Been trying to figure out how to rip models from The Gunstringer. From what I can see, levels and everything in them are .xpr files. However, I have no Idea how to open them up and look inside them at all. Any help here?
#Xbox 360: The Gunstringer
flat crypt
Actually, @ruby ember do you think you can figure this out?
flat crypt
Tried messing with the xbox sdk and found an unbundler. Doesn't seem to do anything though
ruby ember
ive found two programs now that extract this "XPR2" file from what you posted earlier. however i get stuck here, nothing ive found can extract from this thing
https://github.com/Rocky5/XBMC-Emustation/blob/master/Other/Tools/XPR Express.zip was one of the programs that could, for future reference
flat crypt
I tried XPR Express already, got nothing from it.
Yeah if you're wondering, this is what I was trying to figure out before the .pod files
I would say try the xbox 360 SDK software, you may get a lead there.
ruby ember
i posted it without clicking the extract button thinking it would work 🤦♂️
oh well. the other one was this quickbms script (should actually output)
if i had a nickel for every time file extraction was solved by trimming fat in a hex editor, i'd have two nickels. which isnt a lot but it's weird it happened twice, right
step 2: enter a hex editor and cut so that there is a 12 bit "main" header and a bunch of 16 bit "file" headers. for this xpr2 there was a bunch of 0 data between both so i couldn't extract the files
^ is the file i cut, i cut everything between highlighted and non-highlighted (edit: highlighted 3 more 0s at the end than i was supposed to)
step 3, run xpr2.exe on the edited xpr. this is the output from the xpr above
flat crypt
Ok I'm currently out right now so I have to wait till I get back to test this out.
Ok but since you managed to extract the files, can you tell me what's in there? Need to make sure I'm actually looking at the right files lol.
ruby ember
right now im just peering at the lua scripting they left in there (the comments are intact)
looks like there is also some textures
a bunch of .ib "ibuf" files. very small
sound archive in .xwb format
a bunch of corresponding .vb "vbuf" files which im assuming is vertex buffer
terrain in a .gr2 but doesnt have header magic so idk what it really is
and then lightmaps + level data in a database
flat crypt
Interesting, guessing the models will probably be in the bigger files or something else.
Once I get back I'll look some of the others and see if I can find any bigger files that might contain the models.
After I'm done with this, this would've been the second game that I have ripped models from that literally no one else has. With that other game being Harmoknight on 3DS
ruby ember
there's no tcrf article on this game but there's a bunch of unused commands in these files. probably some interesting unused stuff as well
flat crypt
there's no tcrf article on this game but there's a bunch of unused commands in t...
By the looks of it, this may be for the first cutscene, the string bar stuff is for pulling the Gunstringer out of his grave. I'm guessing the house lights is the spotlight and pointlight used for after pulling the Gunstringer out of his grave and starts the monologue and titlecard as he crawls further into the stage to transition into the regular environment and tutorial sequence.
flat crypt
^ is the file i cut, i cut everything between highlighted and non-highlighted (e...
Hey what's that hex editor?
ruby ember
thats HxD https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ although you can use any one you want. almost all of them work the same
flat crypt
Ok I'm kinda stupid I never hex edited anything before so you'll have to guide me on this
Ok got this open, what do I do exactly?
ruby ember
that's a compressed xpr
you need to use the quickbms script above to convert it to xpr2
ruby ember
ok so from here you want to select all the 00 from 0C on the first row all the way until the ...@TX2D
and then delete that data
flat crypt
This good?
ruby ember
yep, that looks right
now it should work with the XPR2 exe
you'll have to use the command prompt to run the executable
flat crypt
Trying to figure this out
Ok so do I go into the folder it's in, right click and then open in terminal?
ruby ember
if you can open the folder in terminal directly then sure
ive never seen an option for that >.>
what i normally do is open a new command prompt
then type "cd "
and drag from this part of the explorer into the terminal so i can get to the folder i need to be in
flat crypt
Ok it this meant to be the command?
