FF7 Crisis Core - File Format and Data Investigation

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Thanks koral! :-D

By the way I think the && files are models+animations, they can be viewed in RINOA.
 
I thought so!  :-o
Thankyou for the news, those && files are now number one on my hitlist.
 
hey koral,

A good && to try is 1482 chunk# 10 (remember 0 is counted)
What 1482 is, a treasure chest.

Since its only 37KB it might be easy, plus it has to have an animation since Zack opens them.

Edit: if you dont want to try that one use 1995, its a Cactar, the cactus. :-P
 
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Oh, the && files are basically !! with animations, then? That's quite convenient! :) Let me know if you'd like me to have a look at any particular file/piece of data, koral. I'll otherwise probably just continue doing what I'm doing. ;) I do still plan to go back and add location model support, and now perhaps "proper" skeleton support, to mesh2rdm, though, once all the findings are wikified.
 
I seem to have gotten distracted again  :lol:

this time with FF8 models!

So far I have only got as far as getting mch (field) models to render correctly with RINOA. The skeletal heirarchy is intact, but the joint positions are still pretty much AWOL.
Worst-comes-to-worst, I will just guess the positions for some of the "high-poly" field model joints and use text-files to parse them in. That would also make it easy for anyone to fix (or even manually pose) those models before exporting them out.

Battle-models are still iffy, nobody has yet gone the full distance to analyse and document their structures.
I hope I will be able to do it someday! The wiki could do with a new FF8 section too  :-D


Karlislie: I had a look at the files you mentioned, and there seems to be nothing "out of the ordinary".
I have added ATEL file parsing support back into RINOA, and I realised that I did know more about ATEL files which I forgot to post about:

The complete list of ATEL sub-chunks (embedded-files) which I currently know of are:
Code: [Select]
Code: 
TEXGT!SSCFMBDFEPMDLVTLANM &&
TEX, GT, !, SSCF and MBD are perfectly viewable and understood, but the other 5 still open to investigation.

And if the names are anything to go by, then it is highly probably that the ANM chunks would contain some sort of Animation data, whether it be for simple Treasure-chest opening, or for skeletal NPC animations.

Which puts && files onto the back-seat for now  :wink:


Mr Adults
You dont have to get involved just yet, we need to find those animations first  :lol:
Which reminds me, I have yet to complete the wiki entry for the exp-models... yet another thing stuck somewhere in my todo list  :-P
 
I thought the && files were different since they are used in battles and use animations, how much different are they from the ! models?
By the way, if you were to experiment and try to get the animations, wouldn't it be easier to use a very small ! or &&  file? and compare 1 or 2 other smaller files from there?

And have you noticed that in the ATEL files there is a GT image at the top? Perhaps that is the map file for that specific place where the event is happening? (You have to chunk it, then restart RINOA to see it, it looks garbled abit)
And if you were to take a look at an event, (have you noticed that the actual event data is ALWAYS the last MBD, not the first 1st or 2nd?)

Anyway, not to get sidetracked, lets take 01473 as an example,

<TEXT>
Enemy attack! It's SOLDIER!
Don't let him get through!
<END>

What happened to the part that goes here? What calls the battles? What calls the camera position?
What is defining that? Is there some part of the MBD that isn't being properly displayed, or is missing?

<TEXT>
Were you able to get inside the fortress?
<END>
<TEXT>
Piece of cake! I could have done it blindfolded!
<END>
<TEXT>
Obtained <VAR> gil!
<END>

But yes there are lots of unanswered questions, I have a number on my list.
Perhaps FEP could be the camera data?

Or MDL is for MODEL?
And ANM is ANIMATION?

Ah maybe MDL + ANM are used at the same time???

Could there be something, to match and compare patters in these files, like agaist all other files? Not something like TRID.

By the way, I was toying with Xpert 2 under the relinker option, has anyone noticed the columns?
DecStartLba, DecFileSize, LBAPos, FileID HexStartLBA, HexFileSize, HashString,

Maybe there is a way to search and find a file from one of the above options and see how it is being used a good place to start would be in a Memory Dump of CC running.
I just made a memory dump, here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ny1kmmzywnd

Its Zack in the church, right after meeting Aerith.
 
Sorry for offtop

2 koral
If you still interested,i will upload FF7 Bonus Disc files for you :-)
here is image of original Bike model. File name is bwfd in field/char.lgp
bikebwfd.jpg
 
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Well, my first post! I read early on about how someone wanted these for JK3 and I'm wondering if anyone knows how to rig these to Valve's .smd format and to rig it for Half Life, more specifically, The Specialists 3.0 which is a Half Life 1 mod. If anyone would know and could help me I'd very much appreciate it.
 
