Messages

526

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-31 20:13:37 »

Edit:
IMPORTANT MakiPL
If you check this file "mag087_b.1r1" the structure is very similar to a battlestage...so let me know if there is something like the "the end" stage. If yes i'll give you other file with this type of "models".

Indeed. Typical Quad info starts at 0x88c. However visualisation of this produces bad mesh.
There's texture in 1t0 and 1t1. The file is divided on parts. At the moment I can tell:

.1p0 file is UNKNOWN (p stands for... particle?)
.1r0 is start file, that the first unsigned int is size of the first pattern. Visualizing of vertices from this part produced this cloud: . Moreover 2240 MODULO 6 != 0, so it's not Short type X Y Z vertices. After this another pattern appears. Finally, a 8670 byte of this strange pattern. 8670 is dividable by 1,2,3,5,6,10,15,17,30 and 34. Never seen anything sized like that.
.1r1 is the same as above, but the pattern is almost the same like the stage. Starting from 0x8bc till the least 2c EOF byte, there's 5712 bytes, and this number is dividable by 24. Max face index is 545, this means I need at least 545*6 = 3270 Bytes of data for vertices. I found, that there's a pattern for either 4 or 8 bytes. 4 bytes of data, and four next bytes are 00 00 00 00.
.1s0 looks like the camera (has the same header as stage - but it's only a speculation)
.1t0 and .1t1 - divide parts of this texture:

Hm... I have an idea. Please, could you find a mag file that's responsible for some magic/GF that has objects in it? I could then real-time memory edit this to find out what will happen. OR, someone tell me if he/she recognise a spell/magic/anything that this texture may apply.


@Mag999_a.dat contains only AKAO sequences (this is: sounds info).
Mag184 is Shiva.

EDIT3: In .EXE, at 0x9b7db8 is ASCII hard-coded "mag150.TIM". I though about ASCII rip using Jaeder Naub , see what I get.

527

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-30 13:46:51 »

For the single .obj is a good thing even if I actually solved the importing time whith a useful script I found that allow me "multi import" .obj files in few secs 

Oh, could you upload this? I'd use that too.

I didn't find clues of where that environment could be located till now.. same thing for Alexander mountain and other GF animation "accessory 3d models".. maybe they have their own file format 

Same here. I'll run a software on FF8.EXE and see what will happen.
UPDATE: No. There's no .X files in EXE, nor 01 00 01 00 objects compatible with .X format.

528

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-30 12:36:47 »

These days I'm manually fixing some textures extracted from tim files to create proper material in 3ds max (with alpha map) so I wonder... there is any info about how the game "knows" which one is the right one?
How does it pick the right colours from the tim file?

There are two PSOne GPU related instructions: 12's byte and 15's first byte digit (quad) [and that's probably this]. Changing those produced for example inverted colours. However, FFVIII engine uses texture colourization, so it's real-time colourized - 21's, 22's and 23's byte (it's generally used to imitate the fake lightning in VIII).
I found no way to use it though. (colourization) :C
Even if I could manage, to get values for pallete used (CLUT, not colourization) I still couldn't make any use of it. For generic .OBJ uses I'd have to colourize the texture itself, and it's out of my reach. Sorry. :C

I'm started to work on producing one .OBJ file. This would need, to convert quads to triangles by myself. Should not be a big deal. Mixing quads and triangle objects messes up texture coords and face indices of the others. Triangulating quads and stitching all should work, probably.

Candy for you:

529

General Discussion / Re: Modeling Balamb

« on: 2015-03-27 15:03:20 »

Probably this: http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130310211733/finalfantasy/images/8/89/Balamb_Garden_FFVIII_Artwork_3.jpg

This is problematic however. After Balamb become mobile you can still access training zone, quad and etc. However, the 3D model of worldmap Balamb is only the core thing with class rooms, without other places. Maybe someone understand this? Because I can't imagine how does Balamb really look.

530

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-26 20:39:15 »

Is there a way to rip just the TIM the .x file is calling?  This would be very handy for texture modders.

