[ 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 Soul Reaver 2 and convert them to Direct3D or Collada format (depending on which version of ModelEx you use).

It can currently load both objects (including characters/creatures) and rooms from all three versions of Soul Reaver, 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 (ModelEx 3.x) or Collada format (ModelEx 4.x) for importing into a 3D modeling application.

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

Features:

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 (although this doesn't work well in the 4.0 alpha release). 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.

Clicking and dragging with the mouse controls most movement/rotation. In the "fly cam" mode, the W, A, S, and D keys move the camera as if in a first-person shooter.

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

Important: The alpha release of ModelEx 4.0 only supports models from Soul Reaver 2. In order to work with models from Soul Reaver, you will need to use ModelEx 3.1, which is also available here.

See also the GitHub repository for this tool, maintained by Andrew Fradley.

 
[ Kain ]
Kain
[ The Reaver ]
The Reaver
[ Zephon ]
Zephon
[ The Chronoplast ]
The Chronoplast
[ The Oracle's Cave ]
The Oracle's Cave
[ The Lighthouse ]
The Lighthouse
[ The Lake of The Dead ]
The Lake of The Dead
[ The ruins of Nupraptor's Retreat ]
The ruins of Nupraptor's Retreat
[ The Human Citadel ]
The Human Citadel
[ The exterior of Janos' retreat ]
The exterior of Janos' retreat
[ The Sarafan stronghold ]
The Sarafan stronghold
[ The Fire Reaver Forge ]
The Fire Reaver Forge
[ Ariel from Soul Reaver 2 ]
Ariel from Soul Reaver 2
[ Raziel from Soul Reaver 2 ]
Raziel from Soul Reaver 2
[ Kain from Soul Reaver 2 ]
Kain from Soul Reaver 2
[ The Reaver ]
The Reaver
 
 
 
 
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx Prerequisites 23 MiB 1.0 2020-05-12 Various
The installers you'll need for SlimDX and the correct versions of the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime. On modern versions of Windows, you'll need to install all four packages. If you have a very old, 32-bit version of Windows, you don't need to install the 64-bit packages. You only need to install the packages once on a given computer, regardless of how many versions of ModelEx you're using on it.
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx 7 MiB 5.0 (Hacked Version 1) 2020-05-12 Andrew Fradley and Ben Lincoln
This is the enhanced (in some ways) version of ModelEx included with Soul Reaver to Blender Conversion Toolchain.
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx (Source Code) 52 MiB 5.0 (Hacked Version 1) 2020-05-12 Andrew Fradley and Ben Lincoln
This is the enhanced (in some ways) version of ModelEx included with Soul Reaver to Blender Conversion Toolchain.
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx 229 KiB 4.0 (Alpha) 2012-02-18 Andrew Fradley
This alpha release can only read models from Soul Reaver 2. If you want to open models from Soul Reaver as well, download and use version 3.1 for the Soul Reaver models.
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx 243 KiB 3.1 2012-02-18 Andrew Fradley
Rebuilt to run correctly on 64-bit versions of Windows® (including Windows 7). This version will still work on 32-bit Windows® as well. This version will only read models from Soul Reaver. If you want to read models from Soul Reaver 2, download version 4.0 or later.
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx 565 KiB 3.0 2009-11-29 Andrew Fradley
 
 
Download
File Size Version Release Date Author
ModelEx 285 KiB 2.1 2006-12-30 Andrew Fradley
This is a much older version than 3.0. It is preserved here for historical reasons.
 
Footnotes
1. 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.
 
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