2010-04-08, 10:19 PM
I've corrected some info in the header structure in a previous post. I think all the info is understood except for the first byte which seems to be 0 for non-animated MDLs, 1 for models with skeletal like animation (including treasure chests) exclusively and 4 for MDLs with deformer/stop-motion type animation (eg. stone face / KF1 boss baddy) only. I can't think of any models that combine the two.
Many of the monsters have broken joints, but some like the golems are smooth. I don't know if the MDLs can actually do skinned (vertex weighted) animations of if the stop-motion (deformer based) type of animation is being applied. It may be skinning is supported but the modelers were too lazy to set it up for all of the monster.
I've noticed the basic layout of the MDL files is pretty close to the PSOne HMD (high-level all in one) format though radically simplified. Using the PSOne TIM format seems pretty inappropriate. It really doesn't make sense for PC hardware, so I'm guessing the MDL format was just cobbled together from available code both so the PSOne data could be transferred over simply and because that was probably what the programmers knew / had tools for. The CP files seem to just hold the raw signal processing data that modulates the animations.
Since the MDL files look like HMD files that probably indicates the Shadow Tower files were also kept in HMD format on the game disc. Which I think would make things easier because it would mean all the info for a particular monster etc should be in one place / structured.
EDITED: Yeah the golems that appear to have a skeletal walk appear to use the deformer animation type exclusively (instead of skeleton animation) ...Probably combining the two isn't kosher even though according to the format it looks possible, Som may never have implemented it. Something to test perhaps.
Many of the monsters have broken joints, but some like the golems are smooth. I don't know if the MDLs can actually do skinned (vertex weighted) animations of if the stop-motion (deformer based) type of animation is being applied. It may be skinning is supported but the modelers were too lazy to set it up for all of the monster.
I've noticed the basic layout of the MDL files is pretty close to the PSOne HMD (high-level all in one) format though radically simplified. Using the PSOne TIM format seems pretty inappropriate. It really doesn't make sense for PC hardware, so I'm guessing the MDL format was just cobbled together from available code both so the PSOne data could be transferred over simply and because that was probably what the programmers knew / had tools for. The CP files seem to just hold the raw signal processing data that modulates the animations.
Since the MDL files look like HMD files that probably indicates the Shadow Tower files were also kept in HMD format on the game disc. Which I think would make things easier because it would mean all the info for a particular monster etc should be in one place / structured.
EDITED: Yeah the golems that appear to have a skeletal walk appear to use the deformer animation type exclusively (instead of skeleton animation) ...Probably combining the two isn't kosher even though according to the format it looks possible, Som may never have implemented it. Something to test perhaps.