NDS Model Ripping Tutorial

[//X-Gluon//]

I can't use Console Tool either.

But on the plus side...I HAVE found that Phantasy Star 0 uses .nsbmd files. (At least when I looked at it in Notepad.  When I looked at it in MKDS Course Modifier, I only found .nsbmd files in the "ending" folder.  Everything else is stored within .narc files.)
I think I'll try my hand at ripping models from it.  After all, I DO have PuyoTools(which can crack .narc files wide open) and I can get Tahaxan as well.

[TeridaxXD001]

Here's a few models that are impossible to rip using this method. They all fail to export textures to PNG or TIFF, and exporting them to TGA gives a separate 0 byte file representing data for a specific part of the model.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl:
Swimming Pool

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Celadon Restaurant

Pokemon Black/White:
Construction sites on Route 4

If anyone knows how to fix these, please share.

Can somebody else try this model?

[Julian0555]

Here's a few models that are impossible to rip using this method. They all fail to export textures to PNG or TIFF, and exporting them to TGA gives a separate 0 byte file representing data for a specific part of the model.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl:
Swimming Pool

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Celadon Restaurant

Pokemon Black/White:
Construction sites on Route 4

If anyone knows how to fix these, please share.

Can somebody else try this model?

Like you said no png of tiff but tga works fine (besides the water isn't transparent) blender rendered pic:

[TeridaxXD001]

Yeah, but I don't think TGA is accepted here.

[Julian0555]

Yeah, but I don't think TGA is accepted here.

2 things. 1. It propably is accepted 2. Convert the tga to png or so

[Yarcaz]

The Game "Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood" is being very un-cooperative, its files are nothing like the other nds games that I have encountered so far. Could you guys help me see if there is some way to open up any of these files?

It should also be noted that the game was made by bioware.

The files that I have encountered so far are:
- 2DA File (.2da)
- CBGT File (.cbgt)
- CDPTH File (.cdpth)
- Palette File (.pal)
- VX File (.vx)
- SaveTest1.sav
- SADL File (.sadl)
- SDAT File (.sdat)
- TLK File (.tlk)
- HERF File (.herf)
- BIN File (.bin)

I also just found this site explaining some things about how the game works, though I do not completely understand it.
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/05/the-o...1-slash-3/
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/06/the-o...2-slash-3/
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/07/the-o...3-slash-3/

https://wiki.xoreos.org/index.php?title=...d/Research


Here is a link to download the basic unpacked Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/r45dz8...nicles.zip

[Julian0555]

The Game "Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood" is being very un-cooperative, its files are nothing like the other nds games that I have encountered so far. Could you guys help me see if there is some way to open up any of these files?

It should also be noted that the game was made by bioware.

The files that I have encountered so far are:
- 2DA File (.2da)
- CBGT File (.cbgt)
- CDPTH File (.cdpth)
- Palette File (.pal)
- VX File (.vx)
- SaveTest1.sav
- SADL File (.sadl)
- SDAT File (.sdat)
- TLK File (.tlk)
- HERF File (.herf)
- BIN File (.bin)

I also just found this site explaining some things about how the game works, though I do not completely understand it.
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/05/the-o...1-slash-3/
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/06/the-o...2-slash-3/
https://xoreos.org/blog/2015/06/07/the-o...3-slash-3/

https://wiki.xoreos.org/index.php?title=...d/Research


Here is a link to download the basic unpacked Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/r45dz8...nicles.zip

Not saying that you can't post this here but since this thread is known for Ripping "Nitro Files" and it's highly unlikely anybody will know what to do. Again im totally cool with it and I would love to help but I'm just giving you a heads up

[DrMcCoy]

- 2DA File (.2da)

2-dimensional array. Basical a table of data. In Sonic Chronicles, they are used to map palettes to the various tiles that make up the background image.

- CBGT File (.cbgt)

These store the area background images, in a compressed and tile-based manner.

The xoreos-tools have a tool, cbgt2tga, that can take a CBGT file, and the respective 2DA and PAL file, and create a common TGA image with the game background.

A collection of xoreos-tools binaries for various operating systems can be found on the releases page.

- CDPTH File (.cdpth)

These store per-pixel, 16-bit depth values for the background images. This is used in the game to figure out when a piece of the background image is in front of a 3D character, and when behind.

