Crimson Skies

[foxmalcolm]

Sorry , they are only thumbnails of the textures. But they show you how its done which is what is important

[Gearz]

Great site Foxmalcolm.. thanks for the link ~ how cool would it be to design aircraft for a game.. ~ just btb.. Despite searching till my fingers feel off, I didn't find any ref to extracting CS (PC) game models. It was never possible ?


Hey Paladin.. Looks like a nice plane.. got any pix of you Dev so far..?

+ OT ~ I'm guessing from your avatar you take to the wild blue yonder from time to time? I don't suppose any of your mates / someone near your local field has built / flies one of these?
~ I'm seriously considering building the P-40.

.

[foxmalcolm]

It is possible . . . . . I did it once before, unfortunatly the guy whose program I used copt a lot of harasment from Microsoft and had to remove his program from being downloaded (I don't remember his name).

Sadly I no longer have any of those files. And I can't gain access to them either. But on the plus side I was able to gain access to all the other files in the CS directory.

I have all the sound, animation and texture archives. but there is a hitch none of the texture archives have assigned file extensions, so I don't know what program will open them and windows no longer supports files without file extensions.

You can test this yourself by taking a pic file and removing the .gif / .png /.bmp or .jpg from the end of it and then try and open it in any program.
It won't work and you will get an error message.

I have done hex dumps on the files and to the best of my understanding they are either .cel / .cpt or .tar files but I still can't open them.
Maybe they are keyed for linux or some other operating sysytem, you know like how flash dev files made on a mac won't work on a pc.

On the upside, the sound files have a lot of sounds and voices that I never heard during the game and some of the texture files have interesting file names. I have no idea wht P###ed_Off is a pic of but I wouldn't mind finding out.

And although they had no file extension some of the files were easy to figure out what they were based on by their directory names.
Here are a few pics I was able to extract and figure out what their extensions were.

[Paladin]

I haven't taken any pictures yet of my work. I will as soon as I get a partial model built from the reworked P-40.

Yes, I do fly some. I haven't been up in several weeks though. I recently finished my commercial pilots license, with single, and multi engine ratings, and an instrument rating as well. That picture on my avatar is when I was taking a course on upset recovery, and aerobatics. I had a blast, and I can still go up on occasion with my instructor. I actually created a paper model of the plane we flew. It is an Extra 200. I'll post it sometime soon.

[Gearz]

Foxmalcolm ~ lol I would like to see P###ed_Off to , hope you crack them eventually. yeeahh..I've been to extraordinary lengths trying to work with mystery files as well ~ max frustration!!!. rojo graciously supplied some quality logo insignia for the Pandora, however I wasn't able to find any high rez shots of the in-game nose art for the Devastator, if you have any luck with the gfx files, please post some for us. + I'm not surprised MicroSoft ( Does not play well with others) rained on the parade with the extractor ~ You'd think they would welcome someone promoting their product..( free fan models and art etc) I guess the bean counters have a very different outlook on things. Oh well, luckily with all the keen MOD and 3D modelling guys out there, its not going to stop fan made stuff being produced.
* I wonder why they locked CS away from fans, and yet opened the doors ( and threw away the keys) with the game Freelancer..??


Paladin.. Congrats on your CPL ! From what I've read you have beautiful flying weather in Florida ( apart from the BIG blows off the Gulf) The little Extra is certainly the machine to blow the cobwebs away!.. Lucky man! I'll be looking forward to seeing pix of your models!.

[foxmalcolm]

No luck on the file front.

I have sent a request to the guys at MekTek for some assistance in opening the files (Crimson Skies is not the only game to use the ".ZBD" file system).

Anyway these guys are the only publicly available forum with programs for extracting ".ZBD". But they have keyed it to only open MechWarrior ".ZBD" files; I'll keep you posted on their reply (if any).

In the meantime if you feel adventurous Game Extractor can open some of the". ZBD" files for CS, unfortunately the only things you will find useful are the sound files. Most of the pics extracted have no file extension and the only other files in there are ".GW" (I have no idea what ".GW" files are).

If anyone knows someone who can HexEdit an extraction program "Please" convince them to work on CS's ".ZBD" files?

rojo graciously supplied some quality logo insignia for the Pandora, however I wasn't able to find any high rez shots of the in-game nose art for the Devastator, if you have any luck with the gfx files, please post some for us.

Again your in luck, I recently bought some game manuals for the old FASA/WizKids boardgame, and guess what was inside?
Full-page (in game) advertisements featuring some (but not all) of the Nose Art pics from the PC game + a few that were not included in the game.

