Jul -- The Cutting Room Floor: Star Fox Adventures E3 2002 prototype (5/17/02)

koolaidman
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Posted on 09-11-13 10:33:01 PM

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Originally posted by gonetogo

Originally posted by koolaidman

Originally posted by gonetogo
What's actually the problem with Dolphin? I'm using Dolphin 3.5-367 in dual-core mode and I just finished the Krystal part?

Apart from the missing text in the beginning and a slightly different way from Thorntail Hollow to the shopkeeper, I haven't noticed any differences yet. Do you know whether it's really the full game?

Post your settings plz. Also do you have "Use Panic Handlers" enabled?

I use the standard settings unless something went wrong with "Use Panic Handlers" disabled. Is there any way to extract the setting details so I can post them. It's pretty much the first time for me to use Dolphin as my PC is way too slow. Played through the Arwing mission and the Ice Mountain mission at 15fps (and less). Also started the main game and I just got the staff in Thorntail Hollow. Had a crash once and disabled "Use Panic Handlers" afterwards (despite knowing what it really does, just based on your recommendation).

Hm, when you disable "Use Panic Handlers" it hides any error pop up message so you can still play. However with this game in particular, there are a ton of shader error logs that get generated even when the setting is turned off. With Use Panic Handlers enabled it'll allow to go through and look at each error message individually. But with it turned off it'll spam a ton of log files into your /User/Dump directory. I'd check that folder if I were you just to make sure that there aren't like a bazillion bad_ps_####.txt files. If there aren't any and yet you were able to play with Use Panic Handlers disabled then maybe you're on to something in your other settings.

gonetogo
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Posted on 09-12-13 04:39:54 PM

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Originally posted by koolaidman

Hm, when you disable "Use Panic Handlers" it hides any error pop up message so you can still play. However with this game in particular, there are a ton of shader error logs that get generated even when the setting is turned off. With Use Panic Handlers enabled it'll allow to go through and look at each error message individually. But with it turned off it'll spam a ton of log files into your /User/Dump directory. I'd check that folder if I were you just to make sure that there aren't like a bazillion bad_ps_####.txt files. If there aren't any and yet you were able to play with Use Panic Handlers disabled then maybe you're on to something in your other settings.

Yes, you are right. After my session with the game, I had 3GB and about half a million error logs. But to be honest, I don't think this is a huge problem unless for me, though I don't like that deleting these files takes ages. As long as the game works, it's ok.

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Posted on 09-13-13 02:33:00 AM

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Post #5093 · Thu 130912 223300

Well, all that writing to files will slow the emulator down, too.

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Sik

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Posted on 09-13-13 02:51:36 AM

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Does the emulator complain if it can't write to the log? Moving it to a small RAM drive may be a good idea (assuming the log file path can be changed, that is) Alternatively, make the file read only.

gonetogo
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Posted on 09-13-13 08:23:03 PM

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Originally posted by Sik
Does the emulator complain if it can't write to the log? Moving it to a small RAM drive may be a good idea (assuming the log file path can be changed, that is) Alternatively, make the file read only.

An incredibly easy way. Thanks, now the Dump folder is read only and it works better.

koolaidman
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Posted on 09-14-13 02:53:19 PM

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I tried making the Dump folder read-only before but the setting wouldn't stick for some reason. The emulator still writes a bunch of logs to it. OpenGL writes less logs. :\

Any other ideas besides creating a RAM drive?

Sik

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Posted on 09-14-13 03:01:50 PM

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Make it create a log file (even if tiny), then turn the file read only (honestly I didn't think that making the folder read only would even work, it never did for me). Alternatively make a blank file with the same name and make that read only.

koolaidman
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Posted on 09-14-13 03:24:11 PM

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Originally posted by Sik
Make it create a log file (even if tiny), then turn the file read only (honestly I didn't think that making the folder read only would even work, it never did for me). Alternatively make a blank file with the same name and make that read only.

I tried that too. It just passes over the file and continues to create log files after that number. Unless I'm doing it wrong (I made bad_ps_0000.txt read only but it didn't stop the logs from coming).

