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enmacderm, posted Sat Apr 01, 2023 2:05 pm (76161)

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Hi, and yeah, some people may know me when related with Ace Combat(Infinity mostly), or probably not, but long story short at the total of 3 years, the research related to the Ace Combat games made from Namco's Flight Engine(which some love for AC6 and ACI, but AC fans got a sour taste because of ACAH), my efforts started after learning a bit of how to proofread using Hex2obj thanks to Shatokay, and currently, i was glad to met GreenTrafficLight and seeing he shared the interest for Ace Combat, so on the model aspect, but also on general game extraction(it wasn't such discussed on Xentax to avoid rule violations, but Green developed a extraction suite for the game files) the current situation looks promising, one format or other exception, but mostly can be checked by raw file extraction like HCA audio samples and DDS textures, which the later, is a huge interest of mine seeing most of it includes the model textures

Most of the process before and now with the tools was on the basis on memory and raw files researching, which unlike the PC version of ACAH, most containers of ACI are based on that aspect unlike begin organized and with a list of filenames. one of the tools i used on the process was the TextureFinder, originally made for Marvel's Ultimate Alliance modding, and in general it's a great tool aside of one exception, begin a Delphi based program. due to that, TextureFinder 2.1(not 1.3.2) always got flagged as a false positive trojan on Windows, along some antivirus from VirusTotal also flags it the same, and because of that is why i didn't worked yet on updating a old guide related to the file extraction, it could be rude, but indeed, wouldn't be suprised people would accuse me at "destroying their security" thanks to the false flag of TextureFinder, or people didn't trying at all by the tool's annoyance, even if one or other would accept it "the risks", is the minority compared to the majority


At the end of last year, i did found out a tool that could be a potential solution on this, but currently on April, seems the tool got abandonned, as it didn't received revisions since January 6th, and don't want to bother the original author for simple stuff...

Originally, i through most of the textures stores on the FHM were based on headerless DDS, due using tools like RawTex you can translate most of it without issues using the default DDS headers, despite it's a very exhausting process even now with the extracted files, which based on game updates it sums up to almost 80 GB in total of content to find in "10,000" files as a estimative. but about the DDS aspect, that it was i through at first based on my experience with the PC ACAH...

The FHM containers got a NTP3 header, summed with a brief list of headers with the flags eXt and GIDX, i know they're related with DDS due the PC version had them on the top on some textures. but seeing a lot of them bundled into a single streak, i through it wouldn't be such helpful, until today that i was curious to search a bit of that, and found out a new clue

Removing the bytes until the NTP3 header, which is the main one of the PS3 NUT texture files(despite Smash begin a Wii U game), i could load them on Smash Forge without issues, well.....almost, due it can read, but it doesn't translate well the structure of the textures, it understands the type of compression and resolution correctly, but it mismatches probably by something the Smash textures got different, due yeah, importing Ace Combat models with Smash tools wasn't a option before by the sole difference of the same format, which is the NUD/NDP3, aside that i found out the eXt textures are based into a compression called S3TC


The goal with this thread, of course at long-terms, would be developing something, like a tool, Noesis script, or QuickBMS extraction script, that could read those S3TC headers from the files, along it could be compatible and used at batch operations by the "10,000" extracted files, which i would prefer something like a QuickBMS script at most cases, along it would lift over the height of needing to share a problematic tool in a tutorial, along begin able to updated a texture repository i tend to work from time. linked some samples of those files, which are a map assets bundle one based from a special raid from a ground superweapon(expected to be 17 textures in total if the GIDX count is right), and others based on the F-16XL player aircraft model, hope that's the necessary for a possible development on the script
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/olhix7th ... 3dp46smlfy

Wish good luck for people that got the interest on it, and will be awaiting patiently for a contribution, as yeah, time is a virtue as expected.