The xoreos-tools have cdpth2tga tool that takes a CBGT and its 2DA, and create a common, grayscale TGA image of the depth map. The resolution is decreased to 8-bit for that, though.

- Palette File (.pal)

Each PAL file contains a collection of palettes, to be used by the CBGT background images.

- VX File (.vx)

Videos, using the Actimagine Video Codec. As far as I am aware, there is nothing out these, besides probably the original tools from Actimagine (not publically available), that can even play them.

If someone with video codec reverse engineering experience and skills could RE that for, say, ffmpeg, that would be very much appreciated.

- TLK File (.tlk)

TalkTable, a collection of all user-visible text, accessible through a numerical index. In Sonic Chronicles, TLKs are GFF V4.0 files.

The xoreos-tools have a tlk2xml tool that can convert those into a human-readable XML file. (Note: While xml2tlk can theoretically do it the other way round, i.e. recreate a TLK file out of such an XML file, it can't create the TLK variant that's used by Sonic. At the moment, it can only create TLK files that can be read by earlier BioWare games.)

- HERF File (.herf)

A Hashed ERF, an archive file (like, say, ZIP) containing other resource files. Doesn't contain file names, but only hashes of those names, but there might be a dictionary file which does have names. The xoreos-tools have an unherf tool that can extract those HERF archives, read the dictionary, and also contains a dictionary of hashes->filenames I figured out already. Failing that, a file will be extracted with the hash (in hex notation) as the file name.

- BIN File (.bin)

Probably the game executables?

- SADL File (.sadl)
- SDAT File (.sdat)

Music data and sound bank.

- SaveTest1.sav

Probably a save state test file left behind from development.

As for the models, those are normal Nitro files, NSBMD with NSBTX textures. They are within the HERF archives.

[Yarcaz]

- 2DA File (.2da)

2-dimensional array. Basical a table of data. In Sonic Chronicles, they are used to map palettes to the various tiles that make up the background image.

- CBGT File (.cbgt)

These store the area background images, in a compressed and tile-based manner.

The xoreos-tools have a tool, cbgt2tga, that can take a CBGT file, and the respective 2DA and PAL file, and create a common TGA image with the game background.

A collection of xoreos-tools binaries for various operating systems can be found on the releases page.

- CDPTH File (.cdpth)

These store per-pixel, 16-bit depth values for the background images. This is used in the game to figure out when a piece of the background image is in front of a 3D character, and when behind.

The xoreos-tools have cdpth2tga tool that takes a CBGT and its 2DA, and create a common, grayscale TGA image of the depth map. The resolution is decreased to 8-bit for that, though.

- Palette File (.pal)

Each PAL file contains a collection of palettes, to be used by the CBGT background images.

- VX File (.vx)

Videos, using the Actimagine Video Codec. As far as I am aware, there is nothing out these, besides probably the original tools from Actimagine (not publically available), that can even play them.

If someone with video codec reverse engineering experience and skills could RE that for, say, ffmpeg, that would be very much appreciated.

- TLK File (.tlk)

TalkTable, a collection of all user-visible text, accessible through a numerical index. In Sonic Chronicles, TLKs are GFF V4.0 files.

The xoreos-tools have a tlk2xml tool that can convert those into a human-readable XML file. (Note: While xml2tlk can theoretically do it the other way round, i.e. recreate a TLK file out of such an XML file, it can't create the TLK variant that's used by Sonic. At the moment, it can only create TLK files that can be read by earlier BioWare games.)

- HERF File (.herf)

A Hashed ERF, an archive file (like, say, ZIP) containing other resource files. Doesn't contain file names, but only hashes of those names, but there might be a dictionary file which does have names. The xoreos-tools have an unherf tool that can extract those HERF archives, read the dictionary, and also contains a dictionary of hashes->filenames I figured out already. Failing that, a file will be extracted with the hash (in hex notation) as the file name.

- BIN File (.bin)

Probably the game executables?

- SADL File (.sadl)
- SDAT File (.sdat)

Music data and sound bank.

- SaveTest1.sav

Probably a save state test file left behind from development.

As for the models, those are normal Nitro files, NSBMD with NSBTX textures. They are within the HERF archives.

