Xenoblade Chronicles/Unused Textures

This is a sub-page of Xenoblade Chronicles.

General

Reference Model Texture Differences

Shulk

Early	Final

The blinking textures were added, the colors of the texture were made lighter, the quality was improved, and the dark area on his neck was changed so it doesn't look unnatural when he wears swimwear or Makna top armour.

Early	Final

Completely redone, likely on account of the early texture looking like garbage.

Early	Final

The size of the texture was changed, and the texture was altered to look more like an arm.

(Source: Iggy)

Reyn

Early	Final

This texture was redone for the final.

(Source: Iggy)

Fiora

Early	Final

The quality of the texture was increased, the blinking textures were redone, and whatever that... thing is on the right side of the texture was replaced with the texture of the inside of her mouth.

Interestingly, Meyneth's face texture was edited from this earlier texture! The eye part of the texture can only be seen in the texture banks for Meyneth's realtime face, and go unused due to the game using separate textures for the eyes on realtime face models, and the face on Meyneth's model having different eyes, and even if this texture was used there the eyes on the texture would still go unused as the game favors her realtime face.

Early	Final

Fiora's bra was changed into a bikini top.

Early	Final

Fiora gained a bracelet on her arm, as well as fingers.

Early	Final

What loser cares about this difference anyway?

(Source: Iggy)

Dunban

Early	Final

The face textures for Dunban's reference model interestingly contain what appears to be an even earlier variant of his eyes for his blinking textures.

Early	Final

Dunban's bare chest texture was changed significantly, mainly to accommodate his scars and pendant.

Early	Final

Dunban's arm texture was scaled up and his scarred arm texture was added.

(Source: Iggy)

Sharla

Early	Final

This texture is within the texture bank for Sharla's reference model, even though the model in question doesn't use it. The color contrast is toned down on the final texture, and the shading is different. The transparency on the fringed areas of her top were filled in with a solid color, as most texture transparency is handled by alpha textures in the final.

Early	Final

Similar to Fiora, Sharla gained fingers and a bracelet for her final arm texture.

Early	Final

Sharla's bra was swapped for a bikini top.

Early	Final

It's difficult to tell because weird test materials cover it, but Sharla is wearing underwear on her reference model. These were changed to bikini bottoms to match the change above.

Early	Final

Some extra detail was added to the bottom of Sharla's Eryth top armor.

Early	Final

The upper part of the diamond-shaped decorations on Sharla's Eryth arms connected to the upper arms in the earlier texture.

(Source: Iggy)

Melia

Early	Final

More detail was added to Melia's hair, and the texture for the back of her head was made lighter.

Early	Final

The blinking textures were added, and her eyes are slightly brighter.

Early	Final

The shading on the back area of Melia's dress was removed, and the transparent areas were filled in.

Early	Final

The texture for Melia's legs was completely redone to make them less metallic-looking.

(Source: Iggy)

Mechon Fiora

Mechon Fiora uses the same face texture as her Homs reference model.

Early	Final

The detail on Fiora's arm and leg connectors was reduced.

Early	Final

Detail was added to the golden part below Fiora's elbow, and the texture for her elbow joint was changed due to her arm joint being changed between her reference model and her final model to look more organic.

Early	Final

More detail was added to the upper part of Fiora's legs, and her joints were re-textured to look more organic.

Early	Final

Organic.

(Source: Iggy)

Fiora

Fullbody Texture Differences

306188334.brres contains a fully assembled model of Fiora in her casual clothing with her realtime face baked on. The model itself appears very briefly during a flashback scene, but contains several texture differences from the short-haired one used during the epilogue and her separated casual armour pieces.

Fullbody Model	Final Head

Fiora's hair was given definition, as opposed to be being choppily edited.

Fullbody Model	Final Head

Likewise, the alpha textures for her hair was altered slightly to fade out.

Fullbody Model	Realtime Face	Final Head

The shading near the bottom of Fiora's neck texture was removed. The only texture difference between the real-time and normal neck textures is that the texture is slightly stretched out for the latter.

Fullbody Model	Final Body

The right side of Fiora's neck was altered, and reddish bands were added near her elbows.

Fullbody Model	Final Skirt

The shading on Fiora's legs is slightly altered. On another note, the stitches on her underwear cannot be seen in-game due to her skirt covering them.

(Source: Iggy)

Strange Texture

The texture banks for Fiora's casual skirt and her epilogue model contain this odd texture, which appears to be a smaller version of her swimwear bottom textures with most of the upper texture cut off.

(Source: Iggy)

Military Textures

While most of the bare arm texture of Homs Fiora's military arm armor is used, the hand area goes unused as a different part of the texture is mapped to Fiora's hands. For some bizarre reason, her military arm texture bank also contains the texture for her swimwear arms, resized to 128X128.

A majority of the arm area of Fiora's military top armor texture goes unused. Also, it appears someone at Monolith Soft decided to copy and paste another skin texture over it.

(Source: Iggy)

Attack Frame

Early	Final

The textures for Mechon Fiora's Attack arms contains an earlier texture for her Attack frame.

(Source: Iggy)

Mechon Armor Connectors

The arm and leg connectors on most pieces of the Mechon armor set are fully textured and modeled, but are impossible to see normally.

• 

  Reyn

• 

  Reyn

• 

  Shulk

• 

  Shulk

• 

  Sharla

(Source: Iggy)

Mumkhar's Hands

The back of Mumkhar's hands has a unique texture that cannot be seen in-game because his claws are part of his model and cannot be removed.

(Source: Iggy)

Gadolt's Boots

The upper area of the texture for Gadolt's boots has リザーブ ゾーン!! (meaning Reserve Zone) written on it, which cannot be seen under normal circumstances as it isn't mapped to any visible part of Gadolt's model.