Use TIM Viewer.
TIM texture is the last segment in .x file and is starting with header 01 00 00 00 09
Changing image data after header, CLUT and core info should work.

531

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-25 18:42:23 »

Converter has been updated to 1.1. Fixed the triangles, added magic button.
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16017.new#new

Thanks kaspar01 for providing screens before and after fixing UV.

532

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [1.1]

« on: 2015-03-25 18:41:12 »

Updated to 1.1

533

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [0.95]

« on: 2015-03-25 18:23:16 »

kaspar01, you're right. For quads it's ABCD> ABDC. Taking look at your screen I finally made it.
ABC> BCA was correct.

I made a correction. I'll upload the fixed version. Still no "magic button" though. :C

UPDATE: Nah! I made it. Magical RIP button is ready. Also by using List + Validator I'm able to get ID's for every ripped model, so I can stitch it by software itself. But... Next time. Thanks for patience!

I'll update the first post with version 1.1

534

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Enemy editor - IFRIT (0.11)

« on: 2015-03-25 09:51:11 »

Someone can tellme how can i open balltle.fs to get .dat files?
The link posted by obesebear doesn't work.

(Sorry for my bad english  )

You could use Deiling. Find it here in TOOLS category.

535

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [0.95]

« on: 2015-03-23 22:02:08 »

Yeah my bad, didn't look in to .mtl and realize that the texture needs to be individually exported

By the way, I don't know if you have solved this but for example in a0stg101.x the texture (png exported with deling) is blue (clutted?) and thus making the grass appear as blue like the sky. But don't let it hold you back, this is easy to fix manually with material editing.

And it is in fact. To make grass green, the FF8 engine uses texture colourization, the colors are written in quad/triangle data second, third, fourth and fifth byte from end of one face data.

FF8 uses textures like that is PSOne GPU optimization and TIM texture being only 16bit.
I'm not able to do anything. Just don't know how to overcome this, totally. :C

536

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-23 20:09:12 »

Yep, a problem you posted was fixed in 0.95, available to download in topic in TOOLS. This error was appearing when TPage resolving was trying to use UV translation bigger than the texture itself. I just had to break the loop one index earlier. Clearly my bad.

Keep me updated with any other bugs you'll encounter. Thanks.

Kaspar01, really? Well, I wasn't expecting that. I corrected only that loop that added one bad face indice due to breaking loop after doing instructions instead of checking condition before calculating.

537

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [0.95]

« on: 2015-03-23 19:51:16 »

MTL file says to use XXX.png texture (where XXX is your stage model filename)*. However if you just put a texture on it in Blender this is create new material, then everything should be working 100%. I'm not a blender guy though, so I can't help you more.

So, if you're working on a0stg105.x, then you should have a texture named a0stg105.png
You can edit MTL file by your own. You'll see inside how it's done.

538

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [0.95]

« on: 2015-03-23 18:22:22 »

Which versions of the game does this work with?

Any. PSone, PC and PC STEAM re-release use the same files.

539

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-23 17:42:25 »

The "magical button" news sounds great!!! 

Ye. But I failed. Need more time.

Made a topic in TOOLS:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16017.msg225783#msg225783

540

FF8 Tools / [PSX/PC] Battle Stage to OBJ converter [1.1] [OUTDATED]

« on: 2015-03-23 17:38:15 »

Disclaimer!
See newest BS software: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=17064.0

Born from here: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15906.0

FFVIII Battle stage .X to OBJ converter is intended to analyze, dump and convert data from FF8 .X battle stage files to OBJ with texture coordinates.

Current version: 1.1 (1.1)
Last updated: 25.03.2015


Features

• GUI
• Automatically searches for models in two modes: strict and extended (description below)
• Shows model offset, vertices, triangles and quad count, shows offset for each one
• Resolves TIM texture size + TPage'ing.
• Converts model data to OBJ
• Automatically creates MTL and OBJ needed info
• And something more I forgot about. :*

List of changes in 1.1

• Added Magic RIP Button (The most awaited )
• Redone debug info. Shows now full path
• Redesigned. Deleted unused progress bar and stuff
• Software now checks if obj is already ripped, if so, overwrites it. No more endless stream.