Also I just realized that some of the music I ripped is different from the versions that were released on the game's website at one time.

For example, Ice Mountain (Ice Race) vs In game version. The Test of ____ music lack the voice samples for the test name, but they were obviously in at some point. The strange part is that in the case of the Ice Race track, the voice samples still exist. It's just that they aren't used anywhere in the sequence data. Although when the sequence data got converted, I noticed that one of the channels had no sequencing anywhere. In the Test of ____ music's case, I couldn't find the voice samples for each Test either. Hopefully the conversion process wasn't bugged somehow. :\

Sik

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Posted on 09-14-13 10:23:28 PM

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Originally posted by koolaidman
I tried that too. It just passes over the file and continues to create log files after that number. Unless I'm doing it wrong (I made bad_ps_0000.txt read only but it didn't stop the logs from coming).

Oi, didn't know it created separate files (no, I don't use Dolphin). Well, screw that, preventing it from touching the folder is the only option then, I guess.

omega59
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Posted on 09-15-13 06:25:31 AM

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Originally posted by Sik

Originally posted by koolaidman
I tried that too. It just passes over the file and continues to create log files after that number. Unless I'm doing it wrong (I made bad_ps_0000.txt read only but it didn't stop the logs from coming).

Oi, didn't know it created separate files (no, I don't use Dolphin). Well, screw that, preventing it from touching the folder is the only option then, I guess.

Yeah, that's a smart way to tackle it. Why not make an extra copy of Dolphin and make it read-only?

koolaidman
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Posted on 09-15-13 12:19:59 PM

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Originally posted by omega59

Originally posted by Sik

Originally posted by koolaidman
I tried that too. It just passes over the file and continues to create log files after that number. Unless I'm doing it wrong (I made bad_ps_0000.txt read only but it didn't stop the logs from coming).

Oi, didn't know it created separate files (no, I don't use Dolphin). Well, screw that, preventing it from touching the folder is the only option then, I guess.

Yeah, that's a smart way to tackle it. Why not make an extra copy of Dolphin and make it read-only?

That still doesn't work. It'd be nice if the setting would stick to the folders and not just the files.

The only way at this point is to physically remove the lines that generate the log files from the source code and just compile a special version we can use. :\

gonetogo
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Posted on 09-15-13 03:42:25 PM

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So this is really strange now. All of a sudden, the game does not start in dual-core mode anymore. However, making the Dump folder read-only, solved the issue with the error logs for me.

Are we sure that it includes the full Starfox Adventures game? I played through 3 of the 4 options now (partially in single core mode):

Full game: Ends after handing over the gift to the Warpstone
Ice Mountain: Ends after the race
Arwing Mission: Ends after the mission

TheCubeMaster019

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Posted on 09-25-13 01:14:58 AM (last edited by TheCubeMaster019 at 09-25-13 01:15:39 AM)

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Hey guys, first post!

I made a few discoveries in the past few days, and need to get this out.

First things first, in the "card" folder, there are files called "foxicon", and in hex, they seem like every two bites could be ARGB values (AR-GB) considering the first seventeen pairs are (0F-FF). However, after a while in photoshop, they don't seem to be in order left->right, up->down.

Next, there's a file in the root directory called "out". koolaidman posted this earlier. Anyway, there's codes that look like tags (rw = read-write), then the number 1, then "ptossell". "ptossell" seems to be the user that made the changes, and "Phil Tossell" at this twitter page seems to be him. As in his description on the page, he was the "Former Rare coding guru on Starfox, Kameo, and Kinect Sports".

That's about it, and thanks for reading!

koolaidman
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Posted on 09-25-13 02:42:33 AM

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Yep, I recognized Phil right away from an article I read a while back about the switch from Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures here. I don't think he'd remember the things I mentioned in the thread though, but it would be nice if he could remember if they had to change data formats many of the data formats they were using when going from DP -> SFA. Obviously the audio engine changed from AmSeq or whatever to MusyX, but I don't know about the modeling format.

