(WIP) BIN Repacker - Prince of Persia (SoT/WW/T2T) gamedata research tool, looking for help

[BlackDaemon]

Mine first attempts with .bin format tool

Current functionality is very primitive, atm it's more, like small add-on for format researching purposes
- .bin files reading (compressed and uncompressed);
- unpacking files from .bin;
- packing unpacked files back to .bin (simple copying);
- reading and unpacking textures (PC version);
- partial packing textures (PC version, except 8bit + palette format);
- binary per-byte searching inside file for IDs of other files, and current file ID in another files
- external config (override.txt) for additional files description, and, in case if needed to set file type manually.

Spoiler: show

From obvious things in my todo-list for now is to figure out packing 8bit + palette textures, figure out 3D objects format, how PersianRug works with them, and figure out this.

[Falcury]

Wow, you're making such incredible progress on this.
Very cool to be able to see the texture files.

Any chance of a command-line version of your packing/unpacking tools? Might be useful for automating the process using scripts (instead of needing to individually select input files and output folders within the program).

By the way, what techniques are you using to reverse engineer this?
Are you deducing patterns from the files themselves? Or maybe you are using a debugger or disassembler to find the places in the code where the files get loaded?

[BlackDaemon]

Falcury, nothing major here yet, unfortunately

I'll take a look, because need to learn, how console tool accept/working with arguments

Simple per-byte comparison and hex-editor. Unfortunately, debugger things is beyond for my current skills Actually, i begun researching a few years ago, like attemps to mod weapon/monster params, swap model/textures (article in Russian). Also, PS2/PSP version using similar resources format in WW/T2T games, PC version has more differences. Another thing was original files size "wall", fortunately i choose right time for revisit attempt, and it's no longer an issue

Spoiler: show

[BlackDaemon]

Initial command-line port

Code: Select all

Extract BIN: -e <bin_file> <extracted_files_folder>
Decode textures: -d <bin_file> <textures_folder>
Encode textures: -c <bin_file> <textures_folder>
Build BIN: -b <bin_file> <extracted_files_folder> <new_bin_file>

[Dastan]

Hi! I know I'm a little too late regarding pop modding
I'm trying to edit some texture in pop ww, but after editing .tga file with photoshop I can't put the changes back into the .bin file
I don't understand the "- packing unpacked files back to .bin (simple copying);" part, can you explain it?
Thanks!