List of changes in 1.0

• Changed icon to the one made by LionHartGR. Thanks!
• Fixed triangle UV. Thanks to Kaspar01 for providing screenshots. Correct order was ABC> BCA
• Extremely optimized file. Now it's ~300 KB
• Built with .NET Framework 4.5 instead of 4.5.1

List of changes in 0.9e

• Added auto texture resolve
• Added auto MTL generator
• Injected quad/triangle algorithm as a one operation
• Made it less ugly (deleted unused options and stuff)

INSTRUCTION
1.Load file by File>Open
2.Click on one of preferred search modes
3.Select model offset from list on left (or click Magic RIP button - rips all valid meshes)
4.Click RIP
5.Generated MTL and OBJ is in your directory where .X file was. Software generates files named by this: (stageFilename)_(offsetOfModel)_(t or q).obj

Modes
Strict mode - Is most stable option to search for models, but it mostly misses many models (segments). This mode takes the models from generic model set as I wrote on wiki (and it's probably not true [what I wrote on wiki], as we can see now there're models before generic object header [will edit this later])
Extended mode - It searches from beginning. This CAN produce offset of models, that ARE NOT a models itself. There's where my model checker comes in action. Before RIP button is going to be available, my validator checks it for conditions:
Triangle count < 10000
Quad count < 10000
Vertices count < 10000
Vertices != 0
However, it's not 100% of possibilities, so there's still 1% of chance, that the wrong model will pass thru my validator. Ripping bad model passing my validator shouldn't crash the software itself, however the mesh would be complete mess.

Download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7vao6448jtse5v/VIII_x_to_obj_11.zip?dl=0

You will need .NET Framework 4.5 to run this.



FAQ

541

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-23 16:42:45 »

Yep. Checked that. 3DS Max hates meshes, that have too much vertex info. I'll tell you why this is happening:

There's Entry point for model.

At first it says how much vertex are there in this one segment.
Then there's X Y Z data for each vertex. After vertex data, so after 6*number of vertex there's 4 byte padding + MODULO from absolute position, but this is not important. After this there's count for triangles and count for quads. Not always triangle part of this model uses all of vertices. So in triangle part of model there's vertex data for both triangle+quad, but only data for triangle connection. That makes 3DS Max furious. Other softwares should get over it. Currently, I can't solve this problem, however... there's a small chance I'd like to write below.


I took a closer look how does a OBJ file with many objects stitched together look like... You won't believe. It's just one model after another. O_O It's like copying one model data to another's and it works! I though I wouldn't be able to figure a way to do this because of every model needs to use it's own vertex, vt and face info, and today I've just seen this. So a magical button for one way convert to ready, stitched model is just a matter of time.

Still can't find a problem with triangle VT. I didn't test this in 3DS Max yet. I'll do like I did with quads. I'll manually repair the texture, and see what result should I get from my file. This worked for quads, should work for triangles.

I did make some major changes. Made it faster now to rip models. No need to generate MTL, click on resolve texture or etc. Just select model and RIP. That's all.

I'll post the software updated to TOOLS category here. I'll edit this one to post a link for this.

However, I just found a logic bug. It caused in some rare cases to throw away an exception.

EDIT: Or wait a sec. I'll add that one model option

UPDATE: Nope. It didn't work. ;/

542

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-22 21:06:30 »

I see. Post me which stage this is, offset of model and version of your 3DS Max. It's night in my country ATM, but I'll test it with 3DS Max tomorrow ASAP. I'm crafting OBJ from scratch, so there maybe is a problem that I missed. Thanks for report!

BTW> I personally didn't test exported meshes with 3DS Max, only with Milkshape and Mootools 3DBrowser.

543

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-22 19:01:34 »

Here it is:

Final Fantasy VIII battle stage .X to OBJ converter - deprecated- see next page


You'll need .NET Framework 4.5.1 !

