The VG Resource

This is only my first post on here, even though I joined like six months before the reset.

And now to the topic-I happen to have a ROM of this cancelled PS2 game that I've been trying to rip models off from. I do know that the models are in .mld format and the textures are in the .tex, format, but no matter what I do in Noesis, it always shows a "file could not be previewed error". I was wondering if there's a way to fix this error so that the models can actually appear and then be exported into an .obj file and then into Blender and then export to a COLLADA file from there for importation into Trimble Sketchup.

Thanks.

EDIT: The probable reason that Noesis didn't load them-I opened one of the .mld models in Notepad and there was only garbled text, indicating that the files are compressed. Do you know how to decompress .mld and .tex models?

Upload both and let's see what type of compression schema they're buried under!

(07-27-2014, 03:00 PM)Raccoon Sam Wrote: [ -> ]Upload both and let's see what type of compression schema they're buried under!

I guess I'll try doing that.

EDIT: Here's the files: http://www.mediafire.com/download/phf2s1...MLDTEX.zip

well at least the TEX files aren't compressed at all. 15bpp BGB (555), 2-dimensional. That's it. Here's some snippets from EFT_T.tex and TITLE_T.tex


The smallest MLD is SW.mld (54 kb) and a quick analysis of it hints that they aren't compressed at all.
The biggest MLD, SELECT.mld (3,2 mb) also follows the same structure. I'm certain that these are under no compression or encryption.
I'm no expert when it comes to model formats, but here's something I noticed:
First there's some kind of a header. The smallest files have the smallest headers and the biggest ones have larger ones. After the header, there's 16-byte chunks of data (set your hex editor's width to 16 bytes and you'll see a pattern) and the 16th byte is almost always $3F.

That's about all I can do sorry.

So you're implying it's actually unrippable?

No – what I mean is that I know very very little about model ripping. I am sure the models can be ripped but I don't know how. The textures, though, can be ripped easily. All you need is .tex file and a tile viewer. It can be TiledGGD or Tile Molester or GGD or whatever.

Well, I did try EXMLDNET, but it says that there's no models inside the .MLD files I've tried.

MLD sounds like a generic model format, so although the name is same, this particular MLD format is way different.

(07-29-2014, 01:26 AM)Raccoon Sam Wrote: [ -> ]MLD sounds like a generic model format, so although the name is same, this particular MLD format is way different.

As in...no other game uses this particular type of .MLD?

I do not know. It was just a wild guess. But if your generic "MLD viewer" does not open these particular MLDs, it is likely that this is a false alarm and they've only got the same name but way different structures.

I could do a comparison, though. Can you upload a MLD file that you are able to open in your program of choice?
So I could see if there are similarities between these MLDs you can't open and the ones you can.

(07-29-2014, 07:53 AM)Raccoon Sam Wrote: [ -> ]I do not know. It was just a wild guess. But if your generic "MLD viewer" does not open these particular MLDs, it is likely that this is a false alarm and they've only got the same name but way different structures.

I could do a comparison, though. Can you upload a MLD file that you are able to open in your program of choice?
So I could see if there are similarities between these MLDs you can't open and the ones you can.

I just tried Noesis again-none of the .MLD files will open, all give out "file could not be previewed".

So let me get this straight: you can not open any MLD at all regardless of where they came from?

(07-29-2014, 08:43 AM)Raccoon Sam Wrote: [ -> ]So let me get this straight: you can not open any MLD at all regardless of where they came from?

Yes-every file in both the "MDL1" and "MDL2" folders.

I do not know if I broke any rules through the way I bumped this...

Well, it's a bit probable that the .MLD files may have been .MDL files that had the format misspelled, probably explaining why Noesis didn't load them at all and why EXMLDNET exports them with nothing in them at all.

(08-02-2014, 07:03 PM)TheYoshiState Wrote: [ -> ]I do not know if I broke any rules through the way I bumped this...

Well, it's a bit probable that the .MLD files may have been .MDL files that had the format misspelled, probably explaining why Noesis didn't load them at all and why EXMLDNET exports them with nothing in them at all.

Extensions don't determine the file format, the file format is defined in the file itself,