Models with Animations - Help with Viewing

[dragicorn]

Hi. What a nice place you got here. So orderly and well colored. It's cozy here.

Anyway, I'm new as my first post, but I have been around forums like these often.

I am a major model fanatic since I found out the possibility of viewing models and their animations.

I got a request and some questions on going about viewing the animations of the characters of some games.

First of All, I use WOW model viewer to view WOW models. I used to be able to save the models, but no longer... the export option is disabled (which I believe is because of the update, but if you really know why, please tell me.). So, I want to export the models from m2 to mdx via WOW like I used to. Do I require an external program (and activation key?) like Blender, Milkshape, Gmax, or Adobe Autodesk (3dmax) in order to export models... or is it turned off by programming? Is there a way to un-grey and activate the option if it's by programming?

2. I also started using Machinima Studio, but had no luck viewing Aion's models' animations... never gave me the option in Model Properties like it did with Warcraft Models. Is there a plug-in I am missing, a script or such that allows animation viewing for Aion? Or is this a Developer only feature? I am currently not in the position to purchase online products for about 5 years (I am over 18, but I live and can only live at my parent's home still for a minimum of 5 more years... and they don't use credit, debit, PayPal... or whatever... for online purchasing at all, and don't want to ever. ... I don't have a bank account, and I can't get one without mom's permission, which she says the big fat "no". Perhaps one of you could be kind and purchase a gift premium activation key to activate the Developer... Just shoot me an pm and I'll supply my software's keycode {The keycode is used to purchase the unique software activation key... the activation key that my keycode results in works only with my download and can't be done with another because each download has a special hidden key of its very own that only the download's unique keycode can activate... I suppose.} and email address... but this is only if you believe or agree with me that Aion's models' animations are Dev. only.)

3. Machinima Studio doesn't seem to show Warhammer's models all together... is there a way to view Warhammers' Monster/Character/NPC models finalized with animations in Machinima? If not, is it possible to extract them completely for personal viewing (I see you people decoding and extracting files all the time for personal use... so... why not I?) with animations? What would the file format be and what viewer would I need to view them with animations?

4. I am interested in all the 3 Dimensional World Final Fantasy Games' 3D animated models, but I can't find the extractors or model viewer... nor the game via Google nor stores. I've found that ModelWXViewer would view Final Fantasy X models, but I am not sure about how to view the original game's models. Perhaps you could link me to an uploaded Model Pack(s) of FF models and extractors... or even upload your own. I absolutely don't want to torrent the games... and the Premium and/or Supersede file-sharers like Rapid-Pro, Mega-Premium, Deposit-Gold, Usenet, or such are a pain in the neck due to having to pay to download a huge file. If I would have to download a game, I would rather download it legally via an official client from the host... but those clients seem to be missing! If anyone could client those games so I can extract the models, that would be great. Or better yet, lead me to a Model Viewer that works as long as the game is installed on the pc to view the models.

6. Has anyone yet to figure out how to view Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Freedom 2, Monster Hunter Portables 1, 2, and 3 (especially), and Monster Hunter Frontier Models and animations? Or do I have to go talk to the creators myself to obtain the complete modelset and a viewer (without exporting abilities… of course… it’s only just for viewing)… Has that ever been done and accomplished before?

7. Is there a way to view everquest, dungeons and dragons, fate, and other such fantasy game models with animations? I am only looking for fantasy based games. Perhaps make a list of them (games) with Extractors, Model Viewers (install based and/or extraction based), all latest and working, each item on the list a download link most preferably.

8. I am greatly interested in 3D fantasy games (online or offline) in any format.

9. Can someone supply me with The Highest Available Premiums of User Friendly Model Viewers such as XNA Game Studio/Pro(Preferrably, if there is one), 3D Object Viewer http://www.teamxtcgames.com/3d_object_viewer.htm, 3D Model Viewer http://www.janbirsa.com/tools/ModelViewer/, and such (And perhaps milkshape and/or Autodesk 3DsMax if you could teach me how to use it properly and import models with animations and view the animations easily.

10. If I have to go through a process of more than 5 steps (not including downloading) or editing text files to view models with animations, (such as extracting and modifying scripts and creating files through notepad, xml, or such), could you upload a guide(s) for those with complete codes and possibly changes? I am smart but not very bright on following broken forum directions and require reading it all before and while I do it. ^_^;

11. Thank you for all the help and support you (will/are) assist(ed/ing) me. I feel like I am the only person in the world who doesn’t play the games but enjoys viewing models with animations, whereas all the other people enjoy playing the games and wish to extract models for other not so legal uses I have read. It also seems that a lot in this field has changed, and that the resources are lacking based on comments I've read. I've been interested in this stuff for about a year since 2010, but I only really got into more sophisticated technics in the past 4 months... but quiet haven't understood them. It seems that even these resources that are left are going to be all gone and encrypted too, thanks to the people who try to illegally hack them for personal gain and fortune >_<.