Instructions inside!

Known bugs:
-Bad UV calculation for triangles
-Probably if you click resolve texture before opening any stage it will crash

TODO:
-Change rip triangle/quad button behaviour (disable if not any available)
-Limit those annoying MessageBox'es.
-Fix triangles UV calc.
-Auto texture size resolve after open
-Better MTL generation/ to make this faster
-Button for loop thru all models
-Throw away this message box in extended mode

BTW> 700 lines of code... (not counting designer code) Phew, I'm tired.

544

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-22 17:50:31 »

Kaspar01, you we're right. I just ran a test on Norg's level and indeed. It did find this ground extension. Not only this. I think I'm ready to release this converter. It could be buggy and at first time weird, but it works. Give me a sec and I update this post.

Well, +1 for this software. My new extended search algorithm found these two objects and I didn't manually.

545

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-22 15:43:09 »

My vertex calculation algorithm is 100% done. What's now? Copy code from my VT calulator 1.3a and progress thru unsigned face indices. It's like... Expect converter TODAY. Just give me an hour or two to finish things.

UPDATE: Software now does produce correct vertex + vertex texture coordinates (however only for quads ATM). Now, the face indices and VT match and.... we're done!

UPDATE2: Works like charm, but... It does produce the glitchy triangle model. I'm missing something. The funny thing is I was doing everything from memory, so probably I messed up something. Sec...

UPDATE3: Yup... Forgot about ABDC.

OK! Software now rips quad models!

It does miss triangle loop. Need a break and I'll get to it. Also it lacks of usemtl and material assign. Sec...

There's still some issues with triangles. Needs more testing.

Updated triangles. Now the geometry works, but UV is messed up... mhm. Need to browse thru my notes to see what was the UV order for triangle polygon.

546

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: Is there a way to export the balamb garden WM model yet?

« on: 2015-03-22 14:28:06 »

halkun, this topic: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15979.0

Also Yagami made to show wireframe using PSone emulator:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15906.msg224136#msg224136

Finally, there's actually a topic (sadly abandoned) about world map meshes: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=13799.0

As I promised I'll take world map next after completing the FF8 stage to OBJ converter.

So: There's currently no ripped Balamb garden world map model nor working software. Only this info in link above. Should be fair enough if you are experienced with this.

PS> Due to FF8 engine, the models are orthogenic. This means capturing via DirectX hack would not produce anything useful. 

547

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] .x battle fields

« on: 2015-03-21 14:36:41 »

Umm... Can't see anything at 1:47.
I checked it with my newest converter, and it does detect only three models.



I'm 70% sure it IS just a plane. However, there's still on my TODO list to hack battle camera, after that I'll see for 100% if it's really plane or not in-game.

Also I today (with finally free time) started from the beginning writting the FF8 stage to OBJ converter. I think whole thing should be done probably tomorrow. I wrote a completely new algorithm, used some of my previous codes and just passed thru the thing that I had the most problem with. Still there's much to code, but I completed the hardest thing.

BTW> I'll edit this post to put an updated VT calc code with triangles support.

EDIT:
Here. Updated script for triangle models texture calculation:
http://pastebin.com/wUxpPYuy

548

Troubleshooting / Re: Problem with the boards - Missing Images

« on: 2015-03-20 14:12:37 »

Well, it does not work on my Firefox then. O_o

549

Solved Problems / Re: Exporting from Noesis with transparent background?

« on: 2015-03-18 19:19:08 »

Export model to FBX and use 3DS Max or Blender. 3DS Max does have a transparent background rendering, but it's a paid software. I got it thanks to Autodesk student licensee. If you're student you can register your school and get a 3 years license for 3DS Max.

550

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Hacktuar - Script Fixes/Improvements

« on: 2015-03-18 15:21:02 »

Another example of not included things in the "playable game" are hidden views (for example Squall's room exit) and it would be cool to include them too somehow

Oh yea!  That sounds extremely awesome. These areas do have walkmesh in it, so it just need some scripts.