Hacking MDL0 converter

[retrospect]

A few days ago, a converter for the MDL0 format was released on the forums at darkmatter.de-coder.net

The forum has been locked and made inaccessible, and registration restricted. The URL of the page is http://darkmatter.de-coder.net/index.php?s...view=getnewpost

This isn't the first converter to be written, the site is full of people who have written converters but refuse to release them to the public. The theory isn't difficult - a bit of time in a HEX editor and you can extract all the polygon vertex data IF you know what you're doing.

I wondered if anyone had access to this new converter - or any other, and would be willing to share.

Thanks

 

[teq]

Good find.

Should help out with the handful of games that use MDL0.

I was tired of extracting the OBJ by hand.

 

[Speff]

Is there a file spec out there for the MDL0 format?

 

[Krisan Thyme]

I'm quite interested in this myself, it is a shame the forum appears to be.. uh, locked? But yes, I as well would appreciate it if someone with access could paste the contents of the post here, or.. at least, find an alternate source with the same information.

 

[FAST6191]

While probably not the best place to start a lot of DS formats mimic the GC and Wii. Of course there are only three dimensions and 3 possible movements (translation, rotation and scaling).

NSBMB has a MDL0 section:
http://kiwi.ds.googlepages.com/nsbmd.html

 

[retrospect]

Teq, could you please help me out with this converting by hand stuff. I haven't managed to access the converter yet but I don't mind putting the time in to convert a few Smash Bros trophies to Maya format.

Thanks

 

[Speff]

There was a converter that was released. Well, not the actual binary, but the source was and you can build it from that. Dude by the name of Sabretooth released it over at Facepunch studios. (link) If you have Linux or OSX, you can build it with the gcc compiler and the makefile. A function that is used in the source does not compile on a Windows computer, so if you want, you can help with the effort to convert the program to Windows. (I am not part of said effort, since I dual boot)

EDIT: Note, the converter still doesn't work 100% is is still a WIP

 

[Phreeq]

Uhhh guys, I kinda guessed at a passowrd and... got in. Should I get the file and post it somewhere?


EDIT: NVM nobody's ported it to windows....yet


Apparently they're close.

EDIT2: NVM They do have one, but at the moment it only converts trophy models correctly, and Character models can be converted but some vertices are streched (O NOEZ) but they can be dragged into place ( O YEAZ)

Still not sure if i should post it, don't wanna get in some kinda trouble with them, but I do have the converter on my PC

All credit for it goes to William.

 

[amcclay]

Uhhh guys, I kinda guessed at a passowrd and... got in. Should I get the file and post it somewhere?


EDIT: NVM nobody's ported it to windows....yet


Apparently they're close.

EDIT2: NVM They do have one, but at the moment it only converts trophy models correctly, and Character models can be converted but some vertices are streched (O NOEZ) but they can be dragged into place ( O YEAZ)

Still not sure if i should post it, don't wanna get in some kinda trouble with them, but I do have the converter on my PC

All credit for it goes to William.

I seem to remember they said that this could be compiled under OS X? Do you have this running as an .EXE?

 

[Joey90]

I guess the character models don't leave with animations intact... and that there is no way to transfer back again.

It's still pretty cool though.

Also couldn't you just upload the .exe and face the consequences... how likely is it that they will read this?

 

[amcclay]

Hey guys. Ok, I know this is off topic, but I'm desperate here. I would love to make some fan art using some of the models from the game Zack And Wiki. I've managed to get some of the raw data from my Z&W disk, and it seems to be your standard Wii formats (brres and MDL0) - But none of the converters I have tried on them have worked so far.

Could one of you guys, who have succesfully used a converter on an MDL0 model from SSBB try your conversion on one of the models in this archive:

http://idisk.mac.com/amcclay-Public/zwmodels.rar

Those are a few models from the "items" directory, so I'm assuming they should be relatively simple models (not characters).

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Speff]

Hey amcclay, if your going to ask GBATemp, Facepunch, and Emutalk, at least have the courtesy of writing out the request in each forum instead of copy pasting the same reply everywhere.

And to answer your question, you need the .pac file for the models you gave as MDL0. It works w/ brres files too, but Sabretooth mentioned some things that would be left out if you worked with those. It looks like its same format used. The converter still doesn't work with about 70% of model files so it didn't work w/ the brres file you have, but it looks like it might work for other ones.

 

[amcclay]

Hey amcclay, if your going to ask GBATemp, Facepunch, and Emutalk, at least have the courtesy of writing out the request in each forum instead of copy pasting the same reply everywhere.

And to answer your question, you need the .pac file for the models you gave as MDL0. It works w/ brres files too, but Sabretooth mentioned some things that would be left out if you worked with those. It looks like its same format used. The converter still doesn't work with about 70% of model files so it didn't work w/ the brres file you have, but it looks like it might work for other ones.

Sorry, next time I'll make sure to re-type the exact same thing by hand even though it's the same request. Likewise, I'll make sure that any time I post an add for something on sale on craigslist, I make sure to re-word it for the eBay ad just because.

In any case, thanks for your response. That's all I really was looking for.

 

[Speff]

Ammclay: Sorry dude, it's just that I saw bumps in these topics and thought progress had been made with the topic, but I saw the same message on all of them which kinda had me disappointed.

 

[amcclay]

No Prob Speff- Sorry for the snark

I can certainly relate to that - as I've been obsessively tracking any and all progress on MDL0 format conversion as well.

I wish we could get as far with this format as we did with BDL on GC.

Good luck to us!

 

[Keshire]

It's kinda silly that the dark matter forum went underground and is no longer offering registration.
I'd like to take a look at what they have so far so I can try and expand on it.

 

[Speff]

I was kicking myself when I first read this thread. I visited that forum a few months ago (Maybe alittle longer) for Halo resources and they were still open then.

 

[pghazanfari]

Hey I uploaded the Williams converter!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HV4PBE9K

It's Megaupload!

I added a file called Rip.bat. Once you have all your trophy models, place the mdl0converter.exe, libcollada14dom21.dll, and the Rip.bat files in the folder where all the trophy models are. Then just run Rip.bat and it will rip all the mdl0 models. Without the .bat, you have to rip them one at a time.

 

[Speff]

Well this is interesting. Unfortunately I have my desktop at my dorm room, so I'll report back with my results back later tonight (With pictures hopefully).

Edit: Wow, the source is also included, thank you stranger (William too)

 

[BrawlShifter]

Umm...does no one here know there is an easily accessable and even better model extractor out there? And it can extract any model, not just trophies. The guy who made it is also working on an importer to change the files back to MDL0 format. Here's the link. The beginning is just about the extractor, but read the last 20 pages or so to find out more about the injector. I'm surprised no one knew about this.