FF8 Models, How did Qhimm rip them?

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Does anyone have a program or import/export plugin for viewing FF8 PC models?

First off, I have looked... for a long time... even to the point of reading almost every post with FF8 or FFVIII in the title...

I know Qhimm had something at some point, and there was a program on a site link somewhere for the battle models, but the archive is corrupt when I download it, and the previous versions are File not Found...(I think it was a Russian site)

The only links I can find are links to other threads, links to dead downloads, or dead links to other sites...
In short, everything seems dead...

Qhimm, if you're around and read this, I would very much like to know how you ripped the FF8 models and if possible, a link to the tools to do so...

I really don't want to have to learn to read a file format in hex, and then learn to program an exporter myself... (not just for this anyway... not when I know other people have done it already)

Also, I tried extracting them with GardenEight and opening them in Mirex's Biturn(Several versions), but they came out with extremely messed up geometry, and some of the textures were wrong, so I couldn't use that...

Please, I really would like your(anyone's) help.

Thank you for your time.


I should note, that I am going to try decoding files in hex and writing exporters on several other types of files... but I still have a long way to go... and I would much prefer the FF8 models sooner than... 5 years from now... X_x... If it turns out I will need to decode them myself... I suppose it can't be helped... but I already am planning far too many model hacks...

FF9 Battle/Field models (I know there's been some work but I can't find any useful programs/info...)
Megaman Legends 2 PSX models
Metal Gear Solid 3 PS2 models
And a few other games but I'm sure you can tell, I have the next 50 years of my life blown all to hell already =P

(If anyone is interested in those games formats... and happens to know a little about file hex-editing shoot me a message... maybe we can start a project...)
 
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I'm not sure if it was Qhimm, halkun, or Cyb who posted pics of some ripped FF8 models a couple years back, but it was done somehow -- I remember seeing a beautiful screenie of the Ifrit summon in a model editor. I imagine the PC version will be tons easier to work with than the PSX version in this regard.

I don't believe the models were ever completely figured out though, or there was otherwise some problem hindering progress. Reminds me that I need to get around to studying the Chrono Cross model animation format, heh heh...
 
A battle model viewer was shown here:
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4808/

Unfortunately, the version I found tends to put the characters' heads on backward.
I don't really know anything about the format, but the PC battle model format is apparently very similar to the PSX's.
 
Not too worried about a backward head... I'm gonna reanimate them anyway (Mwahahahahaha!!! Necromancy!!)

If this truly works, then you have my great great thanks Vehek.
 
It only seems to be a viewer though. No apparent export capability.
 
I'm gonna try to run it through a decompiler as soon as I find info on how they work and where to get a decent one.... hopefully there will be some info on the file structure in there that one of my associates can write a blender script to import.... Faust know's whom I mean...

If nothing else I may have info on the MCH field models.... I'll have to test it when I have my external HDD (which has my FF8 files) connected...

EDIT: Alright, Faust contacted me with this on another forum(Either way, I either missed it or somehow just didn't find it...), and the field model part does in fact work! This may have been posted here or elsewhere, I'm not certain, but as I have fount it to be working, I shall post the pertinent portion!

Title: Re: Model Enhancement/Reconstruction [FFVIII]
Post by: Alkor on 2008-06-22 15:59:17


1) Download: _http://rapidshare.com/files/124242233/FF8_Edit.7z.html
2) unrar it all
Then
1) Open Garden. Open - Decompile data files - name it. Then wait. When it stop go to:
"ur folder with Garden"\ff8\data\eng\FIELD\model\main_chr

There will be files such us .mch this is battle and field models of main chars.

U can open it with Biturn.
Click to expand...
Ok, so the only problem with this, is that there are no NPC characters, only main characters... (as implied) Which means NPC's must be stored in some other file... since this worked so swimmingly, I figure we should focus on Field models for now...

(A note about certain models... Some of the bone info on Rinoa, Seifer, Laguna, Irvine, etc. characters with dangling hair or capes or coats it seems, the bones are a bit off... for me it isn't a huge deal since I can fix the models later.... The main point is that the majority of the verts ARE in the right places.)


My task now, is to figure out where the NPC's are...


Side info on why I want them...
I am in the process of planning a Garden/SeeD MMORPG where each player is a student, and the main FF8 characters are major quest NPCs/Admins
You would get hired(via quest NPC) to go on missions, or (if you are not a SeeD) exams. Occasionally the Training Center might break down and monsters overrun Garden(Mob invasion weekend) Replenish health by sleeping in the dorm... Eat famous hotdogs....
Toward the end of the game, the FF8 tie-in chapters begin, and Squall becomes the new Garden leader, etc...

