CHRONO CROSS FILE EXPLORATION THREAD

[FaustWolf]

Zero'd bone rotations and no animations are the top pics in my post above, but I'm going to try that one again. Turns out I managed to shave off a little more animation so that Serge now looks pretty much exactly like what your script produces, though I can't tell from the angles I was able to get whether Serge's legs are really supposed to be "pitched forward" a bit or not. Working with the animation data is tricky, because the animation not only has a header that (perhaps) specifies the number of frames, but also affects the model's location on the battlefield or something -- eliminate too much data and Serge disappears underground (or so I believe currently).

For now, here's a shot of what Serge looks like with the maximum possible animation data removed:

[Luminaire85]

In the meantime, I think I've fixed some of the problems with the models. Click attachments and enjoy.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[FaustWolf]

AWWW YEAH!   Almost there -- just a few kinks in Guile's model. I didn't do any experiments with Glenn, but it looks like he's pretty much good to go. Here are my experimental results:

Discombobulated Serge: No rotations, no animation applied...


Standing Kid: Rotations on, animation off...


Discombobulated Kid: No rotations, no animation applied...


Standing Guile: Rotations on, animation off...


Discombobulated Guile: No rotations, no animation applied...



EDIT: Shoot, I just now saw that we're still having the "leg syndrome" with both Guile and Glenn. Lemme take a look at Glenn's character model data, and if he's got the same number of Constructs in what we've been calling Section 1-1, I'd say that it has something to do with the number of switchovers between 8-byte and 16-byte mode vertices and triangles & quads as specified in those Constructs. I'll also get a closeup of Guile where you can see his feet, just to make 100% sure that the lack of Section 4 animation data isn't causing the problem.

EDIT: Here's a long view of Guile's legs, just for kicks.

[Luminaire85]

  It works!

This is a HUGE milestone, because every battle model file that I have renders perfectly. That means Serge, Kid, Guile, Glenn, Dark Serge, Ozzie, Flea, and Slash. For now I've only provided Guile and Glenn as evidence.

There's a small bit of work to do with the UV data yet, but my script confirms that the structures of Sections 1 and 2 as we've listed them are accurate. I've attached version 0.3.0 of my script for archival.

BTW, the rotation order is XYZ after all.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[FaustWolf]

I AM SHEDDING TEARS OF UTTER JOY.

THREE CHEERS FOR LUMINAIRE85! BREAK OUT THE FIREWORK BUBBLY!



THE PASSION OF YOUTH! WE HAZ IT!

NO OBSTACLE IS TOO GREAT WHEN YOU'RE IN THE SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH.

[cornettheory]

Hello, I am joining this forum because of this thread and specifically the post above.  I was literally playing through Chrono Cross and was thinking to myself that it's about time I try to break open the CDs and rip the models from the game.  I had wanted to convert them for HLDM years ago. And sure enough a google search comes up with someone currently doing the thing that I wanted.  neat! Talk about a technological singularity...

Anyway, my question is, do you plan on making available all of the models from the game in a format like ase or dxf so that anyone can use them?  Whichever format stores the UV, textures, and mesh data that is universal. 

Also I have a request, please rip the mini fire dragon model, this is the only one out of them all I want, and I really think he should have been a player character.  Thanks guys for doing this research, you rock.

[FaustWolf]

Welcome to the Compendium!

cornettheory, the export script will be made available at the very least, and ripping the files from one's own game discs is very easy. Whether the Compendium will host the character models in the format Luminaire's script produces will be up to Ramsus and ZeaLitY.

Do you have experience in writing model conversion scripts, cornettheory? If so, there's plenty more to be done. Would you like your Fire Dragon now or would you rather wait until we've got all its animations figured out? 

Speaking of which, Luminaire, is it possible to import animations into Blender via Python scripts? I've found the animations fairly easy to work with thus far, so perhaps we can figure them out relatively quickly...maybe. I'm really hoping that they're not compressed, since none of the other model data seems to be, but we'll see.

[Luminaire85]

Blender can handle animations (although I am largely unfamiliar with that aspect, so there would be some learning there), so in principle I don't see why we couldn't do animations.

I expect that the final results of this endeavor will be a set of .blend files (Blender's native format), one for each model, plus screenshot images for the encyclopedia. I could probably provide a few other 3D file formats if desired. Since Blender is free, anyone who wants will be able to download it and the .blend files and use them as they see fit. (The screenshots I've been posting really don't compare to seeing the models in glorious 3D.)

Once the importer is working 100% I will write another script to batch convert all of the model files to whatever 3D file formats we decide on. These scripts will also be freely available.

[FaustWolf]

Suh-weeet! We need a Grimmjow pic over here...

After I get the General Theory of Sections 1 and 2 wikified properly, I'll take a look at the animations in Section 4. Section 3 remains mysterious for the moment, but since it's short we should be able to figure it out eventually. In any case, it doesn't impact the viewability of exported models.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Congrats all you hardworking data-teers (like musketeers, but with data instead of muskets)!

[FaustWolf]

One for all, and all for one!

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah. I could have never imagined today would be THE day. I can also imagine what the encyclopedia will be like now with these definitive images, like the ones Luminaire is producing; we'll make one for every single model in the game. They'll replace those horrible Ultimania scans with the real thing and downloads for the models, perhaps with animations included once that's cracked.



Nothing can stand in the way of willful dreaming and the springtime of youth. If the circumstances forbid success, you make your own circumstances. Believing in yourself is the power to change fate.  Know it, instinctively.

[BROJ]

Just stopping in to give my congrats--this is truly wonderful(in *all* senses of the word) work that has been done lately... this means we can do a 'true' Magus(geometry, poses, and the like), right?! 

BTW ZeaLity--no truer words of wisdom have been bestowed.

[FaustWolf]

We can *export* models from Chrono Cross now, but *importing* is another question entirely -- or is it? I imagine a separate script would be needed to take a model through reverse conversion from .blend file format to Chrono Cross format. Luminaire, how difficult would that be to do? I'm going to give myself a crash course in Python over the summer, but I imagine I won't reach the level of expertise necessary for this sort of thing for awhile. Unless it's just a matter of literally switching lines of code around?

In any case, it'll take a bit to figure out exactly how Chrono Cross animations work.

[Luminaire85]

I was wondering if anyone was going to mention the possibility of an exporter. I don't think it would be too hard to do, although there is the matter of fully determining what the unknown data represents. It would certainly be a separate script from the importer, and unfortunately not quite as simple as switching lines of code around.

But yes, definitely finish the importer first.