12. This is my first forum post on a site like this, so please be nice and correct me politely if I said something wrong or insulting… I don’t mean to be personal or offensive. I’m actually quiet nervous about this post on where it could lead… it’s soo… long and variable.

[MrAdults]

I'm rather surprised you ended up here without coming across Noesis. It handles battle models and animations from FF7, 8, 9, 10, and 13. (and sort of 14, but probably not without some fucking around - haven't tested that since pre-openbeta) Battle models/anims are supported for all (except 13, which supports models, but I never got around to looking at its anim format), where some also support additional field/stage/summon/etc. models. Usually as a happy coincidence when those formats happen to be very similar to the battle models, which are always what I go after first.

Noesis also provides a complete framework with a C/C++ plugin API and a Python API for adding support for new types of data formats, be they textures, models, animations, or archives. Pretty much everything you could possibly need to digest and convert new model/anim formats is there, short of the particular format specs themselves.

On the topic of Aion, I think revelation's CGF plugin works with Aion models as well. I don't have that game, though, so I don't know how it works or what needs to be done to unpack it.

[dragicorn]

I'm rather surprised you ended up here without coming across Neosis.

Actually, I have run into Neosis. But the version I have must not have the animations able to play. I'll update this post when I figure out why.

EDIT: I had Neosis Version 2.83 downloaded twice. That's odd that I didn't find Neosis Version 3.56. I'll update this post when I run into some difficulties

[MrAdults]

Strange you'd neglect to mention it, then, considering it covers more of your stated needs/wants than any other single tool I'm aware of.

It's supported anims in all of the aforementioned games since their implementation - FF7-9 can't even be displayed correctly without anims, since they don't have base skeletal pose information. Load it up and hit the play button, and there you go.

[dragicorn]

Strange you'd neglect to mention it, then, considering it covers more of your stated needs/wants than any other single tool I'm aware of.

I forgot about it... I have so many free and trial model viewers that don't seem to work.

It's supported anims in all of the aforementioned games since their implementation - FF7-9 can't even be displayed correctly without anims, since they don't have base skeletal pose information. Load it up and hit the play button, and there you go.

There is no play button when I open Any type of media.

I haven't got Final Fantasy... I've been looking around google and such since I started...

[invisghost]

MrAdults, How would I get in contact with the person who made Noesis?

[chrrox]

he made noesis

[invisghost]

Ah, Well I feel stupid. MrAdults is there a way I can you pm me a way to IM you? Steam or something similar.

[Satoh]

Ah, Well I feel stupid. MrAdults is there a way I can you pm me a way to IM you? Steam or something similar.

This is where you need to be to talk about Noesis
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4582

[MrAdults]

Strange you'd neglect to mention it, then, considering it covers more of your stated needs/wants than any other single tool I'm aware of.

I forgot about it... I have so many free and trial model viewers that don't seem to work.

It's supported anims in all of the aforementioned games since their implementation - FF7-9 can't even be displayed correctly without anims, since they don't have base skeletal pose information. Load it up and hit the play button, and there you go.

There is no play button when I open Any type of media.

I haven't got Final Fantasy... I've been looking around google and such since I started...

It's not like every game format supports animations. Animations are supported selectively for games on which I go the extra mile to support them. You generally seem to misunderstand a great deal of the process, actually, based on your initial post. Here are some things to note:

1) 99.999% of the time, game development studios don't give a shit that you want their models or that you want to understand their format, they will not help you or give you specs. 95% of the time out of that 99.999%, they actively don't want you to have access to those models, for the obvious reason that they'd prefer to have the content they spent millions of dollars making to remain exclusively in the product they're actually trying to sell.

2) Due to 1, when someone wants to write a model converter/parser, that means they're generally on their own unless the game happens to use a common format. Most of the time games do not use common formats, although there are some specific per-platform exceptions. (GMO is popular on PSP while NJCM is popular on Dreamcast for example)

3) Being on your own means having to stare at raw binary and sometimes even disassemble the game to determine the format. That usually takes a good amount of time. Could be an hour or a month depending on how complex/unusual the format is, and how adept the person reversing the format is at understanding that kind of data.

4) Animation data is typically even harder to understand than model data. Most of the time, understanding model data does not give you animation data. It's a completely separate process, one that I don't often engage in unless I see very good reason. (as in the case of FF7-9, I had no choice but to figure that data out)

Seems to me that you're probably less naive on these subjects than you're attempting to convey, and you just need to put some extra effort into trying shit to see what's supported. Wouldn't hurt to specify which formats you're not seeing anims for in Noesis either, although I'm sure you've just tried loading formats that don't have animation implemented. That's not something that would break subjectively across hardware/platform.