ruby ember
yep
ruby ember
now you mention it it is strange that the archive from earlier is much larger than the output from the program
flat crypt
yeah that don't seem right
ruby ember
but when i look at the strings referring to files in the hex editor it looks like everything was extracted?
strange
flat crypt
yeah this is definitely wrong, guess our job ain't done yet lol
ruby ember
how did you get the .pod of the main character before?
was that in a separate archive?
flat crypt
that comes from another game entirely
ruby ember
o
flat crypt
Like I said in that chat it was a spinoff of the Gunstringer that was on the windows 8 store
so yeah this is another beast entirely
I would have used Ninja Ripper and emulated it to get the models I wanted, but I cannot get past the first screen due to no kinect.
I feel like it has to do with the XPR2 program getting something wrong during the process
ruby ember
yea there's definetly model data in there the program isn't getting
flat crypt
Ok At least we're on the right track that the models are hiding in these
Ok I think I found something. In resident.xpr Is the gunstringer's model (But textures are still the 1kb)
Ok I sound this software but seems it doesn't wanna open.
ruby ember
according to this post on xentax granny engine models can have custom variations on the base format
hopefully thats not the reason its not loading but
flat crypt
even then we still need the textures
flat crypt
hopefully thats not the reason its not loading but
To be fair I had something similar with Harmoknight. A Game Freak game that used .GARC files that were also used for the 3DS Pokemon games, however it was a different compression format enough to throw software off.
Might as well just send the model file to see if you can figure anything out
flat crypt
ok, anything new you found?
ruby ember
no, im pretty much stuck
im leaning towards the fact that the xbr2 exe works properly since the lua scripting wasn't cut off/corrupted
this is reinforced by the fact that the bone name strings i found earlier were in a gr2 found in a models folder
however, im thinking that the gr2's are compressed in some way and i have no idea how
and similar thinking for the textures
it doesn't help that the cto of twisted pixel said this ahead of this game's release, making the compression issue more confusing
flat crypt
oh damn
ruby ember
on the other hand failing a crc check should mean that something is wrong with the file itself? i dont see why a file made by granny engine can't be read by granny engine
flat crypt
this gonna be a doozy lol
flat crypt
Tried an XPR2 Noesis plugin, couldn't preview but it tried to export stuff, got this error trying it:
Output extension has set output file type to:
.png - PNG Image
Detected file type: XPR2 Textures
global.DBase
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\noesisv4466\plugins\python\fmt_XBOX_360_XPR.py", line 84, in XPRLoadRGBA
print("WARNING: Unhandled image format " + repr(imgFmt) + " - " + repr(imgWidth) + "x" + repr(imgHeight) + " - " + repr(len(data)))
NameError: global name 'imgFmt' is not defined
ruby ember
yeah im thinking that's because the images are probably also compressed by granny engine
flat crypt
I also have a feeling they also might be in the .gr2 files themselves
ruby ember
possibly
flat crypt
so I think it's best we figure out the .gr2 file problems first
I think the best thing you can do is go into different modding discord servers for games that use the engine and ask about it. That's what I did for Harmoknight and it worked for me.
currently asking in a battlefield modding discord (Specificallly for Bad Company 2) cus it uses Granny 3D
Ok I think I might actually be right with that the textures are in the .gr2s themselves. As I looked in the TX2D folder and saw no files that have to do with the Gunstringer model. I think the files in this folder are for UI Sprite textures.
ruby ember
that makes sense. that would explain why all the filesizes are so small
flat crypt
so yeah defo prioritise the .gr2s
Maybe get a .gr2 file from another game and compare them in a hex editor?
ruby ember
i got some civ6 gr2s and at least they load in granny viewer. textures are separate in that game
but i didn't see any major similarities
flat crypt
hm...
Idk then, Not really a programmer so I can't really figure out anything alone lol
ruby ember
i think the last thing i'd be willing to try is to try to see what the game does to load these models
maybe there's like a folder in the game files related to granny engine or compression?
ruby ember
on the bright side im pretty sure the sound can be extracted easily... its just the models and textures that are stuck
flat crypt
yeah I managed sounds easily
I would say try Model Researcher?
