Brawl model extractor

[el_refugio]

I'm about 30% done with the Collada->.brres converter.

Does this mean that you are nearer to editing models? :O

 

[Pharrox]

^ Hopefully eventually

I'd just like to say that I am a complete MORON! I figured out the texture placement and it should have been blatently obvious the whole time. Oh well, back to work.

 

[Knightcrawler]

Haha, was it something you thought you'd already checked? You've got me curious. BTW, great job.

 

[Pharrox]

There was a small block of data at the start of the file that I knew at the time wasn't relavent to the geometry. Since the geometry was my main focus at the time I skipped over it, and eventually forgot about it.

I manually switched two polygons and they both took the other's texture which meant it couldn't have been in the polygons or anyting they directly link to. After seeing that I remembered the small block of data I skipped earlier which turned out to be what I was missing.

 

[pghazanfari53]

Are you writing the program in C++, and can you release your Source code/info about MDL0 files?

 

[luigiman1928]

Hey, why not extract the Lucario model, replace it with The trophie Mewtwo, and re-pack it with a Hex Editor?

 

[Sukai]

The closest I come to this are Movie Clips in Macromedia Flash.

Perhaps I'll bask in this project and see how far I can get.
I hope owning Gimp doesn't change much....

 

[fortwaffles]

I'm not sure where to post this, but i'm gonna try to start a costume model project. we all know that each costume contains the model fie, so that comes in handy if it's successful (like having roy as a costume of marth) I want to try a few things:
1. Replace all (known) character files with other ones: failed. the game froze after trying to replace all of rob's files with marth ones (unless it's just cuz it's rob, or maybe another file needs to be tweaked)
2. add textures to a pac and pcs file, and try loading them using gecko os: haven't tried it yet, but will try soon.
any help on this project would be nice :D
Edit: i want to start with some basic stuff like editing the spot of a point in the model. If anyone knows how to do this, please tell XD

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

Hey guys, I'm VILE and i found something that is very interesting with models swaps, I can actually replace the model in the characters Fit""XX.pac/pcs file. If you don't believe me here: http://kittycorp.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ontopicdiscussion&action=display&thread=799. Pherrox I would like you to help me on my quest for model swaps, we need to write a model compiler.


VILE ~

 

[RyuReiatsu]

I barely understand anything, I shouldn't touch it, am I wrong?

 

[Poxag]

Hmmm this is an interesting topic, I've been wanting to see about this, but I can't write code or anything, but basically we would finally break into editing the playabl character models with this right? Is there anyway I could help out with this? being on ground zero when this gets finished would be great

and wassup VILE,nice to see ur makin some progress

 

[Pharrox]

Are you writing the program in C++, and can you release your Source code/info about MDL0 files?

The source will be released eventually, but I'm not exactly sure when. Sometime after the first major release and after I have a chance to clean it up (it's a mess right now).

Hey, why not extract the Lucario model, replace it with The trophie Mewtwo, and re-pack it with a Hex Editor?

I'm afraid it's not that simple. You'd need to T-pose and rig the model first in order for the game to use it as a character.

I'm not sure where to post this, but i'm gonna try to start a costume model project. we all know that each costume contains the model fie, so that comes in handy if it's successful (like having roy as a costume of marth) I want to try a few things:
1. Replace all (known) character files with other ones: failed. the game froze after trying to replace all of rob's files with marth ones (unless it's just cuz it's rob, or maybe another file needs to be tweaked)
2. add textures to a pac and pcs file, and try loading them using gecko os: haven't tried it yet, but will try soon.
any help on this project would be nice :D
Edit: i want to start with some basic stuff like editing the spot of a point in the model. If anyone knows how to do this, please tell XD

Trying to edit the models by hand would be next to impossible. I'm trying to write a model converter which will be able to convert models back into Brawl's model format (brres).


So tonights agenda:

Rewrite the Collada export to use Collada Dom. Should fix all the compatibility issues everyone's having.
Modify Gary's code to extract TEX0 files directly.

Materials have been applied and I've added an automatic UV flip so you don't need to do it yourself when you apply textures. With any luck I'll be able to release before the end of the night tomorrow.