Well, my first post! I read early on about how someone wanted these for JK3 and I'm wondering if anyone knows how to rig these to Valve's .smd format and to rig it for Half Life, more specifically, The Specialists 3.0 which is a Half Life 1 mod. If anyone would know and could help me I'd very much appreciate it.
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Well, mesh2rdm.exe exports the models straight to SMD, but it sounds like you want to use them with a different skeleton. I can tell you that you will need to import your source skeleton into the modeling program of choice, then import the FF7:CC model (in either smd or obj format, doesn't matter if it has weighting data) and manually re-weight it to the Half-Life skeleton. If you don't know how to do that, you'll have to find out in the documentation for your modeling app of choice. But be warned that re-distributing the models with Half-Life mods is a good way to draw unwanted attention to yourself and get a C&D, and it is illegal in most regions (depending on how you pull it off).

Did anyone test it with data from Japanese version?  I wonder.
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Should in theory work fine, the model data sets would be no different, only offsets to the files (and presumably G's extractor handles this fine).
 
Well when most people release models they have ripped and re-rigged, they usually give credits with it. Like, one ripped and rigged DMC4 Nero for TS and gave creds to DMC4 Modeling team and you know, anything else they did they said they did and they rightfully own. They said the work they did aswell, and if the anims weren't theirs, then they'd say would was the original animator as well. So, I'm guessing this is how people get around the whole getting into trouble thing?
 
You're distributing copyrighted content, so giving credit to the authors of the work (who may or may not even own the copyright(s)) makes no difference in terms of legalities. Whether you are in violation of actual copyright law depends on where you are located. If you were to construct a likeness yourself, that's another, different set of legal issues that can be sidestepped with some twists and turns. But the bottom line is, if you draw attention to your project using content/characters from a popular IP, you risk getting a C&D regardless of whether you're within your legal rights. Just something to consider. If only a group of 20 people are going to play your mod, practicality dictates you have nothing to worry about. But before going ahead with anything like that, you should be well aware of the legal constraints.
 
In fact, I happened to get Japanese CC data, and most of extracted files were not recognized by CC viewer nor mesh2rdm.  I don't think it's fault of G's extractor, for I could recognize some files, like 00000.raw which has [ATEL] header, and movies and sound data(identified by header).  Maybe offset matters, but it's somewhat confusing, for 00001.raw(which would be GT image), [GT] is at 80h, while 00002.raw(also can be GT image), I can see [GT] header at 40h.
 
In fact, I happened to get Japanese CC data, and most of extracted files were not recognized by CC viewer nor mesh2rdm.  I don't think it's fault of G's extractor, for I could recognize some files, like 00000.raw which has [ATEL] header, and movies and sound data(identified by header).  Maybe offset matters, but it's somewhat confusing, for 00001.raw(which would be GT image), [GT] is at 80h, while 00002.raw(also can be GT image), I can see [GT] header at 40h.
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It would be pretty unusual for the model spec to change in any way whatsoever across territory releases, but it's possible. But without seeing a few files, I couldn't tell you if it's extracted incorrectly or legitimately different.
Edit: Oh, I didn't really read what you said. Yes, it sounds like they are not being ripped properly. Of course offset matters, otherwise you aren't really getting a clean cut of the file, which means it's not extracted right. :) (and it's probably missing something off the end too based on your description, but who knows)

Woah woah woah. This isn't MY mod. This mod was made years ago buddy. Here's a link: http://www.specialistsmod.net/
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I was not implying that you made The Specialists. I used to be quite an Action Half-Life fan/player myself, and have heard of the mod before. But the matter of legalities stands, please do educate yourself before you distribute anything.
 
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Alright, I've been educated. But thing is I'm probably not gonna release this at all. Not saying I'm angry, but you keep freaking me out saying I need to learn of these legalities and such, and I HAVE........ Only problem is right now is that I'm stuck! I have Reno in .smd format and I can't seem to get him rigged onto the TS skeleton cuz well...I'm a newb. Also, the textures are messed up.
 
Yes, it sounds like they are not being ripped properly. Of course offset matters, otherwise you aren't really getting a clean cut of the file, which means it's not extracted right. :) (and it's probably missing something off the end too based on your description, but who knows)
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Perhaps yes, although audio and video files seemed to be ripped properly.
 
mmm, seems like G's extractor has its limitations.
But he provided the source, so it may be something trivial like offset values which simply need adjusting or whatever.
Although I don't suppose many people will bother with the Japanese version when they have the US or PAL versions to rip models from, right?

I really must get back to this project, you guys are all probably awaiting the map-models pretty eagerly, huh  :-P
 
Although I don't suppose many people will bother with the Japanese version when they have the US or PAL versions to rip models from, right?
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I don't think we Asians will ever buy US or PAL version.  ;)  Anyway, I need to confirm if it's extractor's fault, though I don't think it will be done any time soon....
 
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