Speaking of which, here's BLOCKS.bin along with a few uncompressed model files. It seems that what's inside BLOCKS.bin is a similar format to the seperate model files, but there are slight differences (probably hinting at older versions). But I'm curious as to how much modeling data is in BLOCKS.bin, since it's a pretty big file. Maybe it has some DP models? It'd be nice if someone could take a look at the model format and see if it could be similar to something else (like another Rare game).

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Posted on 10-29-13 07:12:47 PM (last edited by Hugo_Peters at 10-30-13 12:15:23 PM)

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For the past few days I have been going through the files and making notes at the same time. I think I did some fairly interesting finds, take a look.

There are 2 different versions of the voice clip of Princess Kyte, in the first scene with Scales and Krystal.
"You coward Scales, my mother will send an army against you". Version one can be heard at 43:41 in the MPEG.bin file that leaked from the SFA E3 demo,
and at 06:24 on the 1 hour Dinosaur Planet video. The second one sounds calm, while at the first one Kyte (which sounds more like Krystal) is shouting.

INTERESTING STUFF:
We know that certain files from the E3 disk are definitely from Dinosaur Planet, like MPEG.bin, MODELS.bin, MUSIC.bin, etc. In the "out" file, a list of files is displayed, with a date to them. These dates vary in the 1999 - 2000 area, 2 years before SFA was released. This could very well be the date that the DP -> SFA transition began. All of the files that we DO know are from DP are mentioned in this file list. These could very well be the whole DP game. They include everything. Textures, models, audio, game text, and there's a high chance the scripts are in there as well (NOTE: It's DLLS.bin, more info below). All of the files mentioned in the file list are available in the root directory of the E3 disk.

default.dol dumped to binary, contains interesting strings.
0x00312255 "Hello My Friend"
0x00311bed "Cryaction" (suggesting Krystal may have been spelled with a "C"?)
0x0030fe05 "Hit Krystal", "The Player Guesses that a Seed goes here!"
0x0030f4f0 "fish has reached the end of it life" (note the typo) TAKE A LOOK BELOW! THIS COULD BE A CLUE TO A HUGE FIND!!
0x0030de00 "Trying to strike baddie, but it doesn't work! Would someone please fix this" (LMAO)
0x0030c584 "tricky error 2!!!!!" (lots of interesting stuff around this offset!)
0x0030b136 "Windows Protection Fault" (and a lot of other debug ?dev unit? strings)
0x0030a7d4 "Distance = %d...Polygons = %3d Textures = %3d.....Size = %6d bytes Model %3d/%3d....Time: SP %.2f%% DP %.2f%%.Animations = %d...csize %i cend %i ambient %i intensity %i....Standard Lighting...starting weapon data....Generating weapon data..ex=%f ey=%f ez=%f hx=%f hy=%f hz=%f dx=%f dy=%f dz=%f...dx underflow....dx overflow.....dy underflow....dy overflow.....dz underflow....dz overflow.....animpos=%f max=%f...POST: animpos=%f max=%f.....modv:trans.. PACKET SIZE %i .... Data %i ... Packed It in %i ...Illegal material number.........Memory Allocation......h.... Àÿÿ€0Úð....€.äp................................Used = %d+%d.Slots = %d+%d.. %08x:%s %d/%d+%d... %s %d+%d...TextStart.= %x.Size = %x....DataStart.= %x.Size = %x....BssStart..= %x.Size = %x....RomTableStart.= %x..Size = %x...RomDataStart.= %x..Size = %x........MainCharacter :....Landscape :....Models :....Sprites :....AntiAliasing :....Transparencies :....Audio :....Clouds :....Shadows+Foots :....Shadow Render :....Lighting :
0x0030A477 "Ping pong"
0x0030928C Seems to be either script names, folder names and / or level names. Also includes Swapstone Circle, AS WELL as Swapstone-Hollow
0x00307BD0 Start of a lot of debug expressions, including "Too suspicious", "Init in attack", "Cant see enemy", "Incoming fire" and "Aggression"
0x00304974 A lot of more debug stuff, don't know if this is normal or a joke, but there's an expression called "DinoVista:", after "WideScreen:".
There we go! 0x003043E8 "Dino Planet.Development.System"
0x00303D70 "SERIOUS ERRROR in meter.c, and I mean SERIOUS"
0x00303B10 Seems to be some initalization stuff, I think from the N64 DP era. There's some version info of some sort which states "Version 2.8 14/12/98 15.30 L Schuneman"
0x0031A928 Sequence text with mentioning of Sabre (only game text in the file, rest is in GAMETEXT.bin (the DP stuff), so THERE IS N64 DP code hidden in here.
"starting seq %d.......What is it ? .......I Can Feel Something Strange !......Randorn... Are You There ??....Be Careful..Skeetas Everywhere !....Stay Close to a Torch!......Light Kills Them....Krystal! How Is My Son?.....Sabre Is Just Glad Your Alive.......When His Brother Died I blamed Myself.......I Couldn't Face Being A Father......Until I Found You My Dear Girl......He Understands Why You Left Him.....He Is A Good Son....I've Yet To See Him To Apologise....He Has Already Forgiven You.....When This Is Over You Shall Be Reunited!....What's happening to you Randorn?....There's not much energy left in this Mountain.......I'm dying..I need food......Do You Remember How We Got Here?....Of Course I Remember........Back On Our Own Planet We Found A.......Strange Room In The Lost City.......There We Uncovered A Message From The.......King EarthWalker, Begging Us To Help Him........And Then I Entered A Wormhole.......And Arrived On Dinosaur Planet......You Followed Later With Sabre.......Yes, We Ended Up In A Chamber Beneath.......One Of The Earthwalker Temples......Unless You Can Find A Cure For Me.......I'm Not Going To Last Much Longer.......But What Can We Do......There Must Be A Similiar Room Here......That Will Allow Us To Return....Either You Or Sabre Must Find It.."

