[TOOL RELEASE] ps2ls (Planetside Tools)

Hello,

My name is Colin Basett and I have created a simple-to-use GUI tool to browse and extract Planetside 2's asset files that I have called ps2ls (get it? )

Usage

1. Click File.
2. Click Import Files....
3. In the open file dialog, navigate to the Planetside 2 asset directory (the program will attempt to automatically detect the asset directory.)
4. Select as many *.pack files as you wish and click Open.

From here you can search individual pack files for files names, extract selected files or extract all loaded pack files to a directory of your choice.

It is a very simple tool at the moment, but I plan to expand its functionality to include viewing and extracting terrain, models, particle effects and more in the future.

I'm looking for other enthusiastic and experienced programmers to help with this project as well. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line if this is something you would like to work on! :groovy:

Enjoy!

Source Code
http://code.google.com/p/ps2ls/

Download
http://code.google.com/p/ps2ls/downloads/list

why would you want to do this ?

How is this going to get me certs?

If you can extract the 3d models then you can make videos of Infiltrators breakdancing.

I'm not sure how the devs will take this. I'm hoping they're cool about it since being able to extract the models would be very helpful in getting a head start on creating stuff for the Player Workshop when it's implemented.

Had some recurring questions over at PSU that people on here might like to know:

It is not against the EULA.

A great number of reasons. Just one example is this Planetside 2 map using the Google Maps API. This was constructed using the images the game uses to render the map, which were extracted from the .pack files. There are many file formats that have not yet been deciphered including the model and map formats. The sky is the limit, really.

This is not a third-party app, and you will not get banned for using this tool. It's simply a file extractor that operates outside of the game and can in no way interact with the game at all.

Can you use this to get information on weapons stats and such (damage,recoil,Spread,etc)?

It's likely, though there are literally tens of thousands of files however and I haven't had a chance to peruse them all. The ones I did have a look at held lots of interesting information about general movement mechanics and physics. For example, I was able to find that the crouch speed is exactly 10% of the normal run speed, among other things.

Please elaborate on why Flawless Widescreen is not a third-party app? It interacts with the game in the way that it fixes the distorted default field of view, I am not a programmer and would like to get an idea about it.

As much as I would love to use it, I currently do not and will not use it, until SOE has made clear if this particular program is not banned.

You mis-read him. he didnt state that flawless widescreen is not a third-party app. he meant that this tool (the extractor) is not one (in the sense that you could ever get banned for it at least). Of course it is by definition a third party application, but given that it doesn't run while the game is running means that you could never get banned for using something like that.

-Stigma

some full vehicle/soldier camo previews would b cool to dig from this

@Stigma,

Thanks for clearing it up. English is my 3rd language and sometimes one just trips over that

Wait... What's this information doing in client-side files? That seems... dangerous.

It prevent you from having to download it anytime you run your client app.

Anyways your client will always have this kind of info, else it won't be able to run the game, nothing dangerous at all.

I have a goody to share. Humble beginnings, but I've managed to get a good start last night on deciphering the model formats. I selected a random model and started poking around into it. I've found vertex data, index data and texture coordinate data for individual meshes. I read this data in a Python script and exported it to a PLY file just to see if I was on the right track, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I've run into a slight snag at the moment, but here is what I managed to get out of the file last night.



It's the trunk of a tree from Esamir. It's missing its leaves because there are two separate 'meshes' and I was only reading in one of them for this particular test.

As soon as I can accurately read in at least one type of the mesh files (there's about 4 similar model file types) , I will add a model viewer into ps2ls.

This is awesome. For a while now I've been wanting to make a guide to vehicle silhouettes but I lack the technical expertise required to get my hands on the models outside of the game. I tried doing it with screen shots during beta but was not happy with the results. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on your progress, keep up the good work!

The server should be restricting things like movement speed during various actions, not the client. Those values can be modified on the client side.

I'm sure SOE has some kind of checks on those things, so maybe it's not so bad, but it could explain things like the speedhacks. Also, I have zero experience with programming an MMO, so there may be legitimate technical reasons that information and those calculations can't be kept exclusively server-side.

Any updates on this? If you make an .obj extractor I will name my firstborn after you.

Please keep in mind that all data of this game are intellectual property of SOE. So better don't go around and use it for anything other than research.

Of course not. There are countless uses with having access to Planetside 2 assets. It would be nifty to find out about the dimensions of characters and vehicles.