Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Extraction and unpacking of game archives and compression, encryption, obfuscation, decoding of unknown files
Xiron
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:09 am

Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Xiron »

Alternatively known as Frogger: He's Back!

I'm pretty sure one of the first three of the files types listed the holds the game's files, as there is no other files they could possibly be. I'm guessing either the wad or vlo is the culprit, and the map file is the setup for the map. I have a hunch the wad is the archive as... screw that, THIS JUST IN, the .exe TELLS YOU which files each .wad contains! See the .wad section of the list I got from the .exe! (I line breaked the folders in the root folder for better listing)
http://pastebin.com/LXAdTXcW
Once the .wad gets cracked, the .XMR files inside will be a new file that needs looking at... either those or the currently exposed .vlo files might be models, as the game does use .pal (palete) files which can already be edited with an editor from another game.

Anyhow, I've broken down my findings on each file type so far below.

--------------------------------
MAP Files:
  • MAP files have the following at the start of every file: FROG followed by "2.00Maybe this time it'll all work fine with one byte set" [no quotes] with 4 bytes in between the two.
  • MAP files also have the GENE and PATH, consistently appearing in the same spots at the start of every file.
  • GRID also appears in the file, usually followed shortly after by several character tables.
  • ANIM sections appears usually closer towards the end of the file.

The first byte in a WAD FILE is always different, the meaning of this I'm not yet sure. WAD files come in sections, which are defined by FOM (at least that's my interpretation, I'm not a pro reverse engineerer, so...). Some files also use DUMY.

--------------------------------
WAD Files:
For each WAD file there are two versions, a regular and a _WIN95 version. DUMY and FOM sometimes seem to make an appearance. A character table sometimes exists in these files (doesn't appear in wad for options?).

--------------------------------
VLO Files:
For each VLO file there are two versions, a regular file and a _WIN95 version. These files have a header of 2GRP
Last edited by Xiron on Wed Sep 23, 2015 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
aluigi
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by aluigi »

Xiron
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by Xiron »

I guess all I'm suppose to get is a big dump of unnamed (000000##) .dat files? Well that isn't all to helpful. I don't even know what those files are suppose to be, uncompressed data that was in the originally in the .VLO?
aluigi
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by aluigi »

The first 2 files in every folder are the compressed data, so not useful.
The other one or two files are vag.
Xiron
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by Xiron »

.vag files? Like audio? ...I don't understand why the game would need more audio files if all the sfx are located in the .VB/.VH files, and music on the disc.

------------
Anything on the .wad archives? This format seems to be a reoccurring thing between numerous games that have both a PSX & PC port, even ones just on PSX only, although each game doesn't pack the .wads the same way it seems.
aluigi
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by aluigi »

Yes raw VAG audio used on Playstation, you can recognize it by the occuring second 0x00 byte every 16 bytes.
The wad files are very small and I don't see something to extract there.
Xiron
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:09 am

Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by Xiron »

Ah, that actually helped me understand why another game I know of that is already cracked has .aif sounds but the game internally referred to them as .vag files.

Oh, no? I could almost swear there would be additional files in there. Perhaps they are in the .map instead? Either case, files are still missing and would have to be in either file...
Also, small? I would only really call the .wads provided in the cave theme small. The options and sky .wads provided are much larger. I only gave that small one because I thought smaller might be easier. =P
aluigi
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by aluigi »

I have updated the script to work also with the WAD files.
MAPs contain almost nothing.
Xiron
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Xiron »

So basically all that's happening now is that the file gets split based on where FOM and the following eeeÿ is? Well, it a start I suppose. Thanks for looking into it.
Xiron
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Xiron »

It has been established by an existing viewer program called TextureFinder that the .vlo files are material files (thanks for sharing the find Miles2345).

The good news is that now with your script, I can view the bundled together textures separately instead of in one piece, and they're cleaner.

Edit: With the save function built into the TextureFinder program it has come to my attention that the .dat files you extracted are unheadered .bmp files. Bit type? Not sure yet.
http://s5.postimg.org/qgjr8nmrr/Comparision.png
(the .bmp also has an extra 00 byte at the end of the file)


Question: Is there a way to make a .bat file that extracts all .vlo files at once AND automatically place the files in folders going by the name of the file they were extracted from?
Last edited by Xiron on Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
aluigi
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by aluigi »

Sure, the -D option does just that.

For your specific case I would do the following:

Create a shortcut to quickbms.exe containing these options in the Target property after quickbms.exe:
-F "{}.vlo" -D

Then double-click on the shortcut, select the script, go in the folder where are contained the files (without selecting them) and click Open, then the output folder.

Yes, quickbms scans the input folders :D
Miles2345
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Joined: Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:05 am

Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Miles2345 »

I must say, I took another look at this game and noticed many files that do not get extracted from the .mwd using the script posted previously.

Image

I am presuming, considering these filenames come directly after the .wad file, that the contents lie within the .WADs?
Any chance for an updated script that supports these?
Xiron
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:09 am

Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, .VLO & .DAT)

Post by Xiron »

@Miles;
Xiron wrote:I have a hunch the wad is the archive as... screw that, THIS JUST IN, the .exe TELLS YOU which files each .wad contains! See the .wad section of the list I got from the .exe! (I line breaked the folders in the root folder for better listing)
http://pastebin.com/LXAdTXcW
Xiron wrote:Anything on the .wad archives? This format seems to be a reoccurring thing between numerous games that have both a PSX & PC port, even ones just on PSX only, although each game doesn't pack the .wads the same way it seems.
aluigi wrote:The wad files are very small and I don't see something to extract there.
Xiron wrote:Oh, no? I could almost swear there would be additional files in there. Perhaps they are in the .map instead? Either case, files are still missing and would have to be in either file...
Also, small? I would only really call the .wads provided in the cave theme small. The options and sky .wads provided are much larger. I only gave that small one because I thought smaller might be easier. =P
Miles2345
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Joined: Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:05 am

Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Miles2345 »

Ah apologies I didn't see, this would help a lot.
Miles2345
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Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Miles2345 »

Would it be possible at all for a reimport script for this game?
Xiron
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:09 am

Re: Frogger 3D (.MAP, .WAD, & .VLO)

Post by Xiron »

I second that question.