The pics need to be edited as they have things like rivets and aircraft metal behind them (+ this copy wasn't in the best condition to begin with).
And while I don't think it is a good idea to publish these pages on the forum I am happy to send select pages to anyone who PM’s me and I think would edit them for use in a new project. <wink>


After all Gearz and myself are not the only people reading these posts who feel inspired to create.

[Paladin]

Hey, has anybody seen this link to XBox's site for Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge? There is some fan stuff there, with files, and pictures of some of the aircraft from the second game. They also have several files for Adobe PhotoShop, but since I don't have the program, I'm not sure what is in the files.

Xbox.com | Crimson Skies®: High Road to Revengeâ„¢ - Game Detail Page

[Paladin]

Another note: I just found a book titled: "Crimson Skies, Aircraft Manual."
It would appear to have 3 view drawings of about 26 different aircraft.

[Gearz]

Manuals ..schematics ??!!?? ~ woohoo Christmas! where were you guys 12 months ago..[sniff]

weird.. anyone else have the problem of collecting so much reference material ( for unrelated hobbies but topical subjects) that it no longer becomes useful..? maybe just my poor net habits.. I found this long forgotten stuff buried in an unrelated project Dir ~ /Aviation/pcgames/scratch_build/wood/crimsonskies/warhawk/temp/must_move_these_files_to_CSgame_folder/////////

I just wanted a model of the warhawk, unfortunately it all turned to worms when I tried to paint the thing (T.G.4.card models!) I had to make the 3d mesh to get the 3 view drawing etc etc. Its a pretty craptacular mesh, though it might be a starting point for a card model. Probably easier to start fresh with quality 3 view drawings.

Kewl looking aircraft. although those rudders would be next to useless.. " Looks like a fish, Moves like a fish.. Steers like.. a... COW!" (HH2G)

[widget]

Originally Posted by Gearz

(snip)
weird.. anyone else have the problem of collecting so much reference material ( for unrelated hobbies but topical subjects) that it no longer becomes useful..? maybe just my poor net habits.. ( / snip)

Uhhh....yeah.
What's worse,I have all this neat stuff that's too cool to get rid of,but I can't remember what i originally wanted to do with it. (embarrassed) (eye roll)

[foxmalcolm]

Alright here is the first pics of my new model
-=The British Cargo Zeppelin=-

Sorry it has taken so long to show a progress pic but I needed the textures.

To get them I literally flew "Kamikaze" style in first person view straight at the area of the model where the textures I wanted were, and snapping a quick Print Screen at the last second before impact.

Needless to say, gathering the textures took quite a lot of time and effort.
Anyhow after a lot of painstaking work the 3D model for the Zeppelin is almost complete.



This is not going to be a project for the faint of heart.

I haven't decided yet if I will do the cliff wall and Docking Clamps.

Oh, in terms of scale I am hoping to have this the same size as the Pandora model released by Gearz, and any other Zeppelin I do in the future will adhere to that same scale so they can become interchangeable.

This is the stage one version by the way.
The stage two version will be the severely damaged model that was being repaired in the 3rd mission on the PC game, "The Secret Invasion".

**NOTE**
And yes there will be "Spare Fuel Canisters Siting in the Cargo Bay".- "Betty".

[Gearz]

To get them I literally flew "Kamikaze" style in first person view straight at the area of the model where the textures I wanted were, and snapping a quick Print Screen at the last second before impact.

lol.. now that's dedication.. I had to similar for reference shots of the Pandora..
* tap.. Arrrrrgh
* tap... Aaaaaaaaaaargh
* tap....... Aaaaaaarrrghhh
* tap
* tap
* tap


The added setting really pulls the models out of the game... looks excellent! * Maybe just a partial cliff wall ( behind and to few inches above the zep) to close the set in slightly. It's kind of a shame to look at a great model with ten story high coffee cup sitting in the background..

[shiftdel]

I'm following this thread for a while, and it can't stop amazing me!! Just a beautiful diorama you did foxmalcolm, congrats!!

[foxmalcolm]

Umm . . . . thanks.
That pic was taken from 3DS MAX.

It is not yet in print stage it is still in the design stage.

I still have some technical difficulties to work out and then I need to build it. LOL

I hope you guys like doing photo etching, cause there is a lot of it! (rigging, handrails, bracing, etc . . .)

[palmer]

Wow! I love Crimson Skyes world (but I played only the xbox version) and you did a great job with the Pandora! I can't wait to see the Devastator complete!
it will end istantaneously in my building list!