PSX game 3D model extraction with Cheat Engine?

[Samppu]

Okay hey all.
I want to extract a car model seen in the first mission of a 1999 Visual Novel for PSX, name is Silver Jiken. Months and months ago I used psxfin's r3000 debugger to view the model's vertex coordinates and write them down to a text file and then with a Blender script provided by a helper, I turned those into a model but like I feared right from the beginning, it was a fruitless and useless effort because there was no Z-coordinates so yay, I got a flat model. Even so I haven't just yet despaired..

So now my impression is there's no other options left than to try rip the actual model files from the disc data which seems very truly difficult, the game's storing of files is very cryptic, there is ZERO indication where models could be..I have already isolated such folders that to my knowledge by checking with jpsxdec, can't possibly hold 3D data. But the files that are left then, don't seem so far to hold any data that could point to how I could find the 3D model files, I checked with a hex editor.

The last option that I'm currently trying to execute myself is finding the vertex coordinates with Cheat Engine on an emulator running the game. I haven't had luck so far in that..the idea would be to find the coordinates stored in GTE memory right, since GTE stores the all the 3 coordinates of a polygon right? Please, someone help, thanks in advance.

[Raccoon Sam]

Have you tried PSXPrev?
Can you list the files that you've narrowed down? I checked out the game and there's a lot of legit files found by jpsxdec but I'm interested in the files you mentioned that could be models.

[Samppu]

PSXPrev doesn't seem to work for me. I run the launcher, scan the folder where the disc image is with it but nothing happens, the PSXPrev window (program itself) just stays there and nothing seems to happen. Will you perhaps try scanning the disc file with PSXPrev, please?

And the files that I believe would contain models or point to them, if any, is either DATABASE.BIN, FILETBL.BIN, FLTBL.BIN or SLPS_023.20...the last one as far as my understanding goes is the game's PSX-EXE file. I have thought about the possibility that the models are not stored as files but instead compiled code which if is true, would mean I guess that the game has to be disassembled..

[Raccoon Sam]

I've never gotten PSXPrev to work either :D

But yeah, my best guess is that the models can definitely be in any of the files, even in the DATA0.BIN, DATA1.BIN etc. files, it's just that jPSXdec only finds and lists filetypes it can recognise.

I'll see what I can find.

[Samppu]

Huh. I tried PSXPrev on another computer today and guess what - it found no .TMD files.

It can well be the models are some other format than the usual TMD....if they're stored at all as files instead of compiled code. I wonder what's the memory address start and end for GTE in no$psx. Gonna have to check tomorrow if the no$psx docs say anything about it.

I asked Friedslick6 many weeks ago about this and basically the idea is apparently to find what the Direct Memory Access is transferring to GTE per frame..anyone have ideas about how this is to be done? So much I do know that Cheat Engine on an emulator running the game is needed but nothing else really.