Hey y'all. Tonight, I made a small breakthrough with the Bone generation stuff I've been looking at. I can't extract them yet but did finally figure out some more stuff and wanted to drop a brief update post,

I decided to finally manually map out a small selection of groups of vertices in a graphics software using just the X and Y axis and immediately saw something that made me both jump and curse the developers of the game: those clusters drew out the straight lines that made the edges of the bones themselves (NOTE: there's a slight chance that these could be rays that go from a center point to where the points are on the bones, but I feel that's probably not the case here due to how many points were manually added to the line to get from one end to the other). (See the image below for a rough representation scaled up 10x for clarity)

https://preview.redd.it/kujwe3e7nd4e1.png?width=2506&format=png&auto=webp&s=06a10414322c606ad082479d7a07464315516286

What's Relevant About All of This

The developers going this route means I can extract these without too many issues or needing all that much vertex data. Putting these back in will probably take a bit of work and testing but hopefully, they didn't fully hard code the data that reads these into the game's executable. If they didn't, theoretically, custom models could be possibly loaded in with their own unique rigs and whatnot (don't take this as fact, please, just hoping and coping). The part that makes this frustrating for me is that there's more separate pieces to extract and more areas where things can break. I love how simple this makes one part but how much more creative I'll need to be with the design for the other.

Other parts that are relevant about this: there's a 4th coordinate in every cluster that I wasn't sure about but, after watching some 3D graphics programming videos, it most likely is the translation vector (the amount that each line must be moved in a 3D space to connect with other lines to form a bone). That means I have most of the math data I'll need available. I just need to parse it. The two parts I don't have yet are Scale and the exact value of rotation calculated early on.

Where Am I Going From Here

I'm still doing my research and testing. Once I have the bones figured out, the meshes (skin) of the models themselves should just wrap around the bones meaning parsing and finding them should be substantially easier. Now that I can repackage the archive files (see my mod tool post from yesterday), I'm hoping I can jerry rig a bit of debugging directly into the game (never tried that before so I have no clue if it will work). If I can get at least the bones to show in game on the models, that could be useful for any of y'all that want to mod the models and will also help give me direct feedback as another form of tooling. If someone has experience with doing just that for games, feel free to reach out to me.

Thank y'all for your time and support. Have a wonderful night.

I'm on Stage 2 mission 4, but the roadblock on the second jump platform after the Killer Wasps won't explode for me. Any help?

I love how tense it gets. It turns out Saya was good unlike how I thought, and I feel like they made her seem bad on purpose. The character designs rock, and so does each world. I love how every other world character has their own. I wasn't expecting Strength to be Makos friend all along, and I am glad she survived in the end. The giant friendship gun was cool too. The fights were also sweet.

Dang is it getting intense. I'm on episode 4 and that "guidance counselor" or whatever is freaking manipulative. I think she erased Araka's memories of her crush and made Yomi even more shut in! I also love the other world segments, even tho they are confusing. I think the counselor is the red girl and Yue is the one with the big fists.

Hey, y'all. I was talking briefly about this in my last update post. I'm looking for testers. As stated before, this is being released for free under a Donationware license. That means it's free to download but you can choose to pay any amount if you want to, just select "Go to Download Page instead" at the link below when it asks for a donation if you just want to download it for free. Also, once you have it added to your account, if you download the Itch.io app (think Indie Steam), any updates I release will automatically get downloaded for your convenience.

Link

The main purpose of these tools (see README.txt file in zip for more detailed information) is to allow y'all to build tools like randomizers or make custom encounter rom hacks. One tool extracts the enemy encounter data table; it's in Binary converted Plaintext, so reading and editing it should be straightforward with a Hex Editor. The other rebuilds SYSTEM.VOL with the modified data.

What's Needed Testing

I currently don't know if changing the data in that table relies on altering any of the other data in the archive this was found in. I'm mainly looking for people to change the names of the models (egg for example is the Eater enemy in Stage 1) and change the number (see *2 for example) to see what all is required to modify encounters.

This is also a test for repackaging the game's archive files. It's a process and I currently have a system in place that will hopefully work well in the longterm.

Thanks y'all. Happy testing and feedback is very welcomed.

