RECV MODDING BASICS - MODELS - Ch.3 (By CBNJ)

[cbnj]

PREVIOUS CHAPTER: RECV MODDING BASICS - MODELS - Ch.2-1
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 52&t=16995
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UNLOCKING THE TEXTURE BLOCK

Make a string search for TPVR you will be taken to offset 049558, and one row of bytes upwards there will be a line of FFFFFFFF, this line of FFFFFFFF is the end of the animations block for claire, marking the end of her whole file, from this point and downwards there will be only texture data, locate your self at offset 04953C, you will have the value 44290380 this is a pointer to the end of the first block of textures for claire, claire model is formed by the next texture blocks
Block 1 -5 body textures set 1
Block 2 -5 body textures set 2
Block 3 -5 body textures set 3
Block 4 -single texture knifegrip
Block 5 -single texture ponytail
Block 6 -single texture mamoth egg
Block 7 -single texture mamoth larva

Block 4 belongs to a secondary model (as the ponytail does too) but is derendered by the exe, even if you enable it whit the bone properties it wont show up in game.

[Holsten]

What is this stuff for?

[cbnj]

If you know about hex numbers, you will notice this pointer is too big in hex values to actually be a pointer and you are rigth, this pointer have an extra value wich is the last 80 on the rigth side, this 80 is telling the console this texture blocks are using a manual padding to be sorted out and keep a 32 bits memory aligment, but since we added another model to the file this padding became corrupt, we will replace this 80 value by 00, so the console automatically assing a pading to each texture block and single texture file to keep this 32 bits memory aligment correct and we will also remove the manual padding removing the dummy CD bytes ahead of this pointer untill reach the TPVR header.

[cbnj]

Once you have done this, select from the FFFFFFFF line to the start of the file, cut it and paste it in a new file.
Our first byte now in the pl00.ald file will be the pointer we just fixed by replace the 80 value whit 00, followed by the TPVR header.

[cbnj]

Our pointer is correct now as it show the value 032944 and will take us to the end of the first 5 textures block, go there so we can proceed.
You will land on another line of FFFFFFFF, this marks the end of the fist texture block, select from this line of FFFFFFFF to the start of the file again cut it and add this texture block to the end of the file we just created a moment ago.
Our pl00.ald now shows as first byte another pointer whit value 80 at the rigth side and CD padding bytes we should remove too.

[cbnj]

Fix the pointer, remove the dummy padding till reach the TPVR header, jump to the fixed pointer, select everything from the line of FFFFFFFF to the start of the file, cut it and add it to the end of the other file, this will repeat one time more so the 3 blocks of 5 texture sets are passed to the other file and our pl00.ald will now have single textures to work whit.

[cbnj]

The process for the single textures is exactly the same one as whit the texture blocks.
Fix the pointer, remove the dummy padding till you reach the TPVR header, go to the fixed pointer offset, select everting from the line of FFFFFFFF to the start of the file, cut it and add it to the end of the other file and repeat untill all textures passed to the other file and our pl00.ald file became completelly empty.

Finally copy everything from the other file back to our pl00.ald which should end whit a double line of FFFFFFFF save the changes, our texture block is unlocked now and we can test the results of our work in game.

[cbnj]

I made this chapter in this way so you can know whats happening, in future guides whit this and other characters this texture pointers and dummy data will be directly fixed/removed using search for strings jumps, for this you should know how many textures each character have and practice to effectivelly locate the headers by eye, instead to be fixing/pointer jumping/cutting/pasteing endlessly like now.
This whole process from Ch.1 till now, when you get the hang of it, takes about 1 minute to acomplish as much.
END OF CHAPTER

NEXT CHAPTER: RECV MODDING BASICS - MODELS - Ch.Finale (By CBNJ)
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 74#p181074

[cbnj]

Holsten
its a guide to add extra 3d models to the RECV playable character models.