Star Fox Assault

[Carpaccio]

I'm amazed so little research has been attempted for this game. I have an assortment of the files that may be of interest for ripping models and textures from it. Hope someone here can help figure out a method of ripping them.

Dropbox Link

[DarkGrievous7145]

I tried once before, long before I really understood much about ripping, other than Flash .swf, and before I created an account here.

As I recall, I found possible information on the files, but nothing on how to open them. I eventually lost interest. Far as I know, I've deleted all the files I extracted from the rom, but I still have the adventures and assualt .gcm in the hopes I'll someday have a computer capable of emulating the gamecube.

If no one else does, I'm willing to give this another shot If and when I can get the time and resources.
There are textures and models I want from both StarFox gamecube games.

I'm off to bed, now, though, I had to wind myself down tonight, took a while.

[Carpaccio]

I'd really like to see these models and such finally acquired. I've been wanting to get the model of Pigma for a while.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I want a lot of the Aparoid models or textures, honestly.

So, I'll try to find some time to look at these files again.
I'll not specify any dates, I can't even guarantee I'll be able to do anything at all.

[Jinzo-Advance]

I'd suggest using Black Ninja's Ninja Ripper with Dolphin.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I may or may not give this a crack within the next week.
No promises or guarantees, though. I actually will be quite busy, and I'm not sure my laptop is going to handle something like this.

[Carpaccio]

Let's hope all goes fairly well.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I identified what probably are section headers/footers in the .nut files, but IDK what in the hell to do. I searched everything I could think of for information, and the only solid thing is "Starfox Assualt Texture File" on one of the file extenstion websites.

In the midst of hex-editing, I got the , what was it, "Not greater or less than" or whatever it was BSOD... I so far cannot trace the source of this. My laptop has bluescreened three times, this was the second time I caught the actual bluescreen and its error message. (I thought maybe an update will solve some of the issues I've had with this machine, but instead I was forced to system restore after an auto-update failed for...IDK what reason)

Anyways, after that, I decided not to use the hex editor anymore just yet... I really didn't find anything useful, anyways.
Sorry.

Maybe I'll take another look at this game if someone else doesn't.
But it won't be for a while.

I chose not to try the ninjaripper approach precisely because I don't think the laptop can handle dolphin (to date, only one computer i've used has... a school computer) , and also because those tools rely on making progress in the game (or having multiple savestates or cheats) , and also have a hit and miss tendency. I've tried a 3d ripper on adventures before, and maybe assault...i forgot, it totally failed...

[DarkGrievous7145]

I REFUSE to give-up that easily...

So, since your dropbox link is down, I had to manually transfer via my email all the .nut and .pac files while at my friend's house last night.
i don't think the other set of files is necesarry for this rip, or i do hope so, since i can only transfer stuff from my laptop or to it when i actually have an internet connection for it.

good news:
1. might be identifying enough to break the archives apart, at least... i shall continue my research upon completion of this post
2. my laptop is capable of emulating assault

bad news:
3. can't save the game properly... >.>
4. still no idea what's going on with the texture or model formats, themselves, and haven't found any mission-critical segments to utilize in splitting the .nut or .pac files. Not surprising, as I don't know 100% what I am looking for.

I won't back-down just yet, though...
I WANT MY APARAOID TEXTURES!
(Actually, I want everything, including some models)

Anyways, I'll post again when I either find something new, or get stopped dead in my tracks.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I haven't used this for myself yet, it's probably either drag 'n drop, command line, or both

http://crystalien-redux.com/unrelated/ET...program.7z

built to my specs by my friend, should split the .pac's into individual files

but that's all.

I haven't the damnedest idea what to do with resulting .nud files
You'll need someone who actually understands 3d model formats, maybe even compression, and if we're really unlucky, encryption.

Also note that this could very well be buggy and not export files intact. Here's what I emailed my friend:

.pac specs:
32 byte header (one per archived file)

big endian byte order
4 bytes string 'NPAC'
4 bytes int unknown
4 bytes int filesize (first one in the sample file is 00 00 12 e0 )
20 bytes of null padding

(ignore that my terminology is likely wrong...)

