Tutorial

1. The first things you need are the important game files. Getting your hands on files for PC games is very easy, as they are already on your computer after you install the game. For PS3 games, most games can be downloaded direct from Sony, but to obtain these links you must either trap the links with a network sniffing program like Wireshark, or find them on the internet which have been posted by people who have already done the Wiresharking for you.

2. For example, the PS3 game Dynasty Warriors: Empires is a game that can be downloaded direct from Sony for free. You can't play it unless you pay for it on PSN, but at least we have the game data to extract the models. PSN games usually are downloaded as encrypted PKG files, for which you can decrypt using a program called PKGView (Google it).

3. Once unpacked, Dynasty Warriors: Empires has two files that are needed to extract all models from the game. Find and place LINKDATA.BIN and LINKDATA.IDX into a FRESH NEW FOLDER (Figure 1). IMPORTANT! Never put game files in C:\, C:\Windows or any other system or program directory. Steven's Gas Machine does batch processing, and will scan folders and subfolders for files. It might also create temporary files and later scan for these temporary files to delete them. Always put game files into a FRESH NEW FOLDER.

Figure 1

4. Now start Steven's Gas Machine, xentax.exe (Figure 2).

Figure 2

5. Select the game you want to extract. In this case, [PS3] Dynasty Warriors: Empires (NPUB31656). NPUB means the game was downloaded from PSN (not a disc) and is meant for Japan and other asian regions. Also input the path to the location of the LINKDATA.BIN and LINKDATA.IDX files. Then press OK to continue (Figure 3).

Figure 3

6. Every game is different, but the program will now ask you some questions about what files you want to process. If this is the first time you have run the program on the files, say "Yes" to everything. However, if the program is ever updated, you may only need to say "Yes" to the processing of "texture" or "model" files. This will save you lots of time if and when updates happen. So say "Yes" to the first question, which represents the first process of the extraction (Figure 4).

Figure 4

7. There is a second question (for the 2nd step of the extraction). Say "Yes" (Figure 5).

Figure 5

8. There is a third question (Figure 6). As you can see, this one regarding texture files. If you want textures, say "Yes." If otherwise, say "No."

Figure 6

9. There is a fourth question (Figure 7). This one regards model files. If you want models, say "Yes." If otherwise, say "No."

Figure 7

10. After answering the final question, check the black console window (Figure 8). Some games may take several hours to complete all stages of processing. The game we are using as an example here is 13 GB and the BIN file contains over 140,000 files that need to be decompressed and extracted. Then, roughly 80,000 textures must be converted and finally 40,000 models must also be converted. This takes A LOT of time and this game may take up to six hours to complete processing on slower computers.

Figure 8

11. Once all the processing is done the console window will stop updating and you will get a message about how long processing took (Figure 9). Yes, my computer is really slow!

Figure 9

12. When you have 40,000+ models and 80,000+ textures, it is almost impossible to look at everything. In fact, loading models one-by-one in applications like Max or Maya looking for that one model you want would be extraordinarily painful! This is where a program called "Noesis" comes in. You can download it from here and clicking on his Projects tab (Figure 10).

Figure 10

13. Start Noesis and navigate to the folder where you extracted the game data contents. Steven's Gas Machine will create OBJ files that can be previewed in Noesis very quickly. In Noesis, make sure that Wavefront OBJ (*obj) filter is selected, and then start browsing all the subfolders, looking for models you are interested in (Figure 11). For this game, character models appear starting from folder 1033.

Figure 11

14. After you find a model you want, navigate to that directory. In this case, navigate to folder 1195 (Figure 12).

Figure 12

15. Navigate to folder 1195 using Windows Explorer as well (Figure 13). Notice that there are two SMC files, 000.SMC and 000_skel_00.smc. These files contain the model with bones and weights, and can be loaded into Blender 2.49b using a python script that is provided with the program.

Figure 13

16. Start Blender 2.49b and on one of the panels, select Text Editor (Figure 14).

Figure 14

17. In Text Editor, choose Text > Open (Figure 15).

Figure 15

18. Navigate to where the smcimport.py script is and open it (Figure 16).

Figure 16

19. In Text Editor, select Text > Run Python Script (Figure 17).

Figure 17

20. Blender will now ask you for an SMC file to open. Before we open 000.smc, note that the Blender script looks for textures in the same directory as the SMC file. The textures for this model are in the 1195/001_t folder (Figure 18). Move the DDS files from 1195/001_t to 1195 (Figure 19).

Figure 18

Figure 19

21. Navigate to the 1195 folder and select 000.smc and press Import SMC (Figure 20). If all goes well, you will see the following result (Figure 21).

Figure 20

Figure 21

22. Run the script again but this time select the 000_skel_00.smc file (Figure 22). As with any Dynasty Warriors game, if the model is wonky, you may have to reparent some bones, which is very common for a lot of games (notice in this model the elbows are children of the pelvis bone! This is the way the skeleton is and there is nothing that can be done about it. All joints are in the right place, but there is some in-game reparenting that is done (Tekken models are like this too) and it must be fixed manually.

Figure 22