 

[fortwaffles]

to VILE, iv'e done the model swaps a few time, but i just load the whole costume file (like using the sd load code and load lucas's costume into ness) it's textured, but it mainly freezes when you shield. I believe that is because ness may have more bones in his model than lucas. iv'e done a few other ones like luigi as c falcon, fox as c falcon, snake as lucario etc. Another problem is that when u walk or run etc, the animation take the character back to the original spot. the only swap i havent seen this happen with is ice climbers as pikachu. the running/walking/etc works, but the game freezes on shielding. i've been also searching for the file with stats for the characters, and or the files defining their move set. no luck with that. It also came to mind that if stages use model formats, would it be possible to load trophies as stages? (like the event matches in melee) or (import the mdl0 file in the stage, and re-texture it)

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

to VILE, iv'e done the model swaps a few time, but i just load the whole costume file (like using the sd load code and load lucas's costume into ness) it's textured, but it mainly freezes when you shield. I believe that is because ness may have more bones in his model than lucas. iv'e done a few other ones like luigi as c falcon, fox as c falcon, snake as lucario etc. Another problem is that when u walk or run etc, the animation take the character back to the original spot. the only swap i havent seen this happen with is ice climbers as pikachu. the running/walking/etc works, but the game freezes on shielding. i've been also searching for the file with stats for the characters, and or the files defining their move set. no luck with that. It also came to mind that if stages use model formats, would it be possible to load trophies as stages? (like the event matches in melee) or (import the mdl0 file in the stage, and re-texture it)

Well I've answered this question hundreds of times before and ill answer it again. What i did is not the same as replacing a pac/pcs file, I actually replaced the model data and only get freezing with uncommon animations (or animations that require bones that don't exist on the current model) and kept almost all of the original loading data.

 

[Poxag]

if you figure this out, will u release a guide on how to do it like you did with the texture hacking. Let me ask a question tho, basically as long as the bones fit in the same place as everything, I can do whatever I want to the model right?? Will this change the hitboxes of the characters??? will it change the attacks, cuz that might not be good for actualy playing brawl

 

[fortwaffles]

Well I've answered this question hundreds of times before and ill answer it again. What i did is not the same as replacing a pac/pcs file, I actually replaced the model data and only get freezing with uncommon animations (or animations that require bones that don't exist on the current model) and kept almost all of the original loading data.

sry, i misread it. i understand what you mean. I tried adding textures, but i don't really know how to considering that i'm using ASH, and an I made a modified .bat file to extract model files too (because some reason the steps don't work alone, but somehow ASH does) Hows the progress on the .dae to .brres converter? i think it'd be the main foothold we need to scale the mountain of...new characters (wants sly cooper rly badly)

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

sry, i misread it. i understand what you mean. I tried adding textures, but i don't really know how to considering that i'm using ASH, and an I made a modified .bat file to extract model files too (because some reason the steps don't work alone, but somehow ASH does) Hows the progress on the .dae to .brres converter? i think it'd be the main foothold we need to scale the mountain of...new characters (wants sly cooper rly badly)

Well its not so much a .dae to .brres, I think its more of a .dae to .MDL0 type of thing, once you have the MDL0 you can make the brres file from it, just takes a while to hex in all the names and everything (totally annoying).

 

[Poxag]

could somebody answer my questions??? I wish to know if this will change the hitboxes of the characters

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

could somebody answer my questions??? I wish to know if this will change the hitboxes of the characters

No, hitboxes are separate collision models, but it shouldn't be too hard to edit if we can do regular model editing.

 

[Poxag]

Well actually i would say the opposite, I think that we should leave hitboxes the same at least for some characters so that it's still legal brawl, where gameplay is the same but the characters are cooler, cuz otherwise you could just hack an uber beast metaknight that can reach across the stage in one shot

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

Well actually i would say the opposite, I think that we should leave hitboxes the same at least for some characters so that it's still legal brawl, where gameplay is the same but the characters are cooler, cuz otherwise you could just hack an uber beast metaknight that can reach across the stage in one shot

Well I could be completely wrong about the collision models, I'm just assuming they would be easy to hack. But editing the collision models would be stupid as you said before, no sense in overpowering characters for no reason.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Well, actually can you make sure that you're able to edit collision models? It would definitely be useful when oh say...making new characters! It would also help with having more balancing options for brawl+ in general and would be most appreciated if you feel like working on it. I don't have any idea how any of this works but "beast metaknight that can reach across the stage" suggests that it would allow us to edit hitbox sizes, which is something we've wanted for quite a long time.

