RECV MODDING BASICS - MODELS - Ch.1 (By CBNJ)

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PREVIOUS CHAPTER: RECV MODDING BASICS - MODELS - INTRODUCTION (By CBNJ)
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Before to continue:
Everything in the file is formatted in hex little endian format, any question about this and other stuff ask Google about it since i already specified you should know about hex numbers and how to move trough a file using offsets and pointers.

KNOWING THE POINTERS AND REMOVING THE ENVELOPE DATA.

Open PL00.ALD in your hex editor and you will get this:

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This is the start of the envelope data denoted by the SKIN header, before this SKIN header we have two pointer bytes, each one will take us to diferent areas of claire body file.

The first pointer byte B464 will take us to the animations block denoted by the MTN header, the second pointer byte 0C38 will take us to the model area of the file denoted by the MDL header.

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You will clearly notice this jumps are not exact as the
mtn pointer (as we will call it from now on)
and the
mdl pointer (also as how will be reffered since now)
take us 3 bytes before the MTN and MDL headers respectively, this is correct and this mismatch should always be respected for every modification we do to this pointer values.

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Go to where the mdl pointer takes you and move 2 bytes ahead, this will positionate you one byte before the MDL header at offset 0C40 and the value on this byte will be 7BF4

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Select everything from 0C40 and behind to the start of the file, cut it and paste it in a new file, this will leave us whit the file pl00.ald starting whit the value 7BF4 and a new file wich contain the envelope data.

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Now we face again another two pointer bytes altough this time one is on top of the other, the first one (7BF4), will take us to the end of claire model, the second one rigth below (776C), will take us to the start of the bones for claire body.

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Once more both pointer jumps are not exact.
7BF4, the pointer of the end of the model (or eom pointer as will be called from now on)
take us to the middle of a double line of FFFFFFFF two bytes before another MDL header
and
776C the bones pointer (as will be refered from now on)
take us 5 bytes before the real start of the bones denoted by the value 0F000000 followed by a line of FFFFFFFF

Again this missmatchs should be respected for every modification we can do to this values.

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Is at claire's real end of the model offset where we will start to input our custom extra model data, which is located one byte ahead from where eom pointer take us, at offset F87B
END OF CHAPTER

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