Sorry I don't have more to show for this, I'll continue my research, or at least, try...

[Carpaccio]

Well, progress is progress! Least you're able to try.

[DarkGrievous7145]

yeah...

thx

I've sent so far 2 emails to Mr. Krystal, and no reply. I'm not entirely sure why. Far as I know, we're on good terms, so I'm guessing he's either busy or has changed his email. Either way, I haven't been able to get anything else done. I tried a little bit to understand the .nut format, but no luck yet. I might have been on to something, but I'm not sure... Sadly, all my notes are on my laptop atm... I'll need to wait for the next chance I have to connect it to internet to retrieve them.

the .nud format I'm not currently focused on...
Unless someone else steps in, it's not getting cracked anytime soon. I don't understand 3d formats or 3d programming at all.

[DarkGrievous7145]

Reply received

He's busy, and his hands are still injured
(a detail I actually forgot about, but yeah, I recall reading about it, somewhere...forgot how, though)

That's about it.
There was a few other things, but they have no relation to this project

The reply was to my second email, which did not mention star fox assault, and nothing was brought-up about that email in this reply, so I'm not sure what happened, there. Probably got forgotten or he was just too busy.

I just replied with some information not important to this discussion (email things to be noted), as well as the details of what's being attempted here.

So, now I'll just await the next reply.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I cannot believe I'm saying LIVE DISASSEMBLY might be easier to understand these damn formats
I decided to just give another fresh attempt at the .nut files

*indicates extra notes

I may have found out a few things, at least...nothing super useful
offset 0x00:
6 bytes string fileID 'NUTC€\0x02'
2 bytes short(i think) archived file count *
8 bytes null
offset 0x10 16 bytes null
offset 0x20: 4 bytes int filesize #1*
INDECIPHERABLE BINARY GIBBERISH APPARENTLY*

and then the actual texture data:
[32 byte header]
4 bytes string ID 1 'eXt\0x00'
4 bytes int size offset? 00 00 00 20*
4 bytes int IDK 00 00 00 10
4 bytes null
4 byes string ID 2 'GIDX'
4 bytes int IDK2 00 00 00 10
4 bytes int IDK3 ...varies

*
1. There seems to be more occurrences of 'eXt' than the value of the archive count, perhaps they were removed from record, but not data???
2. This value consistently represents the first file ONLY, and is always at offset 0x20
3. I cannot make heads or tails of anything else in the main header, because any attempt to analyze it has thus far, FAILED
4. if it's a pointer, it's to offset 0x20, ALWAYS. but only the first archived file seems at all able to use it

but i'm also likely just totally lost and have just about everything wrong

I hate these files...HATE THEM

Not like I understand binary data, anyways

In short, I still got basically, nothing

[DarkGrievous7145]

Still a little lost HOW this stupid format actually works, but I did find a program that seems to open it at least
That said, looks like texture-ripping MIGHT be feasible

I got some stuff wrong, it looks like
(besides just not being able to read the stupid data, anyways)
string fileID 'NUTC'
short version 0x8002

https://github.com/marco-calautti/Rainbow

To export the textures, open one with this program (i'm using latest dev version), choose file > export > [the only option]
save it as whatever you please
It exports an XML index document (probably safe to delete) and the textures as .png

Assuming this tool is actually reliable enough, all that's left are the models
Some bad news on that, though, I did some looking to see if I might find any info on the guy that ripped Krystal's model from assault. No luck, but there's some screens of what must be the mesh when it was initially exported

According to the page on Krystal Archive:

Nanogrrr partially decoded the Krystal mesh and textures from Star Fox Assault. He reconstructed the missing or inaccurate parts himself.

screenshot in question:


So, doesn't look like he even fully broke the model format...

IDK about the texture format

What truly annoys me is that no notes on how any of this was done seem to exist

I am still awaiting another reply from Mr. Krystal

Anyways, yay, a breakthrough!
And I didn't have to give myself a literal headache to do it!
Let's just hope that Rainbow is reliable enough, I still have my doubts, I've only previewed the contents of the first three .nut files. I also have neither played the game enough, nor watched enough videos of it to know exactly what all the textures look like, exactly.