Open .brres on a Mac?

[Skessler]

I've been trying to find a way to open .brres files on a Mac and I have some trouble.

So I'm trying to rip Chibi Robo! Plug Into Action! and thanks to a Japanese Wii version, I have to deal with .brres files instead of some strange format, that I have no way of decompressing.
I successfully extracted the files but I can't open the .brres files mainly because I have no software to convert them to a friendlier format, like .OBJ.
I've been surfing the net to find a solution and I came up with some tutorial thath apparently would allow me to get Brawl Box on a Mac, but the only problem is that after following the steps nothing happens. I even downloaded XQuartz but it doesn0t work. Most of these tutorials are from 2005-2015. I'm using High Sierra.
In another thread ( https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-32559.html ) we were talking about Mac Ripping, I tried some ripping software and posted my results, and a user suggested that I should compile the original bmdview or other open source software on a Mac, however, I don't know anything about programming.
I also tried Wiimms SZS tools, wich I succesfully installed, but I haven't figured out how to get a .brres into blender.
I anyone knows a way to open those files on a mac, I would be vey happy. The only problem I have is that I don't have enough space for BootCamp, so unfortunately that's not an option.

Thanks in advance

[Raccoon Sam]

I don't know much about BRRES, but here's a few tips:
• Brawlbox is a tool that apparently can do stuff with BRRES. It's written in C# and utilises the .NET Framework, so it's very likely that you can run it with Mono. This holds true for all .NET Applications — if you somehow manage to deduct that the program is a .NET tool, you can probably run it, granted you have installed Mono. No compilation needed or anything, the EXE will run straight out of the box.
• Wiimms SZS Tools have a macOS binary, like you said. What do you mean with " I haven't figured out how to get a .brres into blender."? How does Blender come into play here?
• Not sure if this helps, but I here's thakis' yaz0dec for Mac: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kq3rqxa5pv0a57k/yaz0dec?dl=0 I compiled it on my Mac Pro 2013 running Sierra, if that's of any help.

[Skessler]

I don't know much about BRRES, but here's a few tips:
• Brawlbox is a tool that apparently can do stuff with BRRES. It's written in C# and utilises the .NET Framework, so it's very likely that you can run it with Mono. This holds true for all .NET Applications — if you somehow manage to deduct that the program is a .NET tool, you can probably run it, granted you have installed Mono. No compilation needed or anything, the EXE will run straight out of the box.
• Wiimms SZS Tools have a macOS binary, like you said. What do you mean with " I haven't figured out how to get a .brres into blender."? How does Blender come into play here?
• Not sure if this helps, but I here's thakis' yaz0dec for Mac: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kq3rqxa5pv0a57k/yaz0dec?dl=0 I compiled it on my Mac Pro 2013 running Sierra, if that's of any help.

• Downloaded Mono and nothing has changed. Should I uninstall this XQuartz thing first?
  
• I meant that I want to be able to get it into OBJ and later Blender, so I can check any errors.
  
• Thanks for the tool, but after downloading I get a TextEdit Document, with some weird symbols and some code at the start and at the bottom. Should I do something with it? I can't drop files into it in it's current state.
  

Thanks for the patience

[Raccoon Sam]

WELP after a lot of research, compiling, investigation and writing this same post like four times over with different step-by-step guides, it's probably best to just do this:
0. Dump your files. I used wit, but I assume you've already gotten your BRRES files somewhere nice and ready.
1. get  BRRES Model viewer, http://www.mediafire.com/file/zdr4chm4m3...viewer.rar
2. open it in CrossOver (if you don't have it, wine works just as fine.)
3. mass convert your BRRES files by following this tutorial. (see Main Guide -> -Batch convert with BRRES Viewer- & Batch convert with Noesis)
4. ^ yeah you need Noesis too. It runs on wine fine.

I personally downloaded the Wii ISO, unpacked it, tried out a few BRRES models and I can confirm that this is entirely possible with a mid-2012 MBP with Sierra installed. Both Noesis and BRRES Model Viewer work in Wine and whether you convert your BRRESes to MD5 and OBJ or to PSK and OBJ, both seem to work just fine.

One thing I learned:
You can do a lot of things natively on mac without wine; with Wiimm's tools you can dump the files, unpack BRRESes, convert the textures to PNG, even analyse the Model files... but model conversion is not possible with these tools. Shame!

[Skessler]

WELP after a lot of research, compiling, investigation and writing this same post like four times over with different step-by-step guides, it's probably best to just do this:
0. Dump your files. I used wit, but I assume you've already gotten your BRRES files somewhere nice and ready.
1. get  BRRES Model viewer, http://www.mediafire.com/file/zdr4chm4m3...viewer.rar
2. open it in CrossOver (if you don't have it, wine works just as fine.)
3. mass convert your BRRES files by following this tutorial. (see Main Guide -> -Batch convert with BRRES Viewer- & Batch convert with Noesis)
4. ^ yeah you need Noesis too. It runs on wine fine.

I personally downloaded the Wii ISO, unpacked it, tried out a few BRRES models and I can confirm that this is entirely possible with a mid-2012 MBP with Sierra installed. Both Noesis and BRRES Model Viewer work in Wine and whether you convert your BRRESes to MD5 and OBJ or to PSK and OBJ, both seem to work just fine.

One thing I learned:
You can do a lot of things natively on mac without wine; with Wiimm's tools you can dump the files, unpack BRRESes, convert the textures to PNG, even analyse the Model files... but model conversion is not possible with these tools. Shame!

Well it worked! I've successfully ripped some models, and after getting them into blender trough the MD5 plugin, They're ready! The only problem I ran into was that .BRRES Viewer in Mac has no ability to zoom in or out, so I had to export the models in order to know what they were (At least with the ones in Japanese)
Maybe I'll create an in-depth guide of the whole process, so other Mac rippers have an easier time.  

The word is God, the pronunciation is "Raccoon Sam"

[Raccoon Sam]

Oh well, at least the exporting works. Thanks for the kind words.

Regarding mono - I forgot to explain how it works. You type "mono myapp.exe" to terminal and the program will start once you hit return. If it doesn't and you get some error message, it's probably not a .net application to begin with.