Quake Wars models
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:37 am
[out]
I've just spent several hours pulling the MD5B file apart and now have the mesh rendered in its bind pose. The format is definately nothing like MD5Mesh or previous id binary files ( with the data in chunks, and a header with byte offsets to each chunk) I've figured out the basic structures, but some parts seem very strange, and I was hoping maybe someone smarter then me could figure out the last bits.
Heres the basic Layout of the file:
int one (always = 1)
int two (always = 2, maybe refers to the number of LOD levels for each mesh)
int numJoints
Joint[numJoints] joints
int numMeshes (usually 3, head, body and shadow)
Mesh[numMeshes] meshes
int numLODMeshes (usually 3 again)
Mesh[numLODMeshes] LODmeshes
byte[28] ? (at the end of each file are 28 bytes with no pattern i can find)
Joint Structure:
int namelength
char[namelength] jointName
int parent
float[4] rot (a unit quaternion, presumably the rotation of the joint in bind pose)
float[16] mat (looks like a 4X4 matrix)
Mesh Structure:
int namelength
char[namelength] jointName
int 0
int 0
int ?
int numVPart1
byte[3] ( always seems to be 0,0,0 just to make life miserable)
int shaderNamelength
char[shaderNamelength] shader (this seems to just point to a folder. I've found textures that work, but they were dds files that had random strings of numbers for names)
int numVPart1 (again)
int ?
int numTriangleIndex
short[numTriangleIndex] triangleIndices
int numshadowstuff (this number always seems to be 0 unless the shader and meshname imply this mesh is only used for casting shadows)
short[numshadowstuff * 4] shadowstuff (a list of what looks like 4 vertex indices)
byte[numVPart1 * 2] vertPart1 (16 bits per vert, the first four and last four are always 0. I have no idea what these are)
int numVPart1 (for the third time =\)
int numVerts (this is always equal to numVPart1 + numExtendedVerts)
int numExtendedVerts (the number of verts that don't have a VertPart1, and instead have an index to a vert it shares one with)
int[numExtendedVerts] sVertIndices (the above mentioned indices)
int numVerts (for good measure?)
int 0
int numBones (the number of joints used for this mesh)
byte[numBones] bone (index of joints used in this mesh)
Vertex[numTVerts] vertices
VertPart2[numTVerts] vertPart2
byte[5] jibberish (5 bytes at the end of each mesh with no pattern i can find)
Vertex Structure:
float[3] pos
float[2] texture coordinates
float[3] normal
float[3] tangent (a unit vector orthagonal to the normal, used for bump mapping)
float ? always -1 or 1
int ? (always -1)
VertPart2 Structure: (definately the most absurd looking part of the format)
byte[8] ??? (bytes 1,3,5 and 7 are always multiples of 3)
(bytes 1,5 and 7 are always equal to eachother)
(bytes 6 and 8 are always 0)
(byte 2 is always equal to (byte 3) * -1 - 1)
Rendering the first 2 meshes using the triangle indices and vertex data will give you the model in bindpos, the 3rd mesh is a lower LOD of the entire model used for casting shadows it seems. I would guess that each vertex should have bone indices and weights, but I can't imagine how the remaining parts can represent that.