Then there follow some object names.
wmsun:alist.wmcrystal.c
VFlevcontrol.c
minifire.c
statueball.c
ladders.c
fireblock.c
platform1.c
doorswitch.c
draghead.c
lavaflow.c
spellplace.c
DBrockfall.c

[offtopic]I WOULD DO SO MUCH FOR THOSE .c FILES

[/offtopic]

Some task / action names, I *think* they're from DP (NOTE: ALSO A CLUE!):
popOutOfGround
burstIntoGroun
biteAttack
standStill
standAndSpit
hitFightMain
fight_die
runt

bject
runto_ThrowObj
pickup_Object
throw_AtObject
wait_forObject
Wait_for_throw
try_to_catch
catch_Object
Kill_Object

LOL 0x0031F4F5 "HIT BY SHIT" *cough* Rare, behave yourselves.
LOL2 0x00320ED1 "DOING WARP YEAH HAA"

0x00321CB4 Some other actions...
Laser: Recharging...Laser: Fire->Power..Laser: Fire->Twin...Laser: Fire->Single->Right..Laser: Fire->Single->Left...Laser: Idle.....Bomb: Recharging....Bomb: Fire->Twin....Bomb: Fire->Single->Right...Bomb: Fire->Single->Left....Double Click Right..Click Timers: left=%f right=%f..Mode: VELOCITY LIMIT X..Vel Limit: x=%f y=%f....Mode: VELOCITY LIMIT Y..Mode: VELOCITY SCALE X..Vel Scale: x=%f y=%f....Mode: VELOCITY SCALE Y..Mode: ANGLE LIMIT YAW...Ang Limit: yaw=%f pitch=%f roll=%f..Mode: ANGLE LIMIT PITCH.....Mode: ANGLE LIMIT ROLL..Mode: ANGLE LIMIT ROLLBANK..Ang Limit: %f...Mode: ANGLE SCALE YAW...Ang Scale: yaw=%f pitch=%f roll=%f..Mode: ANGLE SCALE PITCH.....Mode: ANGLE SCALE ROLL..Mode: ANGLE SCALE ROLLBANK..Ang Scale: %f...Mode: LASER TYPE....Mode: LASER RECHARGE....Time(frames): %d....Mode: LASER LIFE....Mode: LASER SPEED...Speed: %f...Mode: BOMB TYPE.....Mode: BOMB RECHARGE.....Mode: BOMB LIFE.....Mode: BOMB SPEED....Mode: BOMB MAX..Max: %d.....Mode: BOMB CURRENT..Current: %d.....Mode: FLAP SCALE....Scale: %f...Mode: BOOSTER ANIM SPEED....Anim Speed %d...Mode: IDLE SPEED ROLL...Mode: IDLE AMPLITUDE ROLL...Amplitude: %f...Mode: IDLE SPEED X..Mode: IDLE AMPLITUDE X..Mode: IDLE SPEED Y..Mode: IDLE AMPLITUDE Y..Mode: IDLE MAX VELOCITY.....Vel: %f.....Mode: IDLE RAMPUP SPEED.....Mode: BANK RAMPUP LIMIT.....Angle: %f...Mode: BANK RAMPUP SPEED.....Mode: BARREL ROLL SPEED.....Mode: BARREL ROLL SLOW ANGLE....Mode: DOUBLE CLICK TIME.....Mode: POSITION LIMIT X..Limit: %f...Mode: POSITION LIMIT Y..Mode: FORWARD VEL...Mode: INFO..JoyStick: x=%2f y=%2f l=%2f r=%2f...Vel: x=%f y=%f..Vel Want: x=%f y=%f.....Ang: yaw=%d pitch=%d roll=%d....Ang: bank=%d barrel=%d..Ang Want: yaw=%d pitch=%d roll=%d bank=%d...Idle: roll=%d x=%d y=%d.....Barrel roll: Scale=%f...Mode: INVALID

THE ZLB FILES ARE PROBABLY COMPRESSED USING "RZIP"
There are a few references to RZIP in default.dol:

--FISH HAS REACHED THE END OF IT LIFE--
So what's this about? Well, this string is probably something from a debug menu of Dinosaur Planet. And also, we're talking game code. All code gets compiled, so it's unreadable for a human, but strings stay (obviously) in tact. So when you have a document like default.dol, which contains code, and you see strings in there, especially debug strings while the game strings are located in a serperate file, you know you have code. Now, why am I telling this... I mentioned before that the "out" file seems to specify all Dinosaur Planet source files. Now, the interesting bit, is the file "DLLS.bin". I've been looking through it, and I ran across this one line. "fish has reached the end of it life". It's the SAME line as in the default.dol file! This makes me believe that the DLLS.bin file --IS-- the Dinosaur Planet (compiled) code. In the DLLS.bin are a few other strings, but not NEARLY as much as in default.dol. The DLLS.bin file also has the same sequence as the one mentioned before between Randorn, Sabre and Krystal. So it really is about default.dol and DLLS.bin now. You might say: "No, that's a DEBUG file". Wrong, lemme explain again. It makes sense that the main code only has debug strings in it, as all of the other strings are in GAMETEXT.bin. Every line of code gets compiled, the strings stay intact in the actual file. And those strings are, you guessed it, mostly debug strings. So I'm pretty certain that, also judging from the file size of the DLLS.bin, it's the whole DP code. The DLLS.bin and default.dol file look totally different as well, which is a VERY good sign, as they should be different if one is an N64 main program, and the other a GameCube main program. Also, in the DLLS.bin file is NO mention whatsoever to the words "fox" and "DVD" (which is used a lot in default.dol). I did find code that was similar to default.dol's code but not entirely. Remember the list with popOutOfGround
, burstIntoGroun, biteAttack, etc? It looks like this in DLLS.bin.

New State [%s]
popOutOfGround
New State [%s]
burstIntoGround
New State [%s]
biteAttack
New State [%s]
standStill
New State [%s]
standAndSpit
New State [%s]
hitFightMain
New State [%s]
fight_die
New State [%s]
run to object
New State [%s]
run to object
WARNING : Has No LOCK
New State [%s]
pick up object
New State [%s]
throw egg object
New State [%s]
wait to catch egg object
WARNING : Current Type Not Found
Sending Off to pick up EGG %x
GOING TO CATCH IT .New State [%s
going to catch ball. HAS BALL : %x= %x
I don't have he ball
THROW CHANCE %i -> Going TO Throw
New State [%s]
try to catch
New State [%s]
catching egg
New State [%s]
going to kill
New AI State [%s]
aiTop
New AI State [%s]
aiIveBeenHit
New AI State [%s]
aiIamDying
New AI State [%s]
aiIamDead
New AI State [%s]
aiDormant
New AI State [%s]
aiL2_MainEngageControl
New AI State [%s]
aiL2_MainEngageStackControl
STACK EMPTY SO RESETING
None Of the Object Exists Any More
LOCK is Not of Given Type
None Of the Object Exists Any More
Egg Has Been Picked Up By Someone Else
DBSTEALERWORM: state stack overflow Stack -------------------

This different layout DOES exist in default.dol, though, only parts of it, it was probably used in SFA as reference for the new code, and thus was modified accordingly, and parts were copied and pasted and so on.

Here's a comparison between default.dol and DLLS.bin.
Left = DLLS.bin. Right = default.dol.

All of the other GameCube-related strings like
Dolphin OS $Revision: 36 $
Kernel built : %s %s
May 22 2001.01:47:06
Console Type : Retail %d
Mac Emulator
PC Emulator
EPPC Arthur
EPPC Minnow
Development HW%d
Memory %d MB
Arena : 0x%x - 0x%x

NOTE: This part ALSO exists on the GameCube service disc! See http://www.electricpickleonline.com/?p=38&page=3 (note the texture that has been found, on the top of the page!)

It all does NOT exist in DLLS.bin.
My guess is that the N64 didn't have such a lot of debug-related stuff that had to come from the game itself, like the DVD actions and so on, because of the space it would all take. That would also explain why the DLLS.bin file has less strings in comparison to the default.dol file, and would be another reason to believe that the DLLS.bin file is infact Dinosaur Planet's main program / compiled code.

Another find (just for the sake of comparing

).
Here are the credits found in the GAMETEXT.bin file (which only seems to have Dinosaur Planet strings, which also confirms my theory on the accuracy of the "out" file):

SOFTWARE DIRECTOR.PHIL TOSSELL.SOFTWARE ENGINEERS.NIK PALMER.NICK BURTON.PHIL WOODS.RAYMOND KERR.BRENDAN GUNN.ANDREW INNES.RICHARD GALE.ROB HARRISON.ART DIRECTORS.JOHNNI CHRISTENSEN.KEITH RABBETTE.KEVIN BAYLISS.3D ARTISTS.DEAN SMITH.FEARGAL PLANT.GAVIN FLINT.STUART HOGTON.MATTHEW GROVER.ANIMATION.NICK SOUTHAM.MICHAEL CAWOOD.DAVID McDERMOTT.AISLING DUDDY.GAME DESIGN.STEVE BRAND.SHAUN READ.MUSIC.DAVID WISE.SOUND FX.MARTIN PENNY.SPEECH ENGINEER.BEN CULLUM.EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS.JOEL HOCHBERG.CHRIS STAMPER.TIM STAMPER.GAME DIRECTOR.LEE SCHUNEMAN

And what did we find at 0x00303B10 of default.dol? A string referencing to a version from 1998 with the name L. Schuneman on it.

Some more interesting DLLS.bin stuff:
0x002B9391 "Chim Freed" is either a character, or a debug string for freeing Chim (not heard of that character before)
0x002B4001 "HELLO I AM THE PUSHCART" (WTF XD)
0x002B0405 "FInished Is SEt for Some Reason" (they had A LOT of pretty useless debug stuff... geez.)

In fact. After having a look at all the files that are available from the E3 demo and that match up with the "out" file, it seems to me... that it's all... pretty, complete. I mean, everything's there! Models, textures, voice clips, sound FX, instruments, midi data, CODE, levels, animations, fonts, game strings, EVERYTHING! This may sound ridiculous, but we might be able to compile Dinosaur Planet. I have a few concerns though. I heard in a (few) Dinosaur Planet "tribute" videos that the game would have been shipped on a 512 MB cartridge (other sources say 128 MB so it might make more sense). But... all of the files that are located here come to a total of 52 MB. So... yeah. It could be because everything is in a BIN format(!?) and seems to be compressed using LZIP and/or RZIP, however, I can not get them decompressed. Someone needs to hit up Phil Tossell and ask him nicely if he would please tell us how to decompress them

(or maybe I will). But maybe, that's not even necessary. Remember how this development team also worked on Diddy Kong Racing? And remember there were files found FROM Diddy Kong Racing, even on the SFA RETAIL disc? What if... Diddy Kong Racing uses the same file formats as Dinosaur Planet? We could then either get some references from it, [stupid idea]or swap out the files with Dinosaur Planet's ones[/stupid idea]. It might all be impossible what I'm saying here, but there's definitely some potential here. And I just. want. to. PLAY. IT.

