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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 17, 2015 16:01:29 GMT -5
And now to something totally different. From time to time (when I need to vent my head a bit) I tend to reverse engineer file formats. This is like when other people do "PM Logic Trainer" I do reverse engineering  . Aaaaaaanyways. I once extracted the files from the PS2 game Zoids Struggle and let them rot on my disk somewhere. Now I checked if I manage to read the files somehow. The file format is really a convoluted mess but after some time spend on training my logic center with reverse engineering I've got something on screen:
Granted I had to manually attach the mutltiple small meshes to the right place on the armature (not shown here) but it's working. Here you have the Zoids Struggle Red horn with one of its costumes (it has 4 texture variations actually).
Now you might remember the game boasted about having damageable zoids. When I played that game I noticed (in the case of the red horn above) only a broken off horn or these head antennas going missing. But looking at the mesh I noticed now that there is a lot more that can come of. Try guessing from the image above what can come off.
Here it is... a red horn stripped down a bit
Have you figured out all breakables on your own? I would not have. They spend lots of time on making this all removeable meshes but in all the battle mess going on on screen you don't noticed all thisgoing missing.
Anyways. Next time 'round I'll model my own red horn. Just have to figure out how I can fit a cockpit in there 
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Post by Maethius on Oct 18, 2015 19:14:29 GMT -5
Very cool stuff! I love digging around and finding Easter eggs. ^_^
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Post by Falcarius on Oct 18, 2015 22:36:23 GMT -5
Awesome work! Have you tried doing this (or would you be able to) with the Full Metal Crash Zoid models? The file format should be the same or similar to Struggle, and there's more files in there than Zoids actually accessible in the game, so there might be some interesting dummied-out stuff to find. The ones I'm specifically interested in are named BFS (BF Sturm?), GAS (Gairyuki Speed?), GBJ (Geno Breaker Jet?), LZX (Liger Zero X?), GEC, GOC and ZEC (no idea, maybe Crash-exclusive versions of Geno/Gojulas/Zero?).
Speaking of dummied-out things, what's the fourth "texture variation" for Red Horn? Struggle and Full Metal Crash only offer three colour schemes per Zoid (Red Horn, Green Horn and Dark Horn in this case, if I recall correctly).
I should repost my Zoidspoison thread about hidden game files sometime, it's always interesting to see things buried in the game code that can't be accessed normally.
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 19, 2015 14:16:06 GMT -5
I figured out I didn't read all data. I missed some after garbage. As a little explanation this is one of those file formats where the actual VBO-Stream-Data buffers are stored in-file instead of a logical structure of the data. So there had been a bunch of garbage mixed in where I stopped too early. Red-horn in it's full glory:  Now off to answer some questions. I've not tried this out yet but as you mentioned it's more or less the same game just re-sold with some modifications. I would have to get hold of the MCZ iso first but otherwise there should be no problem using that script on it too. Concerning ZS the following zoid folders are included in the ISO: bfu, bli, cwo, dbi, dsa, gai, gbr, gog, iko, rho, sti, zer, zph. Obviously this one here is rho. I'll see to get hold of the ISO. Here they are in the order the textures are defines (p2, p3 and p4):  4th one seems to be a re-color of the black one. Personally I like the re-coler better than the actually used one. The gold fits better with the black than the strong green. Actually the other zoids have a 4th texture too except some like gojulas having only 2 textures are all. EDIT: It's also kinda interesting why p1 has EZ-004 written across its head and the p2 and p3 (used in-game) not but the not used p4 again has it. Texture artist mistake? EDIT: EDIT: Another something which might be interesting. There are actually 4 versions of the model file: p1, p2, p3 and p4. What I've seen so far they are identical copies of each other. As it looks like they actually had 4 costumes in mind (perhaps with slightly different models) but for some reason only three had been actually used. |
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Post by Tilly on Oct 19, 2015 16:44:04 GMT -5
Looks like Green Horn (which was Republic), so that one having no Empire marking makes sense. Then two Dark Horns...old Guylos (glowy rock powered) and new (not)? If it's old and new that would go with only one having the new Guylos-y designation on it, so that'd be my guess besides the also possible someone just messed up.
