ChromeHounds MDL4 and SMD4 Formats

[Dealman]

Hey guys! I'm looking into the possibility of extracting some of the models(only really need the meshes, not textures etc as I don't intend to use their models) from the Xbox 360 game ChromeHounds which is one of my all time favourite game. Now I'm not trying to do this with malicious intent - I want to look at them for inspiration as I'd like to look into the possibility of creating a fan project in UE4. I'm not the greatest modeler and I want to stay true to the visual style it had back in the day.

I believe this to be justified as they closed the servers pretty early on, pretty much locking out more than half of the content that game had.

ChromeHounds has a bunch of archive files of the format BND - sleet01 and MrAdults were able to make a script that extract these in this thread.

I've tried the script and it works, so I have extracted 2 test folders;
LG_ML900 and LG_TL062

I'm not really into reverse engineering at all, especially not 3D models. I know how to look at things with a HEX Editor and convert bytes to strings, but that's about the extent of it.

So would any of you kind souls out there be able to take a look at these? Apparently the MDL doesn't seem to be related to 3D GameStudio and SMD4 not related to Source Engine? I've tried various MDL and SMD importers for 3ds Max but to no avail.

So if any of you kind souls could help me look into this - that would be greatly appreciated!

[shakotay2]

ChromeHounds has a bunch of archive files of the format BND - sleet01 and MrAdults were able to make a script that extract these in this thread.

yeah, 7 years old thread - welcome to the "Riders of death horses" - club!

and SMD4 not related to Source Engine?

not sure; SMD from Valve is an ASCII format afaik; this SMD4 here is binary.

LG_TL062-smd.jpg

dunno, where the uvs to be found.

The mdl format contains bonenames and matrices probably (translations, rotations).
Should represent the skeleton.

[Dealman]

yeah, 7 years old thread - welcome to the "Riders of death horses" - club!

Haha, thanks! Wasn't sure how well received this thread would be especially considering it was my first post. But I'm glad I got good response!

Interesting tool you have there, I've downloaded it and read through your tutorial and FAQ. Trying to reproduce the results you've got using your screenshot, but can't seem to do it. At the very best I can get 5 white dots I can rotate around

One thing I noticed is that I can't seem to get the lower textbox under FVFsize to be disabled and locked at 0. And I can only get the mesh viewer to display if I change "noPtC". Any suggestions as to what I've messed up?

Need to look into this a bit deeper, I'm not new to programming but reverse engineering to me is basically rocket science. Would love to be able to look at all the various mech parts for some proper nostalgia. Hell don't even care if they're not textured, haha.

[shakotay2]

supposed you're talking about LG_TL062_L01.smd?

One thing I noticed is that I can't seem to get the lower textbox under FVFsize to be disabled and locked at 0.

Should be resolved by switching back and forth with the 'VB' button.

And I can only get the mesh viewer to display if I change "noPtC". Any suggestions as to what I've messed up?

'noPtC' means 'no pointcloud',
the most senseless term I ever used on a button Should display the mesh as connected points, 'PtCld' shows the points only (as a "cloud").

[Dealman]

supposed you're talking about LG_TL062_L01.smd?

Oh derp, thought you had the regular one opened and not one of the LODs. That made it all work a whole lot better. Can't really make out what it's supposed to be.

Been following your tutorial and been having a go at one of the simpler ones available, pretty sure it's a weapon. But I'm having a rather hard time wrapping my head around how to find all these values in the hex editor, I think reverse engineering simply isn't for me

Will try some more later.

Edit:

Been havin' a go at it using this file. And this is about as far/close as I can get;


Am I even remotely close at doing it the right way?

[shakotay2]

Sorry for the very late reply (too late, I guess) but I somehow forgot about this thread.

And this is about as far/close as I can get;

What was the reason to change the FVFsize from 16 to 32?

WP_CP062-smd.png