[dragicorn]

Strange you'd neglect to mention it, then, considering it covers more of your stated needs/wants than any other single tool I'm aware of.

I forgot about it... I have so many free and trial model viewers that don't seem to work.

It's supported anims in all of the aforementioned games since their implementation - FF7-9 can't even be displayed correctly without anims, since they don't have base skeletal pose information. Load it up and hit the play button, and there you go.

There is no play button when I open Any type of media.

I haven't got Final Fantasy... I've been looking around google and such since I started...

It's not like every game format supports animations. Animations are supported selectively for games on which I go the extra mile to support them. You generally seem to misunderstand a great deal of the process, actually, based on your initial post. Here are some things to note:

1) 99.999% of the time, game development studios don't give a shit that you want their models or that you want to understand their format, they will not help you or give you specs. 95% of the time out of that 99.999%, they actively don't want you to have access to those models, for the obvious reason that they'd prefer to have the content they spent millions of dollars making to remain exclusively in the product they're actually trying to sell.

If I were to create a super popular (or not so) high graphics, sounds (voices, music, sfx) game and spend millions/billions of dollars making it, I would be at least nice and create a model-sounds-maps-ect file viewer, editor, importer and exporter for people to use with the game, which is included in the trial & full download, steam, client, and retail copies of the game, which updates whenever the game updates automatically. You don’t even need to purchase an activation key for the game before you view the files (like in world of warcraft’s). I might even make the file viewer as a separate free download with all the models, sounds, and internal files attached for external game creation, provided that you credit my company and distribute the games non-commercially… or… allow you to sell your game under our license with no purchase necessary except an official agreement with terms of conditions, which we get a royalty for the sales, and in return along with your sales, you get a boost in views of your game by the use of advertisements, announcements, features, and such in return. With that, that would boost our popularity and sales, and more players would play. Our product would be an offline-online game, compatible with other games (like how Warcraft is compatible with Starcraft and Diablo), format conversion friendly. It would be in all languages

2) Due to 1, when someone wants to write a model converter/parser, that means they're generally on their own unless the game happens to use a common format. Most of the time games do not use common formats, although there are some specific per-platform exceptions. (GMO is popular on PSP while NJCM is popular on Dreamcast for example)

3) Being on your own means having to stare at raw binary and sometimes even disassemble the game to determine the format. That usually takes a good amount of time. Could be an hour or a month depending on how complex/unusual the format is, and how adept the person reversing the format is at understanding that kind of data.

4) Animation data is typically even harder to understand than model data. Most of the time, understanding model data does not give you animation data. It's a completely separate process, one that I don't often engage in unless I see very good reason. (as in the case of FF7-9, I had no choice but to figure that data out)

Are you talking about binary decoding? I’m not skilled whatsoever in that field. I wouldn’t know how to program or decode binary. I don’t even know how to script well except in basic HTML codes.

Seems to me that you're probably less naive on these subjects than you're attempting to convey, and you just need to put some extra effort into trying shit to see what's supported. Wouldn't hurt to specify which formats you're not seeing anims for in Noesis either, although I'm sure you've just tried loading formats that don't have animation implemented. That's not something that would break subjectively across hardware/platform.

I can’t seem to view the animations of .3ds .max .dae .obj .smd .dds .x3d .lwo .dxf .blend .m3 .md2

I can’t open .md3 .sma .mdl .gpl .gmo .pmo .bin files

[Satoh]

OBJ and DXF do not support animations, (DXF might if there's a newer version than I'm talking about) DDS is a static picture file, and thus wouldn't animations.

GMO, BIN, MD3, and especially MDL and DAE have several (Possibly over a hundred) different versions and format types, and not all are perfectly supported.

On you point about making your resources fully open to the public to steal... well... that's your folly to worry about.

Companies don't care about how satisfied you are with the games after you have paid for them. EVEN WHEN THEY SAY THEY CARE. The gaming industry is all about money. A company may start with real passion or vision or artistic goals, but they always end up as nothing more than a profit obsessed soulless shell. Square (RIP) is a prime example.

Making your resources available outside of the game they are a part of, provided the resources are actually worth having at all, will always lead to stolen resources, which in the industrial world is considered direct loss of profit.

Another thing to note, a fully animated model, like say, any single model in Star Ocean 4, NPC, enemy, player character, or the like, costs about 800 to 2000+ USD to commission, and the artists that make them cost considerably more to employ fulltime.
This makes those resources incredibly valuable as intellectual property of the company that owns their rights.