Also, if I could somehow get the source for Triple Triad Gold, I'd integrate that into the game... Sound like fun? I think so anyway...

Anyway, to even TRY to do this, I would need lots of NPC's, like Cid, Kadowaki, Edea, and lots of random Garden students... (none of which do I have, though I have the FF8 mains in the Galbadian uniforms, so that's a step in the right direction....)

If I discover anything about NPC's I'll report it here, until then, I hope some of you who are reading but not posting will do some research too  :wink: :-D

Thanks again to Faust and Vehek.
 
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NPCs are stored in chara.one of the field archives (as in the individual locations) or something like that.
 
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That's what I thought myself... this isn't the first game I've seen with .ONE's thrown in... however... do we have any way to decompress .one's? Garden doesn't do it from my experience...

I suppose this may be where I unfortunately have to turn to Cygnus....(hex editor) I really hope that isn't the case... :|

Got some people helping out with .DAT decrypting though, so maybe we'll get some progress in that.
 
Wowza! :mrgreen:  Just did some some investigation of the FF8 PC (as in Personal Computer version) battle models, which appear to be labeled with the c0mXXX.dat convention, with "XXX" representing the character model number I suppose. I'm going to link to what I believe are three examples of battle models:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=86TZWUV2
c0m120 would be Raijin's battle model for reference (the dark-skinned guy with the kickass beat-'em-up staff or whatever his weapon is called).

I'll go through what I've found out so far -- halkun probably knows way more because he used FF8 UV maps to teach me how to interpret the Chrono Cross UV Maps to begin with.  :lol:

The model header, read byte-by-byte (sorry, I'm a hexplorer, not a programmer :lol:) appears thus:

Model Header: 0x34 bytes long.

Code: 
#S #S #S #S S1 S1 S1 S1 - S2 S2 S2 S2 S3 S3 S3 S3S4 S4 S4 S4 S5 S5 S5 S5 - S6 S6 S6 S6 S7 S7 S7 S7S8 S8 S8 S8 S9 S9 S9 S9 - SA SA SA SA SB SB SB SBEF EF EF EF

S1: Section 1 offset relative to header, Unknown
S2: Section 2 offset relative to header, Something suspected of containing a UV Map and Vert Pool
S3: Section 3 offset relative to header, Something suspected of containing a skeleton
S4: Section 4 offset relative to header, Unknown
S5: Section 5 offset relative to header, CAN BE DUPLICATIVE OF S4!? It's slightly possible that it's a UV map too.
S6: Section 6 offset relative to header, Unknown
S7: Section 7 offset relative to header, Unknown, but has an 8-byte header that seems to be an ASCII tag.
S8: Section 8 offset relative to header, Unknown but has a structured subheader.
S9: Section 9 offset relative to header, 8-byte header, then AKAO tag -- sound data!?
SA: Section 10 offset relative to header, leads directly into an AKAO tag or duplicative of SB.
SB: Section 11 offset relative to header, The Texture!!
EF: End of File!

So it appears that the model files themselves contain the texture(s) and also some sound data(!?). What really, really confuses me at the moment with regard to the model file header is that some pointers in the table are duplicative! Apparently, there's enough room for dec11 or 0x0B sections, but not all of them are always used. Sometimes there's a need for two AKAO (sound data) sections, for example, but if not, the slot normally attributed to the second sound section is just given to the texture section. Anyone know what's up with this? Is this a common practice?

I suppose I might as well dump what I know about the last section of the model -- it's a Classic .TIM, and I wouldn't be surprised if you ran it through PSicture and achieved readable results if you stripped off the header. Note that models use a number of 128x128 textures depending on how detailed they are I guess. Raijin uses 2 textures, but there's another model in the linked .RAR that appears to use 5(!!) textures.

Texture format:
Header of (4+#T*4) bytes
Code: 
#T #T #T #T T1 T1 T1 T1 - T2 T2 T2 T2 ... ...EF EF EF EF

Where...
 #T = Number of Textures applied to the model.
 T1 = Offset to the first texture relative to the section header
 T2 = Offset to the second texture relative to the section header
 ... etc
 EF = End of File! relative to the section header

Each .TIM seems to be either identical to or extremely reminiscent of what I call a "Classic .TIM" in this Compendium wiki.       

Big thanks to X-Dina for the models; he could provide way more for further investigation, probably.


Since I don't actually own FF8 PC, the best I can do is properly detail the section subheaders, so others will know what to avoid hitting accidently when they try trial-and-error experiments.
 
