How to read/extract from .dat and other game data files?

[vtempest]

How to extract from the data files such as .dat .bin .unity3d .upk...

What are some tools to read those to see the models which can be imported into blender and 3ds max. This seems to be something but only works semi-well https://github.com/ata4/disunity

Anything better for the general types of files? Is it possible to mod the assets and reinsert into the game?

 

[FAST6191]

.dat and .bin are generically considered generic extensions and are used for all sorts of formats across computing.

.upk is tied to unreal (though there may be others) and is an archive format there. Archive formats can contain anything you like, and apparently Unreal is no exception.

.unity3d would appear to also be an archive format, though one that is obfuscated a bit which causes you to have to join the decryption/updates arms war. Though being a popular format you can probably rely on others to get it to the point where it spits files out for you to analyse.

Equally when it comes to 3d a lot of the things might be made in something like 3dsmax (Blender is good stuff but seemingly not used so much, also there are loads of other 3d programs and the people that have traditionally done engineering CAD are also getting in on the action) but will be rendered as something different. With that being the case you will probably have to learn to make import plugins for whatever program you are using.

You might be able to find something for a specific game that happens to have those extensions being used, otherwise there is no chance of a generic tool to do it all (give or take a better one to decrypt/deobfuscate .unity3d and unpack upk).

 

[vtempest]

But how to open .dat generically? Since it uses some archive encryption. How to extract 3ds max models from it.

 

[FAST6191]

The glib response would be "a hex editor", that is not very helpful though.
There are thousands of file types with the extension .dat, I have pulled apart probably dozens of entirely different ones at this point. If you point me at a specific game I might be able to tell you more, what you are effectively asking is something like "I have something in a foreign language, what will translate it?" -- what language it is and what context it is in are a bare minimum there.