CORRECTION: a few minutes after posting, automod flagged me. Grrrr

Hey y'all. It looks like the global automod blocking and deletion of my messages has just been lifted today. I'm still not 100% sure what triggered it about my previous update posts, but I plan to keep this brief (in order to not risk triggering automod again). I know it won't be convenient for quite a few people (and it's not convenient for me), but I'll keep the full post in Github Discussions since I have control of that and have less chance of issues. Thank you for understanding.

What I'm Working On

I'm taking a brief breather from my research to work on trying my hand at the first modding tool based on my findings and some feedback. Getting extracting and repackaging of the game archives working will hopefully tide the community over a bit while I still work on very complex file format researching like I currently have been. There's more to it than that; you can find the full post here.

I'll try to reply to feedback here when it arrives but do note that automod may trigger again until my account has enough activity and is old enough. I'm not returning to the Discord anytime soon; I was making things inconvenient and unpleasant for enough people there by not filtering myself and being too much for such a small community. Posting here means I can focus on writing without the overhead of immediately needing to adjust and stress about inconveniencing others. It's also a good compromise for me to interact with and update everyone.

Thanks for understanding and have a wonderful night. Keep rocking on guys

https://youtu.be/hcUrLJYgRvo?si=q4oaVJBKp8Vzta2u

vaguely inspired by the Bodah Revy song °^°

Why?

UPDATE (Please Read)

I'm able to edit this post but am unable to comment and post on any subreddit right now. Looks like my frequent posting and how new my account is has triggered the automod globally. I'm moving my updates to the Github Discussions section of my repository. If you haven't done it yet, please make a Github account, star it and start commenting there. See this post for more information. Thanks

Original Post

Hey y'all. I had drafted and written up a post earlier today only to have Reddit delete both due to server issues they were having. Here's my second attempt. This post will hopefully not be too big, but I do have some findings to share. Enjoy

The Good

Remember that possible bone generation algorithm I found in the game's binary in my last post? I figured out most of what it did and how it worked this morning!!! It was exactly what I thought it was but functions in a slightly different way than I originally assumed. It was a net positive and definitely lead me in the right direction,

The Bad

That generation algorithm code was probably incomplete. What it didn't tell me was how the developers used it. They opted to reading every single byte by the up to thousands of bytes for a specific 4-byte value combination found early in the data. They kept reading until they hit a set data chunk, read that chunk and then continued until they either hit the padding, the next bone or end of file.

The Ugly

This first part should be in The Good section but I wanted to up the suspense. I love theatrics when I'm excited and this finding excites me. I've started reverse engineering how they packed and structured the bone data. Now the Ugliest of Ugly parts!!!

They used at least a dozen different packing algorithms with different patterns, at least two forms of hierarchy, and certain models having their own unique spins on it. I have started naming the patterns and putting together an Open Document Format spreadsheet with the data I've compiled. The two most unique ones I've found so far would be The Shredder and The Shizu Shuffle. If you'd like to find out more about either of those, I've started pushing some of my findings to the repository; check out a basic rundown of the patterns here (under the Bone Generation Patterns section) or opening up the spreadsheet in something like LibreOffice (what I used to make it). I hope to have most of that compiled within the next few days (mostly requires me manually looking over hex data for certain patterns more than anything).

In Other News

I'll be working extra hours over the next week or two due to the upcoming holidays. I don't expect to have all of the 3D model stuff figured out in the immediate future but at the pace I'm going and with how overall smooth its been, I hope to have some kind of model conversion tool by New Years. I also found a few areas where I could probably quickly whip up some mod tools during some of my downtime. I may not be focusing hard on the other areas of the game but that doesn't mean I'm not looking at things.

Thanks y'all again for your support and have a wonderful rest of your night. (Please post, please post, please post).

Hey y'all. This post is going to be less about bone and model information in the game's data and more me talking about something less technical and hopefully more interesting: Stella's model's body dimensions (in global units) using the most sophisticated method of research - Cheat Engine memory alteration while the game is running. I found how to no-clip, how to "fly" and what the boundaries were to Stage 1's map. Welcome to some nerdy stuff. Enjoy

In the Beginning, There Was a Save Point

https://preview.redd.it/5rzxy86wep1e1.png?width=810&format=png&auto=webp&s=772733bc687d87b2304de3bbcbffbf4cb78d1945

This first image shows a rough ruler using some colored lines on a screenshot with an orange filter to make my point.

