Materials (Metroid Prime 3)

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Revision as of 01:29, 3 April 2015 by imported>Antidote
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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

Every material begins with a 0x1C-byte header, followed by a number of subsections. The header is structured as follows:

Offset Type Size Description Notes
0x0 u32 4 Material Flags Only bottom 17 bits are valid
0x4 u32 4 Unknown
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

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 Commonly used for lightmaps, can be used interchangeably with CLR however.
BLOL Gaussian Blur lightmap, unknown how to apply properly.
CLR Diffuse map, identical to DIFF;
TRAN Greyscale opacity map; white indicates transparent, black indicates opaque (Retro is backwards)
INCA Emissive maps
RFLV Specular map, oddly seems to use the same texture as CLR/DIFF in most cases.
RFLD Reflection/Sphere maps
LRLD See RFLD
LURD See RFLV
BLOD See BLOL
BLOI See BLOL
XRAY Sphere map for X-Ray models, behaves in the same manner as RFLD, usually with a mode 0 UV animation.

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