Thanks! Now if only I could get xoreos-tools and xoreos to compile so that I could use it, the current guide on the wiki seems to complex for me and I have tried to use it many times and keep ending up not able to do it, are there any videos on this?

Hopefully once the filed are unpacked, there should hopefully be more "normal" files that are recognizable and are more easy to open and unpack as well. And then hopefully I (& maybe others) can finaly start ripping and eventualy rip all of the 3d models from sonic chromicles and upload them here!

[DrMcCoy]

Now if only I could get xoreos-tools and xoreos to compile so that I could use it, the current guide on the wiki seems to complex for me and I have tried to use it many times and keep ending up not able to do it

Yes, compiling xoreos is a bit complicated, especially on Windows where you have to manually grab all the libraries we depend on. xoreos-tools needs less, so it's a bit easier. Still, a somewhat daring tasks for some people.

I've been thinking about providing packages with precompiled libraries for different toolchains (MinGW, and several versions of MSVC, each both 32- and 64-bit), basically everything a developer would need to start hacking on xoreos. I need a Windows developer person to set it up and maintain it, though.

In the mean-time, as long as you only need to use xoreos or the xoreos-tools, we do have pre-compiled packages of xoreos and xoreos-tools from the last release earlier this year here:

https://github.com/xoreos/xoreos/releases/tag/v0.0.3
https://github.com/xoreos/xoreos-tools/r...tag/v0.0.3

As you can see, there's GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows binaries, so you should be set. Unless, of course, you run a different operating system, say FreeBSD.

There has been a few changes since the 0.0.3 release, but I don't think any of them should matter for your use-case. I plan to do a 0.0.4 release some time in January, though.

[TeridaxXD001]

This works. I got the model for Froggy:

   

[Yarcaz]

This works. I got the model for Froggy:

How did you do that? did you use uhref and open the href files? because I am having the hardest time with that.

[TeridaxXD001]

This works. I got the model for Froggy:

How did you do that? did you use uhref and open the href files? because I am having the hardest time with that.

Open a command prompt. Drag unherf.exe to it. Then drag the .herf file you want to extract to it. Finally, type 'e' and press enter.

Example:
   

Now, as for where it extracts the files, I ran into a small issue. Instead of extracting to the local directory of unherf or the .herf file, it extracts to the local directory of the command prompt, which in my case was C:\Users\Owner.

[Yarcaz]

This works. I got the model for Froggy:

How did you do that? did you use uhref and open the href files? because I am having the hardest time with that.

Open a command prompt. Drag unherf.exe to it. Then drag the .herf file you want to extract to it. Finally, type 'e' and press enter.

Example:


Now, as for where it extracts the files, I ran into a small issue. Instead of extracting to the local directory of unherf or the .herf file, it extracts to the local directory of the command prompt, which in my case was C:\Users\Owner.

Darn, on another computer I could do this but since this computer that I have has command prompt disabled, I can't use it directly. Could you unpack the href files and possibly zip them and upload them somewhere and give me a link to them so that I can download it and extract/rip the models from the files to upload them to themodelsresource? That would be a great help!

[DrMcCoy]

Open a command prompt. Drag unherf.exe to it. Then drag the .herf file you want to extract to it. Finally, type 'e' and press enter.

Hmm, "unherf.exe foo.herf e" shouldn't work. It should be "unherf.exe e foo.herf". I.e. the command (e for extract) should come before the file.

Does it indeed work for you the other way round? Looking over my code again, and even checking the sources and binaries I distribute for both 0.0.3 and 0.0.2, I can't imagine how. o_O

Instead of extracting to the local directory of unherf or the .herf file, it extracts to the local directory of the command prompt

Yes, that's quite intentional. It should extract the file into the current directory. That's how pretty much all command line unpackers work.

And yes, like it says in the release notes for xoreos-tools, these are command line tools.

We do have the start of a GUI resource explorer for the BioWare games, Phaethon, but it doesn't do NDS and HERF. There's also no binaries available for it, only the sources. I got frustrated having to fiddle with wxWidgets to get it to not misalign buttons and other widgets all the time, so I stopped working on it for the moment. It's not like I don't have a million of other things on the xoreos TODO list.

I consider it up for grabs right now, so anybody who would want to work on Phaethon, please contact me . Though it would probably be better to rewrite it to use Qt5 instead of wxWidgets.