ModelEx - Software - Legacy of Kain: The Lost Worlds

ModelEx

software by Andrew Fradley, article by Ben Lincoln

ModelEx is a utility written by Andrew Fradley which can display the 3D object models used in Soul Reaver and convert them to Direct3D format.

It can currently load both objects (including characters/creatures) and rooms from all three versions of the game, as well as load texture data from all three versions of the game and apply it to the models. It can export the models (including textures) in .x format for importing into a 3D modeling application.

Andrew has been generous enough to include the source code for his application.

Features:

Texture filtering
Wireframe mode
Lighting effects

To export the objects from Soul Reaver, use Soul Spiral.

Models from the Playstation version have their textures stored in individual files that correspond to each model. For example, raziel.pcm is the model for Raziel, and raziel.crm is the texture data for that model. Models for the PC and Dreamcast versions (which end with a .pcm extension if they're from the PC version and .drm if they're from the Dreamcast version) have their textures stored in a single monolithic file. The PC monolithic texture file is textures.big (located in the directory where the game was installed), and the Dreamcast monolithic file is textures.vq (located on the disc with the other game data). ModelEx must be instructed to load the textures by using the Load Textures -> From File option in the File menu, and directing it to the correct file. Loading the textures for a Playstation object will take longer than for the other two versions, both because the relationship between the textures and the object is more complex in the Playstation version^[1], and also because that specific function is using some older, non-optimized code of mine that I lent Andrew and haven't had time to update.

Once an object has been loaded, the mouse and/or WASD keys can be used to rotate/move it or the camera depending on the mode selected in the Control menu.

Area models can be switched between their Material Realm and Spectral Realm variations by selecting the corresponding entry under the View -> Model menu option. This same menu option will switch between object/creature variations in files that contain multiple entries; for example, the vampire models each contain two variations, as do other in-game enemies and humans.

Note that at this time, there is no way to view/export the animation data for the objects, only the static models.

Kain

The Reaver

Zephon

The Chronoplast

The Oracle's Cave

The Lighthouse

The Lake of The Dead

The ruins of Nupraptor's Retreat

The Human Citadel

Download
File	Size	Version	Release Date	Author
ModelEx	565 KiB	3.0	29-Nov-2009	Andrew Fradley

Download
File	Size	Version	Release Date	Author
ModelEx	285 KiB	2.1	30-Dec-2006	Andrew Fradley
This is a much older version than 3.0. It is preserved here for historical reasons.

Footnotes

Specifically, the Playstation textures use an indexed colour/palette format instead of the ARGB format used by the other two versions of the game. The .crm files are copied directly into blocks of VRAM on the Playstation, and so contain the textures and the palettes. They do not contain information on which palette(s) should be applied to which texture(s). So in order to convert them to an ARGB format, it's necessary for the software to first iterate through each polygon in the model, record the palette -> texture mappings, then build the ARGB textures using that data.