The VG Resource

Hello! I'm very new to 3D model ripping; my experience lies mostly in the sprite ripping field.

I've been attempting to rip Getter Robo Daikessen's 3D models with very little success; since it's a PS1 game, there's no standardized procedure I could follow to extract its meshes; the best I could do is follow some of the steps linked here. 

I first attempted to run both the game's .bin and its extracted files through PSXPrev, with unsuccessful results both times (all that I could export from the program was some sort of 2D bar? Very bizarre).

Then I ran the game through NO$PSX, played up to a point where one of the game's models was on screen (the Eagle unit's model, to be precise) and looked at some of the poly's positions inside the emulator's VRAM viewer. However, when opening the game's .bin in HxD, I couldn't find any match- I believe the meshes are compressed in some way.

Since I've found basically no documentation about how to decompress 3D PS1 models, I've gotten stuck. If any experienced ripper would like to help, I'd gladly accept any tips!  

Thank you very much!

UPDATE: I've begun attempting a better way to rip the models without using NO$PSX; that being ripping them from the disc's files. 

Getter Robo Daikessen's disc contains a .vfs (which stands for Virtual File System) which contains references to .bin and .pac files. The .pac extension was also used in Thunder Force V, which was also made by Technosoft, and a .pac extractor for TFV does exist, so at least there's that!

Now the problem is, how do I extract the files listed in the .vfs? Is there some sort of tool? I found a document from 2006 by Klarth that details some of the specifics behind the PS1's .vfs file format, but that's the most I could find. I'm not entirely sure how to proceed, so any help is appreciated!

Thanks!

A few things:
• NO$PSX is a godsend as middleware when searching for data from said files, and doing so without it will be very hard.
• You shouldn't scan the BIN (the CUE's counterpart) for files, but instead search for the extracted/mounted disc's files.
• Filename extensions never tell anything, there's no guarantee that .vfs stands for Virtual File System, or that the .pac is a particular pac someone has already figured out. Filename extensions don't matter, the contents do!

Fortunately, in this case you were right. The VFS indeed is a Virtual File System file. I analysed it and I'm writing a quick python script to unpack it, gimme a sec!

edit: also join the discord server lol
edit edit: here's the files https://www.dropbox.com/s/xc549t2618wk76...d.zip?dl=0

(08-30-2021, 10:49 AM)Raccoon Sam Wrote: [ -> ]A few things:
• NO$PSX is a godsend as middleware when searching for data from said files, and doing so without it will be very hard.
• You shouldn't scan the BIN (the CUE's counterpart) for files, but instead search for the extracted/mounted disc's files.
• Filename extensions never tell anything, there's no guarantee that .vfs stands for Virtual File System, or that the .pac is a particular pac someone has already figured out. Filename extensions don't matter, the contents do!

Fortunately, in this case you were right. The VFS indeed is a Virtual File System file. I analysed it and I'm writing a quick python script to unpack it, gimme a sec!

edit: also join the discord server lol

Thank you very very much for the help! It's very appreciated!

EDIT: Would you be okay with me sharing those files with other people? Also, I'm very curious- what does your program do?

Of course, feel free to share them with anyone you want.
My program uuuuuh reads the file and unpacks it <:D I can't be bothered to go much into detail because I can't remember everything but the format was pretty easy, assuming you know some rom hacking / programming/  reverse engineering basics