MAGIC NUMBER FOR ?COMPRESSION?
So, I am currently trying to get some usable data out of some of the bin files that are compressed, probably using ZLIB or, judging from default.dol, RZIP. I accidentally opened the MODELS.bin file in Sublime Text, and the first 2 words read "face feed". I googled it, and it turned out to be a magic number for Mach-O, and it seems to match with what I read on Wikipedia, as after the words face feed there seems to be header data. When you open the MAPS.bin file, it seems to be either compressed and encrypted, or just compressed. But you can definetely see a pattern in the file's encrypted data. But, going back to the "face feed" thingy, on Wikipedia it says: 0xCEFAEDFE ("face feed") is used by Mach-O to identify flat (single architecture) object files. In little endian this reads FEEDFACE, "Feed Face". On another page: "Feed face", Seen in PowerPC Mach-O binaries on Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X platform. Would make sense, as the GameCube runs on a PowerPC, so developing a game for it on a PowerPC Mac would make sense (though there are references to Windows in default.dol !!), especially debugging / emulating the game (note that Mac Emulator string from the default.dol file). Binaries match as well, they're bin files with what seems to be a correct header, juding from other Mach-O files. But... I don't think they're supposed to be executable. There's a possibility though that the devs used this file format but not for what it's supposed to be used for? Instead of using it for execution they used it for archiving... The BLOCKS.bin does not have "face feed" in its header.

That's all for now! I will post more if I find more.

EDIT: The "fish has reached the end of it life" string does NOT exist in the retail default.dol!! So only in the E3 default.dol, and in the DLLS.bin file, just like the sequence between Krystal, Randorn and Sabre, exists in both DLLS.bin and E3 default.dol, but not in the retail default.dol. Seems to even more confirm my theory.

CoinCollector
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Posted on 10-30-13 04:35:48 PM

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Criminy. I don't want to get my hopes up but... this sounds promising. Good luck.

Of course getting any version of Dinosaur Planet would be incredible but you know what would be amazing about this method? It would probably be the last, most complete version! You'd think this version is the one they used for porting, which would most likely be the most recent one as well.

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Posted on 10-30-13 05:10:16 PM (last edited by Hugo_Peters at 10-30-13 07:35:31 PM)

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Originally posted by CoinCollector
Criminy. I don't want to get my hopes up but... this sounds promising. Good luck.

Of course getting any version of Dinosaur Planet would be incredible but you know what would be amazing about this method? It would probably be the last, most complete version! You'd think this version is the one they used for porting, which would most likely be the most recent one as well.

Yup, looking at the files there are already some mentions of Fox, but most of it is Sabre / Krystal. It's a bit odd though, as in an interview with one of the devs, they said that they had already decided to port it over to the GameCube, and after they began with that, Nintendo suggested to use Fox.... so it's a little inconsistent with the mentioning of Fox in the N64 version, but oh well!

UPDATE: I got in contact with Phil Tossell, lead developer / software engineer of both Dinosaur Planet and Starfox Adventures, and he's willing to help and answer questions (though he's very busy finishing his new game Tengami (it's awesome)). I'm really hoping I can work something out with him!

EDIT: Been listening to MPEG.bin, it is the N64 version (Tricky explains sidekick commands, "Press the upper C-button", so that confirms it's the N64 version). Though in this version, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Kett
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Posted on 10-30-13 07:50:39 PM

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The mpeg.bin from the root directory or something new?