(Source: Squigly Contiello)

Mechon "Face"

The Mechon M72 units have a white mask-like part of their texture that isn't used anywhere on its model. There are indentations on the texture, likely where the Mechon's "eyes" would have gone, but anything that would correspond to these indents doesn't appear to exist on the texture. Oddly enough, a rusted version of this part of the texture is used for the M72 corpses found in Sword Valley.

(Source: Iggy)

Metal Face's Wrist Connectors

The back of Metal Face's' wrists have a unique texture, which should be visible when he changes into flight mode and back. However, due to him being too high in the air for the camera to catch this during battle, and the fixed camera angles in cutscenes, it is impossible to see this in-game.

(Source: Iggy)

Disciple Lorithia

The texture for the lower part of Disciple Lorithia's arm contains a red strip on the upper part, which cannot be seen as her upper arm starts right where this part of the lower arm texture starts. The red strip resembles the texture for the bracelet on Fiora's swimwear armor.

(Source: Iggy)

Juju

Most of Juju's neck texture goes unseen in-game.

(Source: Iggy)

Unused Eyes

The open eye texture for the Machina children is never used.

However, this texture is labeled "childface01" so it's just a result of the developers using a generic child face texture on the Machina children. There are also generic man, woman, and old people face textures, and multiple generic body type models as well. The developers did this so they didn't have to completely remodel and retexture each NPC from scratch.

There are other NPCs that use generic faces which have blinking textures, yet never blink themselves. The various scientists from the space station in the cutscene where human Zanza destroys and recreates the universe use generic male and female faces, yet never blink. Human Meyneth and Human Zanza get enough screen-time to blink, however. The male and female face textures, in the order listed, are below.

(Source: Iggy (Machina children eyes), Robotortoise (elaboration, scientist eyes))

Hidden Eye Lines

Cutscene characters' face and eye textures contain colored boxes around the eyes, presumably as some sort of visual guideline.

• 

  Alvis

• 

  Mechonkhar

• 

  Vanea

• 

  Homs/Mechon Fiora

• 

  Young Shulk in his snowsuit.

• 

  Human Meyneth

• 

  Juju

• 

  Kallian

• 

  Meyneth

• 

  Zanza

• 

  Dickson

• 

  Egil

• 

  Lorithia

(Source: Robotortoise)

Texture Colors

Young Shulk's Colors

Young Shulk is fully colored in, even though he appears exclusively in flashbacks and dreams, which aren't in full color.

(Source: Robotortoise)

Gadolt's Colors

Gadolt is fully colored in, even though he appears exclusively in flashbacks, which aren't in full color.

• 

  Gadolt's front.

• 

  Gadolt, when viewed from behind. Ignore the white spot on his head, that's a rendering error.

(Source: Robotortoise)

Giant Form Zanza vs. Arglas Comparison

• 

  Giant form Zanza's body.

• 

  Arglas's body.

Similar to Young Shulk, Arglas (non possessed) is only seen in flashback cutscenes, which are a yellow-ish tint, and (very briefly) in a cutscene in Agniratha. Here we compare Arglas's body with Zanza's. Note the slightly different shading on Arglas's body. It's very subtle. It's really only visible if you open both images in different tabs and switch back and forth.

• 

  Giant form Zanza's body.

• 

  Arglas's hair/beard combo. Notice how the unused parts are black.

Here we compare Arglas's hair/beard combo texture with Zanza's. Notice how the unused parts of Arglas's beard are blackish-grey.

(Source: Robotortoise)

Graphics

Old Title Screen

• 

  BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE MONADO!

• 

  Logo goes squish.

Old title screen graphics, from before the title change during development! Left is how it's supposed to be displayed in-game, right is how the texture is actually stored on disc.

The kanji in the background is 仮, meaning temporary or provisional.

(Source: Afti)

Party Screen Headers

Two headers intended for the party member screen.

(Source: Iggy)

Tutorial Placeholder

Located alongside several other tutorial cards is this placeholder card. The text translates to "Tutorial under construction".

(Source: Iggy)

Monster Types Tutorial Card

An unused tutorial card intended for the Monster Types 1 tutorial. The card explains the kindred enemy mechanic, which is oddly left out of the tutorial. The header reads "There are enemies who sweep in to team up and go into a combative state." and the text underneath the header reads "Allies' Consciousness Type Icon".

(Source: Iggy, Divingkataetheweirdo‎ (translation))

Chain Attack Tutorial Card

A variant of the Chain Attack tutorial card with a classic controller-styled B button. No other tutorials in the game, unused or otherwise, have an alternate card with this style of B button.

(Source: Iggy)

Bathing woman/Matryona Icon

An alternate icon of Matryona without her jacket on, intended for the affinity chart screen. It is likely she was intended to have been registered in the affinity chart after saving her during the Save the Girl! quest.

(Source: Iggy)

Mumkhar

A high tension portrait for Mumkhar, as well as a small icon intended for use in menus. Mumkhar doesn't gain enough tension during the only battle he is available to use his high tension portrait, and the player cannot open up the menu during the time he is in the party either.

Because Mumkhar isn't playable, and the party tension gauge used for chain attacks is disabled during the Battle of Sword Valley, the icons for both of Mumkhar's arts cannot be seen normally.

(Source: Iggy)

Memory Space

Memory Space has an icon that never appears because Memory Space cannot be accessed on the area select list.

(Source: Iggy)

Junks

Like Memory Space, Junks has an icon for the Skip Travel menu. Junks cannot be accessed on the menu due to the fact it's only available for one boss fight.

(Source: Iggy)

Playable Character Placeholders

Exclusive to the Japanese version of Xenoblade, 3272.brres and 3528.brres contain these three graphics which appear to be placeholders.

(Source: Iggy)