out of the usable image catalog and appear in an expandable list with their package, member index, size, and reason.

Development

Use Node.js 20.19 or newer and npm. CI runs on Node.js 24.

npm ci
npm run dev

Run the project checks with:

npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build

npm run build creates dist/ and generates the PWA service worker at dist/sw.js. Use npm run preview to serve that production build locally.

Architecture

The data path is:

ISO -> ISO9660 -> DATA.BIN -> VFI/PCK -> format decoders -> OPFS

The UI is written in TypeScript without a UI framework. Three.js renders 3D assets. Movie and stage-preview decoding use a custom libav.js/FFmpeg WebAssembly build, while Mediabunny provides the media container export path.

Path	Role
src/	Application state, UI, workers, media pipelines, renderers, and cache stores
src/vendor/extract/	Vendored @ae3/extract TypeScript source
public/synth/	The WebAssembly synth binding plus AudioWorklet and export-worker modules, served without bundling
public/libav/, vendor/libav/	Deployed MPEG-2/IPU decoder and its reproducible source build
tests/	Node test suite for parsers, scheduling, presentation, and export behavior

Updating ae3-sdk

The browser extractor and synthesizer come from ae3-sdk. With that repository checked out next to this one:

make -C ../ae3-sdk/wasm
npm run sync-sdk

Set AE3_SDK=/path/to/ae3-sdk when the checkout is elsewhere. The sync command copies the extractor and synth artifacts and records the source revision in src/vendor/SDK_COMMIT.

License

The AE3 Asset Lab source is licensed under the MIT License, except where an individual file says otherwise. Bundled components retain their upstream licenses; exact versions, checksums, and source links are listed in public/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.