I prefer the golden look too (and actually, it looks a little like a Harry-colored one too, did Horns evee show up with his gatling/PK beam cannon weapons?), and hm, the glowy dark horns had dark green caps and small weapons, not bright green caps and silver small weapons (though that one limited one had brighter green, maybe they looked at that). As to why they don't use them all...uh. Planned bonus colors to be unlocked somehow in story/gameplay but then abandoned instead? Any other cool ones buried in there, or random pink recolors? (Silver Zero loooved pink recolors. A ton of the Zoids had a pink/purple sprite option!)
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 19, 2015 18:59:45 GMT -5
did Horns evee show up with his gatling/PK beam cannon weapons? All weapons except those tightly integrated into a zoid are separate model files that can be attached at the appropriate places. As far as I remember the starting armament of each zoid is the same no matter the costume used. For the red horn the default armament is the belly canon (fixed), horn (fixed) and this small back mounted rifle weapon which is not too strong. Actually red horn is one of the poorest zoids to use unmodified. Gets his rear end handed to it rather quickly. The gattling gun can be purchased and installed together with the black costume to get what you are looking for. I think you can even put twin-gattling on his back but I'm not sure about that one. You can though certainly hit CPU using black horn with gattling installed in campaing mode. At last I think I remember something like this. How about this nice fella? Saber tiger unused p4 texture... I'd pick that one in an instant if I could.   The rest are well known: p1 orange, p2 black-and-red, p3 yellow. I've to check the others for their 4th textures. |
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Post by Hanyoutai on Oct 19, 2015 20:19:51 GMT -5
The ST-G tiger being included is awesome. Everything in these posts is gold, IMO. It's nice seeing the damage all put down and the things that never got to be released.
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 20, 2015 11:33:13 GMT -5
and the things that never got to be released. Actually that's not quite true. In hindsight I remember seeing this ST-G tiger in the game once but never again. It had been somewhere during SP mission where one CPU used this costume once. This leads me to the conclusion the p4 textures are in place for very specific (maybe only one) CPU player using them in SP missions. That would explain why they are in there but not used for single player. Not being able to use the ST-G though is a bummer. It would rock. Granted... switching p4 and p3 textures in the ISO would be a no-brainer |
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Post by Falcarius on Oct 21, 2015 4:56:56 GMT -5
Not sure what you mean by "SP missions", but it's not in Story Mode at all (standard yellow is, in part 8). I'll have to keep an eye out in future, but I don't remember ever seeing a CPU character using a colour scheme that I couldn't, and I've played Zi-Fighters Mode enough times to unlock and buy everything in Struggle. |
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 21, 2015 11:28:38 GMT -5
Yes story mode if I'm not mistaken. If I remember correctly a few story parts (and fights thereof) show only up if you choose the right sequence of answers across some dialogs in the game. This would explain why you might not have seen it and I've seen it only once. I once choose different options than just the first one and since I had no clue what that Japanese text is trying to tell me. Guess I had been hitting the right answers by luck. I think the important set of dialogs is around this endless desert location thing. I remember you somehow play in circles a couple of times and each time your answer somehow sends you to a fight in the same stage but a different opponent depending on the sequence of answers. But don't ask me what I answered there. Too long ago to remember. A translation of this sequence might shed some light on what could have triggered it.