There are dozens of Starfox references in the root mpeg.bin, if it's that one you are probaly mishearing stuff as

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Posted on 10-30-13 08:15:05 PM (last edited by koolaidman at 10-30-13 09:02:57 PM)

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I pretty much had the same thought when I looked at all of this back in August, but it's crazy to even think about the possibility of everything being here. Pretty much everything needed for Dinosaur Planet seems to be here - code, art, music, etc. The only problem is that it's not in a compiled ROM like format, since as far as I know there's no mention of a potential rom header. So there's no telling how much would actually be needed to restore the game in a playable state using what we have. If anyone would be interested in doing so, the only thing I can think of is to try and disassemble DLLS.bin. I still haven't figured out if it's really filled with compiled MIPS code or not, but it seems likely that it's all MIPS. DLLS.bin should contain all the instructions/programming for various parts of the Dinosaur Planet (sound engine, various game play mechanics, physics, enemies, and possible the core engine itself). The file seems to be referencing addresses for sure, but if those addresses are pointing outside the file or what I have no idea. But you'd have to disassemble and piece together the ENTIRE game together, and your efforts might become fruitless after some point if something that DLLS.bin is looking for is missing. I'd ask someone who knows a fair amount of N64 hacking/hardware to see if it's possible though, since I'm only assuming here. Maybe someone who works with N64 emulation could tell you what's needed for a game to "work".

I would ask Phil if he remembers what the .TAB files are (tables?), since each file has an equivalent .TAB file (even the DP files) and if he remembers why these files are here in the first place. I wonder if a lot of the engine in SFA is similar to DP (besides any utilization of 3rd party things of course). Maybe the N64 version of DP was once playable alongside SFA on the Gamecube during development?

Also take a look at STORYBOARD.BIN, this file should be very interesting. It's another potential DP file, probably used for cutscenes. But I can't judge what it could actually be since there's no plaintext in the file (compressed most like, but in what format I have no idea).

BLOCKS.bin definitely has models, and it's not compressed in anything (everything is just clumped together). The model format looks exactly the same as the format SFA uses based on looking at an uncompressed version of the mod##.bin files. It looks like the file could contain all kinds of models (enemies, player, areas, etc) since the model format is the same between everything. I've seen videos of someone replacing model data from one object with another (the staff with something else), you could take some of this data and replace the model data for the staff with data from BLOCKS and see what you get.

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Posted on 10-30-13 09:05:27 PM

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Originally posted by Kett
The mpeg.bin from the root directory or something new?

There are dozens of Starfox references in the root mpeg.bin, if it's that one you are probaly mishearing stuff as

it is never revealed what happened in the end to Sabre

Not sure what you mean, but

Been looking through the Diddy Kong Racing file, and it DOES seem to use the same files as Dinosaur Planet.
This is what I found so far:

0x00000040 = DLLS.bin (makes perfect sense, maincode is first file in the rom structure, after the header)
0x000ECD50 = SFX.bin(?) or ANIM.bin
0x00AA9B00 = FONTS.bin
0x00376BA8 = GAMETEXT.bin
0x0037E030 = FRONTTEXT.bin
0x006C055D = OBJECTS.bin

It will be hard to find the offsets for every file, there are a lot of them, and they all look very similar. BUT, the good news is, that the files of DP seem to be in the same format as Diddy Kong Racing... HOWEVER I'M NOT GUARANTEEING ANYTHING!

[thismightsoundstupid]Looking at the format, it should just be a method of pasting the files after each other in the correct order...[/thismightsoundstupid] One problem still is the ZLIB files... ZLB is not mentioned in Diddy Kong Racing's code..... so I think we need to get those decompressed. But like I said, that's not going to be easy, however, hopefully we'll soon know more after Phil has taken a look at it :3 Also, some DP files are empty, though that might not matter, because some SFA files with the same name are empty as well.

Another thing, pasting the DLLS.bin file directly after the z64 header actually does something when loaded in Project64: it doesn't crash (*cough*when not enabling the debugger*cough*), the VI/s jumps to 120 and the CPU gets to 100%, but it doesn't crash! Not sure if that means anything or that it isn't special at all (I'm not a pro xD) but it's definitely not a bad thing!

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