BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Extraction and unpacking of game archives and compression, encryption, obfuscation, decoding of unknown files
Teancum
Posts: 94
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:13 pm

BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Post by Teancum »

I'm having difficulty with some compressed files. These come from Cars: Race-O-Rama by Incinerator Studios (a former THQ studio). Previous games in the series were by Rainbow Studios, and this game is powered by their engine. The major difference (aside from a main container format that obfuscates filenames with a NAME_CRC) are these .XXX.BPB files. BPB files (of various file extensions) seem to be a binary version of plaintext files used in previous games. I was hoping I could get help breaking these files back down to cleartext so I can use them in the previous games. Several samples are attached.

Thanks!!!
aluigi
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Re: BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Post by aluigi »

I'm not sure that it's a "compression".
It looks like a series of binary xml files.
The bin one contains various zlib blocks that can be extracted with offzip (they are just other binary xml files).
Teancum
Posts: 94
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Post by Teancum »

Is binary xml a standard protocol, or would decompiling them be specific to where they came from? (i.e. this game engine)
aluigi
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Re: BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Post by aluigi »

Usually games have their own custom binary xml.
Additionally there are different "standards": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_XML
Teancum
Posts: 94
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: BPB compression (Incinerator Studios) -- Byte-Per-Byte?

Post by Teancum »

Thanks for your help, Aluigi. Finding out that the .BIN files extract data with offzip made all the difference. The files produced are the raw animations for the characters, and though I have to sort through them and rename them properly it means I can back-convert characters from Cars: Race-o-Rama to Cars: Mater-National Championship!