The purple line is at 200 units. The red line shows Stella's ready stance at 100 units. The green line is her full height when standing straight while running (and also where the top of her collision box is and where the wave animation for the save point hovers when she's nearby) - 120 units. Her hitbox is 120 units (vertical), 60 units (from edge of gun at stance to shoulder mount of said gun) and 40 units (front to back to accommodate her running stance).

Not shown in the above image: her gun is approximately between 200 and 220 units in length from shoulder mount to her bayonet. It's slightly longer than the height of the save point but not by much and is often at an angle, making measuring it more difficult. She's definitely packing some firepower, though, ain't she? :D

https://preview.redd.it/w7efuetzfp1e1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=6eae38d40187850b7dab38b02d6c405ac0b25f99

This second image is from 260 units up, the maximum vertical range in which a Save Point can be accessed. At 261 units, the Check prompt disappears. That UI element is also a flat 3D object in the game. Depending on how close you are to the Save Point, that message can move closer or further to the camera to allow it to always be seen when needed. I would not be surprised if it had some depth to it if viewed from the side.

The Sky's the Limit

https://preview.redd.it/xdgox3nugp1e1.png?width=1911&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bab274b869d49c9f6f99d8c4a919ab7917b2bfd

This image is from the exact center at the top of the skybox. Nothing more of the map or level will render above this point. This is at 9000 units. The total height of the level from this point to the rendering floor (bottom of the skybox under the ground) is 18000 units. Most of the building collision along with triggers for camera shifts and changes in region go from -1440 units (under the ground) to 2000 units (top of one of the background buildings towards the edge of the level).

To reach the top of the skybox from the ground, it would take 75 running stance Stella's stacked on top of each other or 90 ready stance ones. She is around 1/150 the height of the entire skybox.

Random discovery: If you clip far enough outside of the vertical collision zone, it can reset enemy spawns on the map for an unmeasured amount of times. I'm not 100% sure what this finding says yet about the game but I found it fun, nonetheless.

Now, Onto the Main Course - Stella Herself

https://preview.redd.it/e8u1mk2bkp1e1.png?width=716&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3363fe048f18a5fd62cf0a048f0cb04dd31c72c

NOTE: This image is just for demonstration purposes and the lengths of the lines are not indicative of her actual dimensions. The lines are primarily here to show the regions I'm measuring.

Her head (purple line) is approximately 8 units wide.

Her shoulders (dark blue line) are approximately 18 units wide.

Her midriff to the center of her spine (light blue line) is approximately 12 units deep.

Her hips (the bottom red line) are approximately 24 units wide (which is exactly 1/5 her total height).

Her model feels pretty anatomically correct for her height and body structure. I love when 3D artists put the time and effort into making them feel like they could be real people and this one is so, so good.

Bonus Round: I Walked in a Straight Line from One Edge to the Other So You Wouldn't Need To

I don't have screenshots of this test because getting it to work without triggering the game to reset my position, change zones, or crash the emulator was a very tedious process, but the distance from one end to the other on a straight line at ground level is 36000 units. Stella's steps are spread across a varying amount of distance, so I counted forward button taps instead. This will not be an exact number of steps due to this. I was able to go 300 total steps across 2 journeys on the Z axis. Her steps average around 75 units with between 50 and -50 units added per step to variate her stride (from observing the values of her position in memory going only one direction).

So, What Was the Point of All of This (Minus Breaking the Game)

I simply wanted to know how the models scaled against the area they'd be rendered in much of the play time. These values are not found in the model or map data (as far as I'm able to tell) but instead look like they are being generated in memory when they are needed in a level using quite a bit of vector math. This morning, this theory was given some credibility when I was looking at the executable binary (Eboot.bin) in a decompiler. I've been using one sparingly since I started this endeavor; it's a great tool for the more complex things but the decompiled, rebuilt code won't be useful for much of anything else without heavy modifications. I will not be sharing too much of my findings from that aspect due to wanting to keep most of this project clean room (as in legal) and not wanting to risk a future license holder having a reason to shut it all down, but this particular one is something that would not be found through normal other means.

https://preview.redd.it/skhdntedtp1e1.png?width=1132&format=png&auto=webp&s=32750df82399a82f047d0bd66efb615067b64852

This final screenshot is a small snippet of generated C code that lines up almost exactly with my current observations of the INSA file structure. There are around 200 lines of generated code and most of them look like they are part of a bone generation algorithm; the most important part being that last line where it converts the results of a large chain of calculations with a specific 2 byte value attached into radian values from degrees and then (not shown) sends them off to other parts of the process (probably events and animations).