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Oh snap. Okay. Yeah, I can test these then, just a matter of nabbing enough free time. :lol: Once I finish some odds and ends from the Chrono Cross model project over at the Chrono Compendium, I'll move straight into this I guess.

Any qhimm regulars interested in helping us with a massive FF8 model project to make these babies viewable once and for all? For one thing, I think we'd need someone to code the model reader/Blender plugin because the person who did that for Chrono Cross is extremely strapped for time.
 
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I would be happy to help in anyway I could. I don't think I could handle programming the reader but I would be happy to help with the models, I'm not great, but I'm getting it down. Just let me know when you have a program :)
 
I thought that the FF8 Battle Models had been fully decoded and understood?

IIRC the FF8 battle data was vastly different from the Field models, and polys appeared to be randomly three or four vertex-constituted. The thing with FF8 was that its bone-skinned character system made it difficult to plot bone orientation without reading in some animation info too.

I could try give a hand and check that battle file Faust posted and see if I can cook up a viewer for it, but no promises  :wink:
Most of my free time gets spent on the Crises-Core data investigation, something I'm determined to help bring into the lime-light a little as it's been ignored for all these years.
 
pardon me, but, years?

It hasn't been out THAT long has it?

Either way, I would love to add any Crisis Core info you have uncovered to my list. I too am interested in the Crisis Core models, but I don't have any way to get the information off the UMD...

I'm also too afraid to replace my PSP's OS... while it may be more powerful if I do... I'm afraid of owning a $120 brick...

If we get any breakthroughs on either VIII or IX, I'd be happy to help you with Crisis Core...
 
it certainly seemed like years  :-P (dirge of cerberus anyway, FF8 most definitly)

you don't have to do anything funny with your PSP, or anything at all for that matter.
When the CC viewer eventually manages to load Characters properly you could always ask here for someone to send specific characters to you via pm or email or something (for "personal non-commercial use" ofcourse). Just let me know when the time comes, I'll be happy to oblige  :wink:

but its good to hear from you x-dina, because you've convinced me you're still interested in the FF8 battle model files.
I'll try my best to see what I can do to help :-D
 
Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated.

If it seems like I don't post, it has nothing to do with loss of interest.

I'm a college student, and I have other obligations aside from that as well. Unfortunate as it is, this has to take back burner a lot...


Wait... there's a CC viewer? Why wasn't I told of this XD!?

Seriously, either I missed some obvious thread or it simply got pushed down before I saw it...

So, does this viewer load characters at all? And if it can, does it export!?  I can always reposition bones so long as the basic vertex assignments are correct...(I am a 3D modeler by trade...)

Speaking of, I noticed in your thread you mentioned textures, are there character textures in some workable format? I'd love to get my hands on even just that...
 
I was just wondering, what exactly do you need from the FF8 Battle models? I've done some noseing around and it seems like:

A - it only consists of monsters and bosses (none of the main characters, except the "hypnotised" rinoa)
B - skeleton data will NOT be easy to decipher at all, especially if you consider just how many battle-models there are

So if there's anything in particular you're after, then I could focus on only those models instead.

I'm totally in the same vain as FaustWolf though, that it would be really cool to see both the Field AND the Battle model formats fully understood and documented (just for the sake of completeness), but the way the data is so spaced out, unless there really was a NEED for all the understanding (mods etc) it really isn't worth the time.

Its quite a dated game, and although i love it to bits (rinoa's one of my all time favs) it really isn't worth squandering over the Battle model data considering that the main characters and NPCs are located elsewhere.

I've an open mind though, so if anyone can convince me otherwise then I might reconsider  :wink:

Oh, and that CC-File-Viewer is something i cooked up whilst trying to understand all those raw data files.
It can only view Textures so far, I will add an export option in the next release (due to popular demand) but I can already export out the textures for myself.
If there's anything in particular you need just let me know, "I'll be here..."  :lol:
 
Hi, I'll add what I know.

- there is no specification of FF8 model format. Neither in-battle nor in-field(map) models.

- there have been some tries to decode FF8 format but with no final result. There were some viewers but no exporter.

- someone called "Kvaks" has created a "FF8 battle model viewer" or "Gerakl character editor", it was published at site kvaks.narod.ru. Site is still up, but viewer links are down. I have downloaded it back then, so here it is ( not original but smaller version of archive, original contained lots of models but it was 16mb, so I have removed most of models and now its 600kb to download ) : http://mirror.mypage.sk/kvaks.narod.ru/dir.php . It can view models and animate them. No export possibility. Author did not reply my e-mails back then.

