Dead or Alive series formats and tools

[SkacikPL]

Looks like PC community finally starts giving some results: http://www.freestepdodge.com/threads/pc ... ost-261350

I've another question.
Is it known what exactly handles character's name? I mean, is it possible to change characters name via costume.
Kind of similar to how first Lisa costume is La mariposa. Is that handled via costume setup or KT hardcoded it?

Tested on costume swap and name stays the same. Also, it's still unknown what handles glasses options.

So looks like editing existing stuff is a reality now.
I'll try editing stage textures.

//
Yeah it works flawlessy for me
http://i.imgur.com/QiXTqMd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HLmW1fw.jpg

[SleepySea]

Protocol X27, SkacikPL
Guess you're right, seems like I overestimated people's interest in modding.

Well, it's a broad term really.
Truth is that the community probably has lots of artists, to create models/textures, but little reverse engineers to provide tools or needed insight.
Not that it means that one side is at fault, but i guess the limited interest is caused by very limited scope of possibility and need to use several tools to achieve the goal.

Interest in modding is always big on PC, but another part of this is that most of the modders are just content creators - not reverse engineers.
Generally i'd blame KT for being a d*ck and making our life harder by adding barriers that sooner or later will be broken either way.

I try to contribute as much as i can within my limited capabilities and that's that. But i suck both as a programmer and artist.

Around 40K people own LR on PC and around 200 seem to be playing it on daily basis.
Getting more people interested in modding does not seem impossible, however getting more capable people to reverse-engineer it is a fat chance.

I can feel you pain.

New comers like myself have to figure stuff out as I go without the luxury of having peers to share with and work together. I have been trying to follow tutorials and various discussion topics posted here (sometimes you have to go waaay back to find stuff you are looking for), but the sad reality is that the nakedness is most people's main motivation to mod the game, and it is already widely available for most of the cast now.

Those of us who are still sticking with it have to wear many hats (basically have to be an one-man army) to get anywhere.

[SkacikPL]

Anyone ever worked out stages?
They all have a set of files. The system seems to be quite flexible (won't crash no matter what). Though i don't get what some of the files are responsible for.
BCLIP - ???
CAM - Stage selection camera path
MPM - ??? (some sort of motion data for moving objects?)
PHYD - ??? (most likely all additional objects like barrels)
SCN - Postprocess & lighting
TMC(L) - Mesh/Textures ( + sounds?)
TTGL - Some sort of color LUT?
UNDD - Playable bounds/collision mesh

It'd be nice to know what contains stage audio ambience (like birds in the forest).

[mariokart64n]

its the long weekend, I'll see if i can write something in maxscript.

what are you guys wanting to do ?

[CptRoque]

its the long weekend, I'll see if i can write something in maxscript.

what are you guys wanting to do ?

Newcomer here, right now what I'd like would be an easier way to edit meshes.

I read a bit about the current ways to do it but I currently don't have the time to learn them. Though I'll eventually have time and, if there are no tools by then, I'll just make do with all that hex editing.

[SkacikPL]

So basically, if we could edit meshes now, we'd be right at home.

[Lilstormcloud]

its the long weekend, I'll see if i can write something in maxscript.

what are you guys wanting to do ?

if it could include additional functionality like injection of x,z,y based on selection rather than entire model and manipulation of the vertex data other than the 3d co-ordinate it would be a real plus.

example like
Change all selected vertices boneID to user determined value -> inject (for when you want to pin a foreign object to a single point, or when you want to hide objects and don't want it to fly out of its hiding place when moving)

Or match boneID value of vertex selection from model A to Model B based on rounded x,z,y (for when you want to map one model to another, useful for when you want to attach the leg of one model to the sock from another model)

Automation of vertex creation + deletion would seem like an impossible dream, but if you can figure out a way for that, I'll build you a shrine.

[Rosalin]

<Stick it back> for the bone x,y,z will bring great possibility in the future.

and it would be also great if I can select which UV to import when I import the mesh.

[Protocol X27]

its the long weekend, I'll see if i can write something in maxscript.

what are you guys wanting to do ?

Good luck and thanks for chipping in again. To echo previous sentiments, just being able to import & inject PC models again would be a huge asset, so if modified TMC Parser & StickItBack for those would be awesome. Anything on top of that as mentioned would be gravy. My only unique request is getting the object rotation resolved on import / inject for the models that aren't centered on the axes. Most newer models have not had that problem, if they do, I'll still need an equivalent Xbox 360 model to reference right now, and that could be an issue at some point once TN discontinues them.

***
@SkacikPL/SleepySea No one has to worry about being of a limited or different skill set. It's all about effort, even helping answer questions, writing tutorials and finding new things are all helpful.
When new people come along it takes a bit of time to see who will stick around versus who shows up for an easy handout. I don't think most of us have any issue of withholding information, it's just takes a moment to know see who wants to learn and who's just going to be a distraction.

