How to view Wipeout2097 / XL tracks using Phoboslab viewer (tutorial)

[tigrou]

Hi,

I recently found that the wipeout model viewer (http://phoboslab.org/wipeout/) is fully compatible with Wipeout2097 game. I did not tried with XL, but it should be compatible as well.

Since a forum member made a request about me to explain how to proceed, here is the instructions :

1) go to the github repository (https://github.com/phoboslab/wipeout/), download zip file. extract all files somewhere.

2) insert your Wipeout 2097 CD and extract all content to /WIPEOUT/ folder of model viewer.

If you only have an ISO or BIN file, open it using your favorite archive tool (i think 7Zip can do that) and extract files.

You should have something like /WIPEOUT/TRACK01, /WIPEOUT/TRACK02, ...

3) open wipeout.js in an editor (eg : Notepad++). replace the last section by :


Wipeout.Tracks = [
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK01", name: "Talon's Reach", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK02", name: "Gare d'Europa", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK04", name: "??????????", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK06", name: "Vostok Island", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK07", name: "Spilskinanke", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK08", name: "Sagarmatha", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK13", name: "Valparaiso", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK17", name: "Odessa Keys", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]},
{path: "WIPEOUT/TRACK20", name: "Phenitia Park", rangesForCameraSpline: [[0, 99999]]}
];

4) open index.html file in your browser and enjoy Wipeout 2097 track viewing :

http://s28.postimg.org/kjo35ndk9/Sans_titre.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/kjo35ndk9/)


Notes :

- depending the browser security settings you might need to allow it to access local files. I had to use this command line for chrome :


chrome.exe index.html --allow-file-access-from-files

- file are loaded using AJAX (it is supposed to run on a webserver). in chrome, I had to fake request status to made it work (by putting some lines in comment in wipeout.js) :


req.onload = function(ev) {
//if( req.status == 200 ) {
callback(req.response);
//}
};


Check first post of my thread (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/showthread.php?9946-Possible-hidden-track-in-Wipeout-2097-XL&p=243014#post243014) if you want to see how the hidden TRACK04 looks like.

With a little bit more effort it is even possible to load models :



http://s13.postimg.org/p7917h5pf/Untitled_1.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/p7917h5pf/)
http://s30.postimg.org/atoksnjbh/Sans_titre.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/atoksnjbh/)

[aybe]

Great !

See my updated fork which:


adds WOXL tracks to the menu
adds Moongoose tiny web server so you don't have to mess with your browser or source files, simply run it and it will open the page on your default browser (Windows-only)



@ https://github.com/aybe/wipeout

Can you explain what are the steps for displaying the models ? -> I'll update the experiment with new options then :g

[tigrou]

Can you explain what are the steps for displaying the models ? -> I'll update the experiment with new options then :g

Creating a github clone is a good idea ! I think about it at some point but did not follow my idea...

For models this is very simple : they are all located in WIPEOUT\COMMON

All you need is to edit the index.html to reference these models instead of the Wipeout 1 ones.


addOption('Ships', function(viewer){
viewer.clear();
viewer.loadBinaries({
textures: 'WIPEOUT/COMMON/ALLSH.CMP', //replace this
objects: 'WIPEOUT/COMMON/ALLSH.PRM' //and this
}, function(files) { viewer.createScene(files, {scale: 16, space:9600}); });
});

They goes in pair :
Eg : RESCU.CMP goes with RESCU.PRM

For some there is no CMP file (eg : ASTER.PRM) I think texture must be somewhere else (either in TEXTURES or COMMON).

I suggest that you put all these models in an array, instead of hardcoding tons of addOption() calls

Eg :


var models = [
{texture: "RESCU.CMP", model: "RESCU.PRM"},
{texture: "PBAR.CMP", model: PBAR.PRM"}
]

[aybe]

Alright,

Feel to fork and PR my fork, eventually I'll implement these myself (would like to focus on something else actually)

Note that there are PRM that have no textures, they won;t have a CMP then (TEAMS for instance)

more PBP news -> http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/showthread.php?9953-About-the-PBP-file-format&p=243171#post243171 :cowboy

[tigrou]

Some updates :

@ https://github.com/tigrouind/wipeout

Wrong camera path is now fixed (no more headaches). It uses different approach than before : it read track sections positions (used by game AI , autopilot and such) to drive camera. There is no more need of hardcoded ranges in js files. It works both with WO1 and WOXL tracks.
I also have added a few WOXL models (ships, logos, ...) available in the first dropdown.

[aybe]

Some updates :

@ https://github.com/tigrouind/wipeout

Wrong camera path is now fixed (no more headaches). It uses different approach than before : it read track sections positions (used by game AI , autopilot and such) to drive camera. There is no more need of hardcoded ranges in js files. It works both with WO1 and WOXL tracks.
I also have added a few WOXL models (ships, logos, ...) available in the first dropdown.

the author has also made these availables (merged and changed mine), re. your PR is there anything different than what he did or whatever ?

[tigrou]

@aybe : yes unfortunately I saw it only after pushing everything and posting my message here. If I had known this before, i would probably not have spent time doing it.

- WOXL models : you can forget my changes and take phoboslab ones (they are very similar however). Phoboslab went one step further what we did, by adding some groups in the dropdown which make it easier to read.
- Camera : phoboslab fixed it by manually editing the ranges. the way i did it is by using track sections (this is more generic i think).

I send a mail to phoboslab about my camera fix (for review), maybe he will integrate it to his repository. we will see.

[aybe]

alright, maybe you can also PR him your changes that shows the weird ships as well :hyper

[phoboslab]

Hey everyone! Just came by to say I'm really impressed with the community this old game still has. Great work with the PBP files for wip3out!

I've implemented tigrou's fixed camera path in my version now. Thank you!

The readme for my repo also lists some of the problems the model viewer still has. Maybe someone here can figure these out:
https://github.com/phoboslab/wipeout

Edit: Added the weird WOXL ship models: http://phoboslab.org/wipeout/

[aybe]

Welcome to the forum !!!

Actually you did an impressive job because without what you did we wouldn't be at this point :clap :clap :clap

I will soon be finished with my first analysis of a PBP file, once done I'll put an unpacker as well an Excel sheet containing all I figured out, so if you can take a look that'll be great ! I guess I've found the raw vertices and already know there are classes of objects compared to the older versions, gonna need to write another tool to try render them, for the objects it seems like it's going to be a bit tougher though.