(God I wish I could just use Ninja Ripper or something)
ruby ember
I would say try Model Researcher?
this is a really cool program actually
i dont have much experience with 3d models represented with binary thoug
flat crypt
but yeah update me if you anything of note
flat crypt
I got a bit more info I think
ruby ember
the noesis plugin i did find had a list of hex magic that it used to id the gr2 (and subsequently extract it) but it didn't match the files from the game. i didn't think of version mismatch though. it might be, but the game released in 2011 and the granny viewer i have has the last year in the copyright as 2010 which would probably be the version they used
also the xentax forums are dead; i think its read only now 😔
flat crypt
also the xentax forums are dead; i think its read only now 😔
no you can still reply to stuff
ruby ember
wait really
i thought they were taking down the forums and everything
ah i see you already made a post
flat crypt
i thought they were taking down the forums and everything
yeah but that's in december
Yeah nothing with a version in 2010 sadly
flat crypt
Got a reply
Learn't that granny2.dll is something used by pc games that use the engine. Obviously with this being an Xbox 360 game, I have no way to know that.
flat crypt
Ok looked at a tool for BG3 modding stuff that uses granny files. got this error when trying to import
So maybe it has to do with it missing it's signatures?
so I have an idea that could possibly exist.
Maybe the signature got lost during the extraction, so what if:
You look through the XPR2 file and maybe you can find that model's signature, then we can insert it into the model file?
Here's the unpacked file
and here's the packed one just in case
flat crypt
Just PMd a guy on xentax who made a .gr2 plugin for Noesis for assistance (Plugin doesn't work with the files btw).
Waiting for a response back
flat crypt
Quickly just typing something here so the thread don't get auto deleted.
flat crypt
got another chance at this
flat crypt
here's all the model files
flat crypt
Yeah coming back to this yeah. The file header seems to be missing from all the model files
so is there a way just to salvage the mesh and textures of the files?
@ruby ember
Some extra hex info I found
Just tried taking the header info of another working example .gr2 file and putting it into where it's meant to go. Didn't work sadly.
ruby ember
im thinking they either prepend the header when the game loads the file or something similar. but im not sure where that info would be stored. preferably not in the game code, so hopefully its lying around somewhere in the files
flat crypt
It COULD be in the .xpr file they came in. It might have got lost in the extraction.
flat crypt
https://www.mediafire.com/file/u7tws2je63n8hio/resident_unpack.xpr/file
So yeah I would say try looking in this. I'm mostly guessing you know how to find it in this lol.
ruby ember
ok so this is the extent of what i have found. im posting mostly so if you can find someone more experienced they have an idea of what we found so far
- while there is no magic the headers of the files contain offsets to different sections of the file. but im not sure what the sections represent. i thought that they might be a bunch of the gr2 assets concatenated but nothing loads in the viewer
- found a bunch of magic strings in this python script; but none of them work when pasted at the beginning of the file
- as for the "lost in extraction" idea the xpr2 cutter seems to do the job right afaict, reinforced by the fact that the lua files in the USER folder are completely fine.
at this point it would unironically be easier to remake the game's assets by hand rather than try to rip it from the engine. else one would probably have to write a custom parser for these files (most granny engine games seem to require this based on what ive been seeing) and not only are they weirdly complex but im mostly blindly pasting stuff in the hex editor 😔
flat crypt
Wanna try reviving this
flat crypt
@raven yew saw you wanted to attempt to solve this.
raven yew
I had a look but...man, I can't really make much sense of the mesh format
flat crypt
flat crypt
something that could help? @ruby ember
flat crypt
So. We may have SOME form of way of doing it:
There was a Sonic Unleashed PC recompilation port released extremely recently. But the main thing relevant to this is that the recompilation tools they've made for it are open source. Meaning other 360 games could be given the same treatment. https://x.com/HoonGoons/status/1895997054994038953?t=psiSRJ7UplKCEswWvH26zA&s=19
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