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 21, 2015 17:24:53 GMT -5
Any other cool ones buried in there, or random pink recolors? (Silver Zero loooved pink recolors. A ton of the Zoids had a pink/purple sprite option!) Ligers are happy... no pink colors for them. But somebody else though might not so happy about his hidden costume  Barbie gairjyuki ! |
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Post by Falcarius on Oct 22, 2015 4:21:23 GMT -5
Yes story mode if I'm not mistaken. If I remember correctly a few story parts (and fights thereof) show only up if you choose the right sequence of answers across some dialogs in the game. This would explain why you might not have seen it and I've seen it only once. I once choose different options than just the first one and since I had no clue what that Japanese text is trying to tell me. Guess I had been hitting the right answers by luck. I think the important set of dialogs is around this endless desert location thing. I remember you somehow play in circles a couple of times and each time your answer somehow sends you to a fight in the same stage but a different opponent depending on the sequence of answers. But don't ask me what I answered there. Too long ago to remember. A translation of this sequence might shed some light on what could have triggered it. I'm guessing you're thinking of the Dark Battles from Full Metal Crash, where all those random pilots like Ost and Norden show up. There's only one dialogue choice in all of Struggle, and it's to let you replay the Dark Horn training battle at the very start. (I probably won't be translating Full Metal Crash any time soon, but I can translate some of the dialogue choices if you want help unlocking everything) |
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 22, 2015 11:21:37 GMT -5
Yes story mode if I'm not mistaken. If I remember correctly a few story parts (and fights thereof) show only up if you choose the right sequence of answers across some dialogs in the game. This would explain why you might not have seen it and I've seen it only once. I once choose different options than just the first one and since I had no clue what that Japanese text is trying to tell me. Guess I had been hitting the right answers by luck. I think the important set of dialogs is around this endless desert location thing. I remember you somehow play in circles a couple of times and each time your answer somehow sends you to a fight in the same stage but a different opponent depending on the sequence of answers. But don't ask me what I answered there. Too long ago to remember. A translation of this sequence might shed some light on what could have triggered it. I'm guessing you're thinking of the Dark Battles from Full Metal Crash, where all those random pilots like Ost and Norden show up. There's only one dialogue choice in all of Struggle, and it's to let you replay the Dark Horn training battle at the very start. (I probably won't be translating Full Metal Crash any time soon, but I can translate some of the dialogue choices if you want help unlocking everything) No, I'm positive that in ZS you had a couple of dialogs where you had to select one of multiple options. Looking for something yesterday I stumbled across something related to it. There seems to be a sequence where you are in a base of some sort and the game expects you to talk to team mates one after the other. But you could go out and (according to the source) you get a random (or I think depending on the answer) battle until you can't do anything else but talk to the team mate. I think it has been somewhere around this place where it happened. But I would not put my hand into fire for the correct location. I just know that I had seen this guy in ZS and floored it once recognizing it while extracting those 4th textures. This texture is so special it's hard to forget it |
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Post by Falcarius on Oct 23, 2015 1:00:17 GMT -5
Yeah, that's definitely Full Metal Crash you're describing. There's no base in Struggle, you just hang out at Mach Storm's office while you're not out fighting or investigating. After the story paths diverge in FMC, you return to the Whale King between each story segment and have the choice to visit people's rooms or go outside. (Unfortunately, you only get to visit three places per Whale King segment before the story continues.) Going outside lets you participate in Dark Battles, which can earn you pilots (Ost, Lilie, Norden and Nerke) and equipment. The Japanese Wikipedia mentions that Nerke pilots a yellow Saber Tiger, so that might be the one you're talking about, but I think Nerke's the last one you unlock so it would take quite a while to find out  |
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Post by lordofdragons on Oct 23, 2015 10:52:07 GMT -5
Quite astonished about this since FMC does not run on my dolphin emulator but ZS runs on pcsx2. Really strange all this. Whatever the case checking the FMC iso out is going to be difficult. The FPK unpackers can not handle the ISO because... har har... it's big endian. I would need to find first what kind of compression algorithm the FPK files use to manually export them.
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. Aaaaaaanyways. I once extracted the files from the PS2 game Zoids Struggle and let them rot on my disk somewhere. Now I checked if I manage to read the files somehow. The file format is really a convoluted mess but after some time spend on training my logic center with reverse engineering I've got something on screen:
