Need help with Marmalade SDK (.group.bin) 3D mesh extraction - Tone Sphere

Hello everyone! I am trying to extract 3D meshes from the mobile game Tone Sphere (Marmalade SDK).

I used a script to split the mono .group.bin file into separate assets. Now I have a 1.4 MB file (dc3c2177) which definitely contains a 3D mesh.

Here is what I found out using HEX and Model Researcher:

Faces / Indices Offset: starts exactly at 0x15C550 (Format: 16-bit Unsigned Short).

Maximum Index: 60288

Vertices: Located right before the faces, but they seem to use fixed-point math (IwFixed / Short_Signed with scaling), which causes a huge mess and wrong scaling when reading via Model Researcher.

UV / Normals: Also packed right before the vertices.

Could anyone help me write a quick Noesis plugin or a Python script to properly parse this mesh? I can provide the sample file! Thanks in advance!

dc3c2177.zip

Hi, you missed to tell where the vertices start?

I could only find some strange point cloud:

edit: big parts seem to contain texture data:

Edited June 10Jun 10 by shak-otay

Indices Offset: 0x15C550

Indices Type: UInt16 (Short)

Indices Count: 16 026 (5342 triangles)

Max Index Value: 2667 (Which means Vertex Count = 2668)

Vertices Offset: 0x1586C8

Vertex Type: Int16 (Short)

Stride: 6 bytes (Pure X, Y, Z by 2 bytes each)

Coordinate Scale (Fixed-point): Try dividing by 4096.0 or 256.0 (Standard Marmalade SDK shift).

I can assume that there are 3 models there at once

 

Thanks. Which file is it for? For dc3c2177 your face index parameters would break the file end (15C79F), 0x15C550 + 16026x2 (dec.)= 0x164284

Your vertex offset doesn't show me a decent mesh:

edit: the vertices start at 0x155D38, see one of my next posts

 

Edited June 10Jun 10 by shak-otay

thank
For file dc3c2177. Honestly, I don't quite understand how to search for vertices, so I'm just pointing my finger at it. Perhaps I've send the parameters for a different file altogether. I was checking the lesson level file. What I send is the title screen.
And I also know there may be multiple models embedded there. Or it's not a model at all, but a level scene.

And file 8081e087 is just its name, it says title screen there

Edited June 10Jun 10 by IDANAND

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JLP_TtjDKwTE8OJrBkzFC87Lxj9s7vlv/view?usp=drive_link
Here's a link to all the assets used there.
The models are also in group.bin.

 

In Backgroundcubes.group.bin I found this but it's hard to extract from the point cloud:

 

In dc3c2177 there are multiple meshes, for the last one:
At 1421408, 320 x 3 shorts (position?)
At 1423344, 320 x 3 shorts in range [-4096;4096] (normals?) 
At 1425278, 320 x 2 shorts (UV, divide by 4096)
At 1426576, 384 shorts (indices)

UV looks fine, but mesh is a mess

When you use unsigned shorts it looks more like a cube:

edit: another one (I'd create a tool as soon as we get the meshes nicer):

Similar for the background_cubes group.bin:

Edited June 10Jun 10 by shak-otay

Here are the ingame screenshots of what these meshes should look like. First one is the single crystal Or a few crystals.

 

This is what the levels look like :

13 hours ago, other1 said:

In dc3c2177 there are multiple meshes, for the last one:
At 1421408, 320 x 3 shorts (position?)
At 1423344, 320 x 3 shorts in range [-4096;4096] (normals?) 
At 1425278, 320 x 2 shorts (UV, divide by 4096)
At 1426576, 384 shorts (indices)

UV looks fine, but mesh is a mess

Hey! Thanks for the render, but the mesh geometry looks distorted. In the original game, this crystal is a perfectly symmetrical, sharp, elongated octahedron (diamond shape). On your screenshot, it looks flattened and skewed on one side. Look a screenshot.

 

13 hours ago, shak-otay said:

In Backgroundcubes.group.bin I found this but it's hard to extract from the point cloud:

 

In this file, the wall should be completely white. 

Here you go - Blender 5.0 plugin
Problem was in vertices - instead of usual (x0, y0, z0, x1, y1, z1, xN, yN, zN) they are stored as (x1, x2, xN, y1, y2, yN, z1, z2, zN)

io_scene_tone_sphere.zip

23 hours ago, other1 said:

Вот, пожалуйста, плагин для Blender 5.0.
Проблема была в вершинах — вместо обычных (x0, y0, z0, x1, y1, z1, xN, yN, zN) они хранятся как (x1, x2, xN, y1, y2, yN, z1, z2, zN).

io_scene_tone_sphere.zip 4,54 кБ · 1 загрузка

Hey! The meshes import absolutely perfectly, the plugin works like a charm. Thanks a ton! Could you please tell me how you extracted the textures for the cube from your screenshot? Are they stored in a different .group.bin file, and what's the best way to convert them to PNG?

23 hours ago, other1 said:

Here you go - Blender 5.0 plugin
Problem was in vertices - instead of usual (x0, y0, z0, x1, y1, z1, xN, yN, zN) they are stored as (x1, x2, xN, y1, y2, yN, z1, z2, zN)

io_scene_tone_sphere.zip 4.54 kB · 2 downloads

I figured everything out