Materials (Metroid Prime 3)

The format for materials saw a dramatic overhaul in Metroid Prime 3. The format is seen in both the CMDL and MREA formats and is identical in both. This particular material format appears in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

This file format needs more research Need to find TEV values for each subsection type

Material Set Format

Materials come as part of a set; although most files will only have one set, some CMDLs will have more, as indicated by a count value in the header. The set format is merely a 32-bit count value followed by that number of materials, with each material beginning with a 32-bit size value.

Material Format

The material format starts with a 28-byte header, then after that is broken up into a bunch of subsections.

Header

Offset	Type	Size	Description	Notes
0x0	u32	4	Material Flags	Only bottom 17 bits are valid
0x4	u32	4	Group index	Denotes groups of materials that share the same settings, but different textures.
0x8	u32	4	Unknown	Value is possibly unused; the material loading code seems to skip it
0xC	u32	4	Vertex attribute flags	Functionality is identical to Metroid Prime 2
0x10	u32	4	Unknown	Value is possibly unused; the material loading code seems to skip it
0x14	u32	4	Unknown
0x18	u32	4	Unknown
0x1C	End of header

Flags

Known flag values:

Bit	Hex	Description
0	0x1	Unknown
1	0x2	Unknown
2	0x4	Unknown
3	0x8	Enable punchthrough alpha
4	0x10	Unknown
5	0x20	Enable additive blending (probably - needs verification)
6	0x40	Unknown
7	0x80	Unknown
8	0x100	Unknown
9	0x200	Shadow occluder mesh; meshes using this material are not rendered, but can be used to cast dynamic shadows on actors (it's either this or bit 8)
10	0x400	Unknown
11	0x800	Unknown

Subsections

The rest of the material data is made up of a number of subsections. These subsections generally set different texture slots, as well as other parameters like Konst colors and material opacity. There's no count for the number of subsections; it needs to be read in using a while loop. The "END " section denotes the end of the material.

The order of the subsections doesn't matter. One material can only have one of each type of subsection; if there's any additional ones, they will overwrite the previous ones.

There are three subsection types (aside from END): PASS, CLR, and INT. Each of these types has a number of subtypes.

PASS

Offset	Type	Size	Description	Notes
0x0	u32	4	PASS subsection size
0x4	char[4]	4	Section subtype fourCC	See below for possible subtypes
0x8	u32	4	Unknown	Only bottom 5 bits are valid
0xC	TXTR	8	Texture ID
0x14	u32	4	UV Source	Only bottom 4 bits are valid
0x18	u32	4	UV animations size	Needs verification; only bottom 8 bits are valid

List of possible PASS subtypes:

Type	Description
DIFF	Lightmap
BLOL	Bloom lightmap
CLR	Diffuse map
TRAN	Greyscale opacity map; white indicates transparent, black indicates opaque (Retro is backwards)
INCA	Emissive map
RFLV	Specular map
RFLD	Reflection/sphere map
LRLD	See RFLD
LURD	See RFLV
BLOD	See BLOL
BLOI	See BLOL
XRAY	Sphere map for X-Ray models; similar to RFLD

CLR

Offset	Type	Size	Description	Notes
0x0	char[4]	4	Section subtype fourCC	See below for possible subtypes
0x4	u32	4	Color value	32-bit RGBA value

List of possible CLR subtypes:

Type	Description
CLR
DIFB

INT

Offset	Type	Size	Description	Notes
0x0	char[4]	4	Section subtype fourCC	See below for possible subtypes
0x4	u32	4	Value	Actually an 8-bit value; the top 24 bits are ignored

List of possible INT subtypes:

Type	Description
OPAC	Sets the opacity of the entire material
BLOD
BLOI
BNIF
XRBR