@sf234 Pretty much what the others said. Thanks for the new updates!

@SkacikPL Re: Containers. I'm not sure what all of those do, but TTGL's were the equivalent of TMCL's for Ninja Gaiden 3 models, so not sure if they are similar or re-purposed. The PHYD is also common to characters as well. I was under the impression it was physics relation, but tests back on vanilla did not yield anything useful for me when I tried swapping them.

[SkacikPL]

@SkacikPL Re: Containers. I'm not sure what all of those do, but TTGL's were the equivalent of TMCL's for Ninja Gaiden 3 models, so not sure if they are similar or re-purposed. The PHYD is also common to characters as well. I was under the impression it was physics relation, but tests back on vanilla did not yield anything useful for me when I tried swapping them.

Opening TTGLs with texture tool makes it seem as if they contained some sort of color lookup table, which would make sense given they work in pair with SCN which handles post processing.
Additionally i think it's possible to add/edit individual lights inside SCN.

[SleepySea]

***
@SkacikPL/SleepySea No one has to worry about being of a limited or different skill set. It's all about effort, even helping answer questions, writing tutorials and finding new things are all helpful.
When new people come along it takes a bit of time to see who will stick around versus who shows up for an easy handout. I don't think most of us have any issue of withholding information, it's just takes a moment to know see who wants to learn and who's just going to be a distraction.

Sorry if my post came off as a complaint or an accusation of people withholding information. That was not my intent.

I actually have been enjoying the learning experience quite a bit and have been sharing my discoveries on a certain forum under a different alias (probably not the best place to talk about technical side of things due to the nature of that forum, and it generates next to zero interest anyway). I think part of the fun is to figure things out myself. Harry Palmer's tutorial was a great start, and it showed me what can be done with this type of byte level programming when it comes to game modding, which is also completely new and fascinating to me. I was able to use it as a base to figure out some of the other stuff and start making simple mods for myself, and I enjoy that very much, thanks to some great help here on this forum. I have recently just discovered how I can attach an object to a vertex so it doesn't fly around wildly in the scene by doing a bit of research on game animation (You won't believe how thrilled I was to have made such a discovery, but its ancient knowledge here ).

Although some times I wish I had tools that were already made to do this stuff, I find writing my own programs allows me to gain a better understanding of the whole process. However, the down side of writing everything yourself is that it is slow, and my tools are tailor made for my own needs (with custom methods such as "PinThisToThat()" ). I think I am just happy that I am slowly making some kind of progress. (hence the "having to wear many hats" part of my original post)

Another thing I am worried about is Tecmo's defensive stance on game modding. If they start cracking down hard on this stuff, it is bad news for everyone. I have heard that they have taken some pretty extreme measures to defend their game and IP before.

[Rosalin]

I hope soon we will be able to get the additional costumes for PC.

[SkacikPL]

Well, i tried swapping movesets by replacing .mpm files.
Firstly, neither Archivarius nor Ink reshuffle find all .mpm files that are listed in dat file.

Besides that, swapping _SELECT animation works fine (the one which plays when you select given character).
Swapping _INGAME however is not so flexible, even when using same body type it will break the character. Majority of attacks don't play and outright lock the character, others which do play still won't connect. Mostly only throws work in somewhat broken manner.

To me it appears as if the animation/attacks frametimes were hardcoded so swapping the animations for given character breaks everything that relies on said frame data (which happens to be all attacks) (Unless it would work by swapping files that are not currently detected). Idle animation works perfectly,additionally the character will also rescale to fit source animation (which looks rather well, if you don't mind that little characters can become much bigger).

I guess it would be easier and more cost effective to export model of character X as a costume for character Y as a mean for changing moveset than swapping the animation files.

[Protocol X27]

@SkacikPL
That's some of the same findings I had in Vanilla, except I got stalled and never revisited. I swapped the select animation and it worked, but the camera was goofy. I tried swapping the select cam and that didn't work. Same for swapping in game stuff as you mentioned. It didn't help that working on the 360 required updating a 2GB file every time to test. :-/

I think characters may have some default properties stored in a .bin or something. I swapped NPC's with playable characters and their skeletons were off. Although, I haven't revisited it yet, the skeleton patcher may resolve those issues.

***
Next DLC is up. My BLP converter for 360 still doesn't recognize Honoka. Am I using an outdated version, or did we still need manual entries for that? I know the PC version is working fine for those files.

[SkacikPL]

@Protocol X27

For me swapping _SELECT.cam works just fine, in fact i did swap both animation and camera for this video.
There's also _INGAME.cam which handles camera movement for moves like throws or power punches.
//
Though i still don't know where are the intro/outro animations kept or what handles the "private paradise" move animations.