 

[fortwaffles]

a .dae to .mdl0 is more so what i meant. i've seen a .dae model of Cloud, and he'd probably make a good ike costume. if anyone can try looking for the files with stats, or the files with the moveset coding, that'd be good. we could test simple things, like having a character with falcon punch, fox illusion, etc. my theory is that there are character coding files all packed into one file, because when i replaced all of rob's files (including kirby copy power, effects, and the module) with marth's, the game froze upon loading rob. I was attempting to find a way to replace characters (or better yet, add them) so i could hopefully find stats like running speed, and jump height etc. so i could make Roy. Another thing i wanted to try, is taking pit's head from his mdl0, and replacing marth's head with it (to look a little more like roy) but i have no idea where to start with that. another thing i heard is that melee models were the same format, so i might tinker with that

 

[Poxag]

I have no problem's making a new character but I don't think changing the movesets of the current characters would be good. since it would change the gameplay too much, for instance, the gameplay wouldn't be fun if you make characters who's grab range takes up the whole stage or can falcon punch in 1 frame. I can see why you would use it to balance brawl plus but I think that should be seperate from just changing the models.

 

[Dark Sonic]

You're thinking of changes that are far too extreme. I'm talking about minor changes like lowering the size of MK's tornado, Snake's uptilt, ect, just by a little bit so that they don't act as completely disjointed moves. Such a change would likely not even be necessary, though. It could also be used to slightly buff characters, like raising a character's grab range by a few pixels. And the extreme changes that you are speaking of can already be done with a number of codes that we already have. We can ALREADY make falcon punch come out in one frame, as well as have infinite knockback, last forever, and make Falcon himself able to run infinitely fast and go pretty much nowhere from any attack. Code misuse can happen with any code, but that should not stop us from making them. Rest assured that the people balancing brawl+ will not abuse the codes for their own personal gain (what would we really gain anyway? If people don't like our codeset then they will not listen to us anyway). We may not even USE the code when it comes to balancing characters, as we are reaching the end of our character balancing anyway.

However, this would be essential to making new characters. We must be able to edit the collision bubbles to match the animation of the move, as well as more importantly, to matchup hurtboxes with the character's various appendages when doing said moves.

 

[fortwaffles]

I think that modding files would be helpful (if we find out how) with the hitbox properties (because we can only load 256 lines of codes) also, it would be almost essential for making characters like roy. take marth's moveset, slow his speed, but increase his attack to where he balances out with others. or say we try putting kumatora in brawl (from mother 3) she could have the special moves similar to ness or lucas, but some of the A moves could change. And i agree, i see no purpose in making buff characters. if anyone finds a way to duplicate characters (like turn jigglypuff into a second mario), then we could edit the duplicate, hopefully do a model swap, and there's Dr. Mario. I haven't got to trying it, but with VILE's model swap technique, i was thinking, would it be possible to put assist trophie models in fighters. It would be cool to have lyn as marth's green costume or something similar, like shadow as sonic's dark costume etc. i'll try to give this a go, and i'll post the results if i can figure it out

 

[Dark Sonic]

I was actually thinking of Lyn when I was talking about adding characters. A clone character like Roy would be extremely simple, as we already have all the codes necessary to make his entire moveset. We can even make his weight and fall speed. We can already make Roy, we just haven't because it would require us to make a code to link that moveset to something (colors is a roundabout way to do it, since it would not be feasible in teams), and we're kinda focusing on character balance first.

However a character like Lyn would have to have a moveset made from scratch, stealing parts of other characters' movesets. Now while this is nice, you also have to take into account that the same model will be used in all these different animations (odd that Lyn would do Marth's f-tilt but Link's f-smash or something), but even with the animations running perfectly it would have one fatal flaw. The hitboxes and hurboxes would not match the animations due to pulling from so many moves from characters with different ranges. To make these kinds of things perform how they would suggest (if the sword goes through you....it should hit you.) then we need to be able to change the sizes of those hitboxes and hurtboxes.

 

[Pharrox]

Well to clear up a few things, first this will not be able to edit hitboxes. As VILE already stated, these are contained in seperate models (.bin files in the FitCharacter.pac files if I remember correctly). While it may eventually get to that point I don't see it as a high priority due to the concerns already mentioned.

