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Pulling models out of a game

Weirdboy
polycounter lvl 5
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Weirdboy polycounter lvl 5
I'm sure the EULA of some games may frown upon this, but has anyone here ever pulled models from a game? I don't intend to actually use them for anything, I would just like to be able to take a model from in game and open in 3D Studio so that I can look at the texture and geo to see how they went about creating it.
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  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 6
    I have done this on Skyrim and fallout, these games and many other highly moddable ones usually make the process of model extraction rather trivial.

    I have done it by the same reasons as you, sometimes its nice to look at others work and you learn alot, you also may notice some mistakes they made lol
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  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    I've done it once or twice out of curiosity. Generally you'll need to find a way to extract the 'big' files with all the assets, and then find a way to open whatever file format things are stored in. I remember opening the cleaning bot from Deus Ex 1 and it had shitty UV's. People do similar things to get sound files, retexture assets etc. If the game has an editor then it's obviously a lot easier.
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  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    for what you are looking for, you should go to xentax.
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  • JamesWild
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    JamesWild polycounter lvl 8
    Depends on the game. Most can be ripped using API-level tools. (such as GLIntercept, though I'm not actually sure if that can extract batches, but it definitely does display lists and textures) Some you can extract using dedicated tools, but generally it's easier to do with API-level tools.
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  • Weirdboy
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    Weirdboy polycounter lvl 5
    What is API exactly?
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  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    Weirdboy wrote: »
    What is API exactly?

    he would be referring to a grpahics api like direct3d or opengl which almost all game run on fore interacting with the graphics hardware.

    pretty much all texture end up as a dds file at somepoint on the gpus vram, and the same goes for meshes just being raw data on the gpu at somepoint during the game excuation.
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  • Weirdboy
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    Weirdboy polycounter lvl 5
    So how should I go about converting those into something that I can access in Photoshop or 3d Studio?
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  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    Depends of the game !
    As stated before, some games have their official or non-official dedicated tools to unpack and convert game files. I'm sure a quick google research will lead you at the right place.

    Else you'll have to use
    3dripper dx for direct x games (that would be most of them)
    or glintercept for opengl applications.
    Both grab content directly from the graphic card, when you are in game.
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