- because there is no known specification, Biturn can't view most of ff8 models. It can read field models but with incorrect bone setup and no animation. It can read some things from battle models, but not much, usually only textures, few polygons, one object and rest is mess.

- Qhimm showed some screenshots but haven't released any program or specs so far

- if you'll be able to decode ff8 files I'll be happy to add ability to read it into Biturn, so it can be exported to various other formats. It will take some time as I'm busy with other projects. I think I have published all I know about the both battle and field 3D model formats in the forum threads below. If not and you're willing to continue on working on the formats post me a Personal Message and I'll sum you up all my info.

Some more reading (which I already posted in other threads):

http://ffab.mypage.sk/viewtopic.php?t=34 "ff8 mch file"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/1422/ "Cracking" FFVIII model data"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/2091/ "FF8 3D battle models update"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/2788/ "ff8 models"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/3284/ "Final Fantasy VIII Model Switcher?"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/3875/ "FF8 model progress"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4343/ "FF8 Field Models"
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4808/ "FF8 Models?"
 
you're doing it just to annoy me, aren't you mirex?  :-P

Quimms post was basically the Holy Grail of the [MCH] FF8-Field Model specification:

Pretty much all of the main characters have their own .mch files which are referenced in the actual field data files (rather than having to include the entire model in each field it's used). Other character models reside in the chara.one files found in the field files. Also, all animation data resides in the chara.one files, even for main character models. The animation data (found in the beginning of each model block in the chara.one files) is pretty much the only part of the model format that still eludes me; I have decoded the vertex data, face data, skeleton data and texture mapping data. Once I've understood the format of the animation data, I might compile a document on it, or write a small program to read the models. (just pleeease don't bug me about it ;) )

Until then, here's a basic layout on the .mch files:

  • Index block, 64 DWORDs. Contains the offsets of each texture in the file, then a 0xFFFFFFFF, then the offset of the model data.
  • Texture data. Standard TIM format.
  • Model data header, 8+8 DWORDs. Contains counts and offsets of different types of model data (skeletal joints, vertices, unknown, faces, unknown, vertex-to-bone links, 3 x unknown).
  • Skeletal joint data. 64-byte blocks of mostly zeros, contains a 1-based parent index and a bone length value. Probably a bunch of skeletal deformation data used in-game, but whose values are initially stored as zeros.
  • Vertices. Blocks of 4 shorts, the first three being x-, y- and z-coordinates and the fourth unused.
  • Faces. Huge blocks containing vertex indices, color data (unused), edge data (I think), texture mapping data and texture ID. Faces can be 3-point or 4-point polygons, decided by the first DWORD (actually it's a PSX GPU command ID).
  • Vertex groups, or "limbs". These decide which vertices are connected to which skeletal node. Groups of 4 shorts, with the index of the first vertex, the number of vertices and the bone ID (1-based) to which they belong.
Teaser image of a decapitated Squall
[/list]
Side notes: The animation data somehow stores the internal rotations for the model's skeletal nodes using 4 bytes per node. I'm speculating that the format would be one which a PSX could handle, in line with the lazy programmers theorem. Any ideas?

Also, the battle model format is vastly different from the normal field model format. I haven't even been able to find any vertex data in it, I'm almost suspecting it's compressed or something.
Click to expand...
BitTurn didn't show anyone properly except Cloud and Zack, so thanks to quimm, I was able to make my own viewer and see what Rinny really looked like in FF8:

File: d024.mch = low-poly rinoa in blue-dress

(quite blocky and definitly low-LOD, never meant to be seen close-up like this)

File: 0d25.mch = high-poly rinoa in blue-dress

( better, but her neck came out wrong thanks to experimental bone rotations)

My programming skills were even more rusty in those days so I couldn't get alpha to show up, but other than that everything was there in place. But I left it at that because I really didn't care as much about the other characters :-P

The biggest issue was (and still is) that the bone-rotation data isn't in the MCH file. If only those rotations could be found, then these MCH Field-Models would be practically perfectly viewable and documented. I think quimm hinted that the animation data is inside the chara.one files, so it shouldn't be too difficult to wade through.


Battle models are another can of worms, but I believe the bone-rotations are there in those DAT files otherwise that "Battle-Model-Viewer" wouldn't have been able to show as many models as it does.
I'd be happy to try look for it, especially now that you have openly declared yourself again to the "long-forgotten cause for FF8 model viewing".

CC has my priority though, the FF7 universe is far more intriguing to me than FF8 :lol:
 
Hi Koral, sorry about the misunderstanding, I have forgotten few things from back then. I did not want to offend anyone if that happened. Now I see that Qhimm did post quite a specification for field models.
 
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