[Help request] Juiced Leftover Beta Models In Final Release

[SxnnyB]

I have located over 200+ "Beta" models in the mesh.dat of THQ PC release that are structured differently from the models used in game.

As I'm not terribly familiar with scripting I have come to an issue in trying to adapt the script I have to this different model types structure.

I can confirm that these files are at least as old as the earliest promotion for the game, based on the cars listed in the files and upon manually rebuilding a file as a single mesh to be loaded by current scripts I have found a garage model that has only been seen as a Max scene render in the promotional content found here:
https://www.gamersyde.com/news_juiced_a ... 70_en.html

I can also verify model content of car parts that have been cut from release.

I have done my best to parse the file structure and have provided an outline of this structure and a sample file as well as the unfinished script for reference but I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with scripting to know how to handle reading the unified vertex buffer into memory and building the seperate meshes by offset and lengths stored In the mesh loop.

I am willing to learn though if anyone is willing to help.

I've already prepped a .bat file (not included) to rename all the files of this type from the extracted files so that they can be easily found and set apart from the final release files.

I would love to be able to properly document all of this leftover and cut content and maybe even restore some content to the game, once we can import these files it should be fairly easy to export them with current script to be viewed in game.

I have already verified that the mesh names still link to textures and these models could, in theory, be viewed as intended.

[SxnnyB]

I was able to extract each mesh for this pre alpha garage using free version of 3d model researcher and then rebuilding in blender to get a single file which I was able to get back into 3dsMax in order to use Current Export scripts to format it for use in release version.

It was a tedious process and I'd really like to figure out a way to import with MaxScript directly.

Notes: The shadowing in the scene and it's overall darkness is actually baked into the textures. It may be possible that a brighter atmosphere (lighting) file was used with this garage initially. In this image it is using atmo values from final release.

[DKDave]

It's easy enough to do a Noesis script (I don't know Maxscript). I couldn't get the UVs to work in your sample (it could just be that file), but everything else seems correct. The unknown value in your vertex data looks like vertex colour as RGBA - it's all FF FF FF 00 in your sample.

[SxnnyB]

Iirc UV_V is inverted/needs inverted.

The unknow values:
I've also speculated to be vertex color in Max, but the game uses those values for soft body deformation.

I've attempted to add it as vertex color in max script but I'm also very unfamiliar with it so something is wrong and I'm getting various colors sometimes, shades of R,G, and B when it all should be shades of white to black as the values are always XX XX XX 00.
Possibly xyz with 0xFF giving the most amount of movement upon impacts and 0x00 giving no movement/deformation.


I'm sure I could get a noesis script going for it but the goal is strictly to view these models in game and the quickest route would be to keep the workflow In 3ds Max unless I could port the scripts to blender.

I'm even more useless scripting there but at least I know my way around blender well enough to use it effectively, not to mention it would open up accessibility for modders.