Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

.arc files in GCM isos (ZFSA, to be specific)

A

AndOr

New member
Reading Gamecube textures

Ever since I purchased Four Swords Adventures, I've wanted to get my greedy little hands on the various effects textures - like those swirly clouds of love, for example.

So, this afternoon, I decided to take the plunge and see what I could dredge out from this tasty little file that I discovered.
arc1.gif


Opening up the root directory of said iso revealed a bunch of .arc files (archive, I'm guessing?), along with .aw and .ast under the /AudioRes branch (audio wave, and audio stream, most likely...).
arc2.gif


Well, I went ahead and extracted the entire iso, but (unsurprisingly), the arc files aren't of the same format that powerarchiver can open; nor are the audio files of any recognized 'normal' type.
arc3.gif


Obviously, it seems to me, there should be a few people on a forum for a gamecube emulator that understand the file formats I've mentioned. Could someone point me in the direction of an extractor that can peer into these .arc files, or something along those lines.

Thx; and my apologies for spamming up yer forums. :whistling
 
Last edited:
OP
A

AndOr

New member
[update]
As it turns out, the files are compressed using yaz0 - the compression scheme also used in the n64 zeldas (to be frank, I'm not positive about this, but uncompressing the files using yaz0 seems to produce good output, instead of gibberish. Also, the uncompressed files' headers start with 'yaz0', so... :p ).

[after decompression:]
arc4.gif


However, I'm unsure of where to go from here... :huh:
 
Last edited:
OP
A

AndOr

New member
Well, if no one on the forums is going to be forthcoming, I can always do things the hard way: :saint:
pain.gif

Of course, given the dearth of information available regarding the gamecube's texture specification (although I can tell, given the size of the palettes for the 256 color images, that each color entry must be 16-bit, probably R5G5B5A1), this is relatively painful. *sigh*

Self-titled search mavenhood aside, I'm probably not looking in the right places for the aforementioned design documents/specifications. Could someone point me towards something that might be a little more informative than what my hex editor has turned up?
 
JinXD

JinXD

Member
AndOr said:
Well, if no one on the forums is going to be forthcoming, I can always do things the hard way: :saint:

Of course, given the dearth of information available regarding the gamecube's texture specification (although I can tell, given the size of the palettes for the 256 color images, that each color entry must be 16-bit, probably R5G5B5A1), this is relatively painful. *sigh*

Self-titled search mavenhood aside, I'm probably not looking in the right places for the aforementioned design documents/specifications. Could someone point me towards something that might be a little more informative than what my hex editor has turned up?
Click to expand...
Not trying to be rude or anything, but you would probably be best asking in gcdev.

You'll have better luck finding what your looking for there than on Dolphin's forum! Just a guess considering the last three posts were from you!!
 
OP
A

AndOr

New member
JinXD said:
Not trying to be rude or anything, but you would probably be best asking in gcdev.

You'll have better luck finding what your looking for there than on Dolphin's forum! Just a guess considering the last three posts were from you!!
Click to expand...
Heh, thanks for mentioning it; I'll run over and check it out in a few minutes. Sorry for being a nuisance. :p
 
V

Viper_Viper

New member
so... your trying to extract the textures from gamecube games? that sounds fun. I personly would like to be able to extract 3d models from gc like you can with the N64 emulators. Then i could do some sweet animations!
 
dav3

dav3

New member
Aggronium said:
Viper_Viper, can you tell me from which N64 emulator you can extract models?
Click to expand...
I can tell you. Nemu, or if you prefer an azimer spec. emulator (pj, apollo, 1964, etc) Icepir8's TR64 opengl plugin.
 
V

Viper_Viper

New member
yes, and the game should slow down _ALOT_. Then you uncheck it when your done. I was haveing some problems becasue the emulator likes to crash when "Export VRML" is checked. I exported link from OOT, let me see if i can find some photos.

Update 1: Here is the link to my post that shows link :)
http://www.emutalk.net/showpost.php?p=194207&postcount=104

Update 2: Here is a link to a program that will allow you to export geometry WITH textures. Ill try it when I get back from vacation (3 days).
http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=21092
 
Last edited:
D

DinnerSonic

New member
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I want to know if the person who made this thread ever found out anything else, or if he ever gave out his program he made above, or if he didn't, if he even goes here anymore or where else he might go. I didn't want to make a new thread when there's allready a thread here about exactly what I wanted, the Four Swords graphics he was also after. If you don't like this I will never do this again...
 
JinXD

JinXD

Member
DinnerSonic said:
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I want to know if the person who made this thread ever found out anything else, or if he ever gave out his program he made above, or if he didn't, if he even goes here anymore or where else he might go. I didn't want to make a new thread when there's allready a thread here about exactly what I wanted, the Four Swords graphics he was also after. If you don't like this I will never do this again...
Click to expand...
PM the guy!
 
D

DinnerSonic

New member
I don't know if he even comes here anymore, which is why I replied. I did however PM him just incase. I didn't get a reply yet.
 
D

DinnerSonic

New member
I'm sorry about this double post/bump but I know nowhere else to ask if anyone has any clue where I might be able to contact this guy or anyone who made these programs that extract arcs and decompress yaz0s and the like. I have tried these programs myself but haven't had too much luck. Viewing one file in a hex editor shows that there are multiple directories in it, but the programs I've tried it never extracted that directory(one that would have a .agb file in it I think, or it could be just a file alone but it still isn't extracted.) I got lucky once and extracted many files from something, but they were in formats unknown to me, like .blo. The guy who made this thread seemed to have been able to find out some formats but had trouble with the programs so most likely new FSA ones would have to be made, but does anyone even care? Does this AndOr guy even go on the net anymore, and if so, where? What about the makes of these other .arc and yaz0 and other file format extractors? Am I doomed to never get even as far as this guy in getting the sexy graphics out of this game?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top