WoW's file viewer was not originally endorsed, the first file viewer for that format was a pirate viewer made by someone that, like here, decoded the files and figured out how to use them elsewhere.

Most companies want to STOP modding and re-use of their games for other purposes; Usually with rabid ferver.

If they liked the idea of people 'doing with what they will' of their products, there would be an official codebreaker/gameshark/action replay device readily on the market for all systems.
You may believe it isn't out because current gen systems are too complex, but there is homebrew software that does it already, but cannot be licensed due to the aforementioned 'damage to intellectual property'

When you buy a game in modern society, you do not in fact "own the game" anymore, but are rather leasing or buying a license to play the game, as it is intended, and using any and all intended updates to the game that may be released.

I wish more people believed in being as open source about their products as you are with your imaginary game/company, but they simply aren't, end of story.

Another reason such a viewer does not exist, is simple copyright law. A large number of formats are technically illegal to even open in hex editors, according to the terms of specific copyrights on them, however, it is an nonpunishable offense, just as is suicide.


Your ideals on the matter, while nice, and desirable from a consumer standpoint, are quite infantile from a business perspective, and would only lead to the demise of any company adhering to all of them as you described them.

And as I said, if you're having trouble with Noesis, there is a forum topic for you to discuss and get help with it.

I'm not certain what your actual goals are, but if you simply want information on model viewers, then it's your job to find it, there is a search button, and there is nothing if not information, on Xentax.

If you need a specific file type decoded, you can first try searching, and next try asking about it, posting proper information you have and know, and example files, and anything you have already tried to do to view it that may have seemed to work partially, etc., and someone MAY help you, or may not.

Everyone here at Xentax has a reason to be here, their own reason to be here. Xentax is not the equivalent of microsoft tech support hotline for file exploration and re-engineering, we are a community of people who are each here to GET help from others that may be more experienced with a particular topic or file. Others may OFFER help if they have some available and are not busy, but are not obligated to do so.

I for one have a few very specific file types I would like help decoding, and have asked for, and have been working on myself, having had to start over from scratch repeatedly, since the first moment I signed up here, and in fact, before that as well, and have yet to make any real progress.

Why? Because the files I have here are from an obscure game no one seems to have heard of or apparently care about.

I normally try to be polite, but right now I'm simply being realistic. What you want, an Omniviewer, will not now, nor ever happen.

Noesis and Multiex are as close as you can hope for, and Noesis is open source for the most part.

[MrAdults]

Satoh pretty much said it. Just to note, though, MD3 should really not have any format variants, and other formats based on it typically change the extension and/or header version. I'm also hard-pressed to come across a GMO Noesis doesn't handle at this point, and MD2 is also a rigid format that's just handled. And they all support anims. Some of the formats you mention also don't even support animation of any sort and some of them aren't even supported by Noesis! (DXF, .blend, .lwo, ...)

If you're having trouble there I would suggest you upload sample files. (so I can make sure the problem is your machine and not the files) Of course, that's after you check that Noesis even supports those formats.

[finale00]

If I were to create a super popular (or not so) high graphics, sounds (voices, music, sfx) game and spend millions/billions of dollars making it, I would be at least nice and create a model-sounds-maps-ect file viewer, editor, importer and exporter for people to use with the game, which is included in the trial & full download, steam, client, and retail copies of the game, which updates whenever the game updates automatically. You don’t even need to purchase an activation key for the game before you view the files (like in world of warcraft’s). I might even make the file viewer as a separate free download with all the models, sounds, and internal files attached for external game creation, provided that you credit my company and distribute the games non-commercially… or… allow you to sell your game under our license with no purchase necessary except an official agreement with terms of conditions, which we get a royalty for the sales, and in return along with your sales, you get a boost in views of your game by the use of advertisements, announcements, features, and such in return. With that, that would boost our popularity and sales, and more players would play. Our product would be an offline-online game, compatible with other games (like how Warcraft is compatible with Starcraft and Diablo), format conversion friendly. It would be in all languages

If a company were to freely hand me all of their resources for some game that they spent some months or years developing and hundreds of thousand to millions in wages and other expenses, and I really liked their models, I would still most likely take those models and indulge myself with some pet project of my own rather than play their game.

Well I might play their game, but I'd probably be off doing my own thing.

In an ideal world where everyone has spent some time on xentax and has shared their frustration with closed-source and cryptic formats, perhaps people would appreciate it, but that's pretty much all there would be. In the end, we'd just end up taking them and throwing them into our own projects.

And then many more adult games will turn up and many people will be happy.
Now, I'm sure no company would want their models used that way, as it would probably require (relatively) minimal amounts of effort to mod as opposed to duplicating it from scratch