Thief III Video Extraction?

Lazarus on 5/6/2007 at 03:30

I'm not sure where to post this...

I just bought the Steam version of Thief: DS, and i must say i'm enjoying it. Okay... i'm a few years behind, but hey... I'm Lazarus. :sly:

Anyway, i'm also not sure if the Steam version is different than the CD version, but in the Steam version... all the media, e.g. videos, sound, bitmaps, and textures are compressed in a file I'm not familiar with. Is there a way to extract these media files for individual access?

The media are in .CSC files linked from .SCH files. What's up wid dat? :confused:

massimilianogoi on 5/6/2007 at 05:23

Quote Posted by Lazarus

What are the principal differences between the normal and the Steam Version?

Ziemanskye on 5/6/2007 at 06:57

Everything being in *.csc files is different from the CD version: mostly they're where the sound files live. Search these forums and you should be able to get a link to a program called SoundDrone (I think) which will open them.

Textures and meshes and things are baked into *.gmp and *.ibt files, but otherwise bitmaps are *.dds, material setups and staticmeshes are custom filetypes: you need to dl the editor to get even that slightly more usable version of things though.

Videos, I can't remember if they're seperate or not (I have the editor installed into my copy), but they're just *.bik files you can play with the Bink player, in a folder along the lines of Content/T3/Video Textures.

Beyond that "What's up wid dat?", well, it's an XBox game, so everything had to be as efficient as possible in terms of how much memory it used and how quickly it could be nabbed off the disc, so everything got baked and stripped and bolted down, rather than say, UnrealEngine on PC which loads a lot more than it needs then just garbage-collects a lot of it back out again.

Lazarus on 5/6/2007 at 08:25

Thanks for the info. But, i'm sure it's not an Xbox game. I mean... Eidos put Thief 3 on PC first, then it went to Xbox, if you say it did. But it's a PC game first and foremost. :weird:

I"ll look into the other software and see what I come up with. :thumb:

Muzman on 5/6/2007 at 14:12

Quote Posted by Lazarus

But, i'm sure it's not an Xbox game. I mean... Eidos put Thief 3 on PC first, then it went to Xbox, if you say it did. But it's a PC game first and foremost. :weird:

No, sadly, it's not.
You have been away a long time, my son.

Ziemanskye on 5/6/2007 at 17:00

I honestly don't know if it launched on PC or Xbox first, but the fact that it's the same game on both systems is a large part of how it ended up the way it did - small levels, blotchy (ish) textures, "low" polygon counts... It's because they didn't have the memory for more on the Xbox.

Lazarus on 6/6/2007 at 04:04

Okay.. we're getting off-topic here. sorry to stir up the commotion. :sly:

I downloaded and used (http://www.ttlg.com/wiki/index.php?title=Useful_T3Ed_Utilities) SoundDrone. It works great. All i do is extract the ogg files I want then load them into a sound editor... I use Audio Editor Pro or SOundForge... and save as wave or mp3. perfect. thank you much. :thumb:

As for extracting videos. (http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm) RAD Video Tools does a fantastic job. It lets you view the .bik files, convert them to any file extention you want... for me it's AVI... and it let's you convert DVD or any other file to .bik file compression. Totally awesome freeware. Every thief editor must have it. :thumb:

Thanks again for steering me in the right direction. :cheeky:

Ziemanskye on 6/6/2007 at 06:46

These things are always easier if you have the right tools.

If you want the other stuff, like I said, it's in the editor package you can download: there's a decompiler somewhere around here that will (more or less) convert the staticmesh (*.tim) files into .3DS (I think), and there's tools available from developper.nvidia.com for playing around with .dds files (or you can google up on them: there's a few other options).

Creating materials and compiling new staticmeshes is the sole preserve of 3D Studio Max 5.1 though - the tools to do it that come with the editor don't work on newer versions of Max, and no-one's worked out the file formats fully enough to let you create them in other things. (The editor can load straight .dds files and use them, but there's no normal maps or other effects possible that way, hence why you need the Material defining .mlb files too)

Lazarus on 6/6/2007 at 12:38

Well then, I believe that will work in my favor as I have a previous version of 3D Max.. 3.0 or 4.0. I haven't used it in quite some time but if I do, It's all there ready for me.

I'm more in the video aspect of the game. I don't edit or make my own FM's so i'm in it for the briefing work. Although, T3 has different means to making and useing Video briefings in the game... i know now the compression format in which the game uses these files, so... my video production work just extended itself to T3. Oh the Joy!!! :angel: :ebil:

Ziemanskye on 6/6/2007 at 17:48

Have fun.

And Bink video is a pretty popular format, so you might find other things to play with too. (I'm surprised you hadn't come across it before)