Thank y'all again. Have a wonderful day.

Hey, y'all. This was just a random finding while looking at some of the map data in the game files. All of the maps seem to have a mostly empty textured and rigged model that I'm thinking represented the player spawn point on the map. According to this Japanese name dictionary, one translation of Kira is Empress if written as 妃星 . Could be a coincidence but the fact that Dawnfall's BRS was known as Empress feels like it may have been a fun nod to the game.

Happy hunting y'all and more findings will be coming as they appear. :D

https://preview.redd.it/s372dspxol1e1.png?width=182&format=png&auto=webp&s=78a04a15d18ab4a2988b3fbd606010e81cf0f115

Hey, y'all. Just checking in here with my findings. I still have quite a bit to find to get the models extracted and usable from the original format used in game but I am very confident I'm on the right path. I've started making some scripts that I'm not ready to share yet (very messy and constantly changing) that have been taking my findings and making them hopefully human readable and usable for others.

Now to get somewhat technical

I'd like to thank CapKDS and Rob Squad for ripping the boss models like they did; just seeing some of them inside of a viewer in real time was of great help. Nafe is adorable and will be the main subject of this next section. Watching the way she moved in her boss fight cutscene before the fight started along with the data extracted with my model scripts (briefly posted above), I was able to make a breakthrough: she's made of 3 total models rigged together in tandem (much like most of the other bosses).

Her first model consisted of her head, torso and lower body, and legs and feet. She has a head bone and both of her legs are probably each just a single long bone since she didn't need to move her knees or legs much. Her second model was most likely her arms due to how many bones total were needed for her movement: 6 for her fingers and 2 long ones for her arms. Her third and final model was for everything else (her ears, tail, hair, etc).

The only boss right now that has her own unique model structure is White Rock Shooter. She has less bones than BRS but consists of three different groups of models, each with their own separate purpose. She's most likely not interchangeable with BRS; BRS seems to be a modified version of the Boss structure while WRS seems to be a separate thing altogether.

Here's Nafe's current body model information. Most of the bosses have a "B" version of their model that's just their accessories while WRS has this , one of her two `02`designated models; her 00 through 01P versions still need to be looked at further but seem to be everything else.

Random Observation

Shizu and Karli may possibly share some of the same bones and animations. In the Battle Models data, they both share many of the same parts and have several called `cyzkal.` Need to dive further, but that would be somewhat amusing if they did.

Miscellaneous Info

I found a bug with my extraction script and fixed it today. If you didn't have a Tools directory or Quickbms.exe there, the BRS-Extract.ps1 script could crash or fail on a new download. Download it if you updated after my last update and are having problems. Most of the rest of the updates for the time being will be primarily model related technical data as I work towards getting enough data to write a conversion tool, so many of my updates may not be of use to you yet.

Once I obtain enough model data, the current model docs will probably start being moved from their current format into a spreadsheet and made more permanent. At that point, I'll also probably release my scripts for ripping the model data into the documentation.

Thanks again y'all. I'll release another update when I feel I have found enough to write about and show. :D

With this chonker of a commit, I wanted to share my new findings. They kind of broke most of my assumptions about how the game works and is structured. The short of it: Figuring out how to convert the structure of the 3D models to something usable in Blender or other 3D software (that's not just ripping with a viewer like Noesis) would basically allow access to everything else. The image linked below is for some of the coordinates of polygons used in BRS's Model (most likely bones for her rig due to the massive differences in size between the top two coordinates and bottom two in the sections). There's a `BRS-Model-Data.bms` script that can be used on MDLs, CAMs and SCs to see what I saw.

One random observation based on a comment made on one of my previous posts: WRS and BRS are rigged with similar skeleton systems but they are of different Namespaces (think model types; WRS is a Boss while BRS is in the Player space), so swapping the model may not be possible if they're hardcoded to check type. I haven't looked for where those are determined in the game files yet but they are at least shown in the folders the models reside in,

One of my new priorities now will be to get the Vertex bone and rigging data into Blender and trying to piece together where the rest of the required data is and how to access it.