Also, this will have to be a collada->brres converter. Despite initial impressions, there are really no such things as MDL0 files. MDL0 is just an identifier to let the game know what part of a brres it's reading. MDL0s contain pointers which reference data that is outside of the actual MDL0 block. Because of this it is impossible to fully read or write an MDL0 without writing the other data with it. When the reverse converter is complete I will add the functions to generate the pac files so you can link the new brres with the old ones without having to worry about size issues.

I'm about 30% done with cleaning up the extractor to fix the compatibility issues.

 

[ratmage99]

This is what I get when I do Toon Link, and I can't install ColladaMax because I'm using 3ds Max 2009 and it won't read that version and I can't find an older version. Any help?

 

[Pharrox]

Your picture doesn't work.

Also if you don't have the plugin Max/Maya will assume it's FBX and not load properly. There are also problems because I didn't follow the schema perfectly when writing this. For the plugin problem you will need ColladaMax NextGen to work with Max 2009. For the compatibility problems I am working on fixing it and should have an updated version in a few days if not tonight.

 

[ratmage99]

3ds Max help

I have tried the Next Gen, but it doesn't have the plugin for 32 bit, and I can't run 64 bit on my computer. I know you are not an expert, but I would appreciate any help you can give.

 

[fortwaffles]

I don't know much about how the hit box situation. I understand how it would be important, but wouldn't lyn work with loading marth's hitbox data? or is it a problem with number of bones or something? I tried loading lyn's model into marth's pac, but i think i did it wrong ( the pac will extract, but i get an error testing the model in william's converter) i guess ill throw it on my sd card and check anyways.

 

[Poxag]

I kno you want new characters I,m just saying that I personally dont see a need for balancing brawl, I would be fine with a cool new model, but the same moveset and hit/hurtboxes. I'm just interested in the custom models, not changing the actual gameplay and physics

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

Well if hacking got to a point where we could edit animations, I would definitely make new movesets and whatnot, but don't get your hopes up for that to be arriving in the near future, or at an even more extreme, never.

Just be positive that we will be able to get models working sometime soon, now I'm going to look into the model some more and see if i can find the size offsets (like those huge sword Gecko OS codes).

 

[fortwaffles]

well, i think custom moves would be cool, but just custom models alone is gonna be amazing. How soon do you think it will be until we see the collada to brres converter? can't wait for it's release, so many possibilities! XD

 

[Poxag]

Yea how long do you tink this will take?? how difficult is this??? Can I do it with 5 ds max??

Cant wait for this, I'm already drawin up my list of model hax, dude we should be the syntaxerror of model hacking 'cept, of course that I can't contribute anything to the team,

 

[...:::VILE:::...]

Yea how long do you tink this will take?? how difficult is this??? Can I do it with 5 ds max??

Cant wait for this, I'm already drawin up my list of model hax, dude we should be the syntaxerror of model hacking 'cept, of course that I can't contribute anything to the team,

How difficult is this??? It depends on who your asking, what i did wasn't very difficult, just had to look through some numbers in a hex editor, but what Pharrox is doing is probably one of the most (if not the most) difficult thing in SSBB hacking yet.

EDIT: I cant open the models in maya properly :S.

 

[GaryCXJk]

Modify Gary's code to extract TEX0 files directly.

That one's not difficult. I did write down part of the TEX0 format (yet people still ignore this, including Heinermann, which had caused the textures to not get ripped correctly, or at least it caused the TPL files to not be created correctly).

 

[Poxag]

I have a questoin about texturing the new models, we will be able to rewrap the textures right, we won't just have to fish around in the current ones, trying to match them up and messing with weird streching will we??? also will we be able to un-mirror some of the texturing??/ cuz it's really annoying when you're trying to make a character but the mirroed textures screw it up

 

[fortwaffles]

I have a questoin about texturing the new models, we will be able to rewrap the textures right, we won't just have to fish around in the current ones, trying to match them up and messing with weird streching will we??? also will we be able to un-mirror some of the texturing??/ cuz it's really annoying when you're trying to make a character but the mirroed textures screw it up

My guess is that we might be able to use the same textures if we extract a model, edit it, and put it back in. If you make a model from scratch however, i don't know if that would work. As for the mirrored textures, it might have to stay that way, but there is a spot in the pac file where textures are defined where they are put. maybe this can be edited to get the textures un-mirrored