With this update, these few things have been overhauled a bit:

• The Powershell extraction script has been streamlined and simplified pretty heavily; now you can choose what you want to extract along with having a way to delete those files
• One of my concerns was about converting the audio possibly causing issues with modding; conversion is probably not needed if you have the right codecs installed. Added a note to the main readme about it
• Now that I have a pretty solid understanding of how the models are at least structured (see the SC File Format notes for a massive amount of my findings), extracting them to an Assets folder is not a solid idea from here on out outside of making it easier to dissect the internals a bit
  • MDLs, ANMs, CAMs, etc, along with LPKs, EFCs, etc, are more or less chunks of the SCs ripped out for the battle system (Not exactly ripped out but the types make up the SCs, if that makes sense)

Other various things:

• Understanding the battle system and maps are both going to be of lower priority for the time being; they do have their own unique systems but much of their core uses the same systems as what the models use.
• Outside of documentation, scripts and tooling, expect a possible slowdown on updates. I want to heavily focus on getting this part figured out.

This is fun and there's definitely been way more to come out of this than I expected when I started. If anyone has any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to drop them below. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability. Thanks again, y'all.

https://preview.redd.it/55xs7f41hp0e1.png?width=238&format=png&auto=webp&s=b79c30c73a36c05961acae9e62681879844ea4c5

I'm still figuring out what all everything does and looking further into the various file types inside the game but felt like sharing some of the anomalies I've recently found. NOTE: These were found on the Japanese release; they may not exist in the US or EU releases.

• All of the BCHR_NAF.VOL archives under GAMEDATA\BTL\CHR contain an EFP archive that was actually a different file type (EFC) missing some of its embedded data, leading to figuring out how to extract EFCs with my latest update to my repository.
• Any archive that contains one of these model files has a stray, unnamed PTMD embedded file that isn't attached to any MDLs and probably has different data between each instance that it's appeared in
  • ef_a_b10004_cut_m.mdl
  • ef_h_b010130_cut_m.mdl
  • ef_a_s01_ball_m.mdl

I also just discovered my first hidden embedded file type that required a workaround to extract: the ESB, which I affectionately have called the Effectively Stealthy Binary because of how few in numbers they are and how the archive files they exist in don't seem to have a sane mechanism for telling the game how to read them. Almost every file that contains other files has a value in memory that either points directly to where they exist, how far they are from another file that was pointed to, or a mixture of both. This is part of where the EFP / EFC thing came into play above. They are only found inside of EFC containers.

I've been optimizing the extraction process quite a bit and fixed several bugs (including one that caused misses on grabbing a large chunk of the models during the final few stages of the process; whoops). I've found around 225 models so far and almost 800 sound files (many of which will probably be duplicates for both).

Thanks y'all for your support and more to come as I keep going.

[Roadeater] was one of [Judgement] tank bike army sent to the battlefield against humans

But slowly, he become an anomally, an AI thinking more than his function and leaved by himself , growing an intellect ,he deserted [Judgement] army

Years later , he crossed [Tyrant] way , she give him the opportunity to join her about defeating [Judgement] but refusing to be used as a weapon again, having his own cause

The two fighted, finally Tyrant win, and fixed him to become her own bike and friend

"I m not your owner , you are a partner for me"

Ps : Imagine MGR Bladewolf as his voice

With this commit , my scripts now automatically extract all of the audio and model files I've found so far to an Assets directory wherever you downloaded my repository at. It also fully decrypts the game files that get extracted; they'll be under the Extraction folder. Just follow the instructions here to run the new tools. It's also my first time scripting in Powershell, so optimizations and improvements most definitely can be made.

I plan to take a day or two off now. I've been working on this every free moment I've had for going on a month, so I definitely need a breather. I still have quite a bit to do but much of that is documentation and some of the file types that need extraction scripting done (like what the Scripting system uses along with some that are pretty deep in).

Thanks for the support y'all and enjoy. ;)

It's all because of the collab with PGR. I searched BRS on Hulu because there's such a great collection of great anime on the streaming service. I'm three episodes into Black Rock Shooter Down Fall. So I joined this sub and posted here to say hello.