Machine-Readable

TFX 3View

We modders struggle with the complicated file format Digital Image Design used for their games – so I decided to write a viewer. It’s compatible with the .3 file format from TFX (), EF2000 (), F22 Air Dominance Fighter (), and F22 Total Air War ().

3View displaying the F-22 model from Total Air War

Downloads

Installation

One day I’ll write a setup for this …

  1. System requirements:
    • I personally tested it on Windows 7 only, but it should work with Windows XP and Windows Vista, too.
    • You need a Direct3D 9-compatible graphics card (ATI Radeon 9500 / Nvidia GeForce MX or higher – basically any decent GPU you bought after ).
  2. Download and install Microsoft’s Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributables (x86). Otherwise, 3View will not start due to MSVCR100.DLL missing.
  3. If you are running a Windows version older than Windows 7, download and install the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010). Otherwise, 3View will not start due to D3DX9_43.DLL missing.
  4. Get an extracted copy of the game whose models you’d like to view. An extracted copy of Total Air War, for example, can be obtained as F22 Total Air War 2.30.
  5. Extract 3View.exe to the main directory of the game. Typically that’s the one named PROGRAM.
  6. Navigate to the 3 subdirectory. Open a .3 file.
  7. When asked how to open the file, select the 3View.exe you just placed.

Features

Controls just like in Total Air War's Quick Combat screen:

left mouse button rotate model
right mouse button adjust distance
mouse wheel zoom

Parameters control the model’s state, e.g. damage. You see the currently selected parameter in the top left behind PARAMETER #:.

← previous parameter
→ next parameter
A increase parameter
S decrease parameter

We have yet to identify all parameters, but common numbers are:

7 damage
1, 2, 3 landing gear and the orientation of rotors and turrets

You can see aswan_j.3 breaking by pressing the right arrow key → until parameter #7 is selected and increasing the parameter by holding A.

Dynamic time of day and debugging functions:

F1 toggle wireframe mode
F2 cycle time of day
N enable night vision goggles (only at night)
F3 toggle AGP rendering, which was introduced for Total Air War
F12 toggle debugging mode, which will write a log to stdout (which is usually the console, but can be a file if you started the application from the command line)

You can load supershapes (SSD files from the SS subdirectory) as well!

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Total Air War’s rvarbc_4.3 terrain tile, shown textures, in wireframe, and with reduced detail.
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An unreleased bridge in Total Air War’s game files.
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Total Air War’s ctrcnl_1.3, ctclfs_4, and ctclfs_3 terrain tiles. The X’s mark solid ground in the tile textures. The missing island in the first image is due to Total Air War taking into account tides, which I missed when selecting the texels.
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Unreleased textured backgrounds from Total Air War, which DrKevDog made available by decoding the unused AGP texture system. The second image has some errors due to texture coordinate overruns (the textures are larger than the ones normally used by the game).
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Due to problems with model indices in supershapes, 3View placed giant airplanes in EF2000’s terrain.
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The first supershape from EF2000 I got to load successfully in 3View.
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Software design at its best.
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The Tornado from EF2000 v2.0.
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Home: The Typhoon cockpit from EF2000 v2.0.
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A bridge from EF2000 v2.0. Beautiful details for 1995.
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An early attempt at displaying the Typhoon cockpit from EF2000 v2.0.
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Due to an error in the triangle batching code, one face of this building always lags behind.
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Unused stuff in EF2000: A can of Budweiser.
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Unused stuff in F‑22 Air Dominance Fighter: Symbols for a strategic map; a rescue helicopter; a slightly different F-22 cockpit; a Su-27 with a textured afterburner.
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A wild mixture of all states in EF2000’s new_efa.3 model.
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An unused Mil Mi-26 helicopter in EF2000’s files (mi261.3) and the model actually used in the game (mi26.3).
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The Mil Mi-24 from EF2000 v2.0.
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EF2000 v2.0 scatters these trees all over some terrain tiles. They add quite some detail, but the game cannot reliably handle overlaps.
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An early attempt at displaying the Typhoon cockpit from EF2000 v2.0.
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An iceberg from EF2000 v2.0.
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A hangar from EF2000 v2.0.
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A container ship from EF2000 v2.0. Notice the smoke trail. Containers are rendered via polygons and lines.
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A glitch with the rotor of the AH-1 from EF2000 v2.0, and the fixed rendering a week later.
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A bridge and a runway from EF2000 v2.0.
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A bug rendering the rotor of Total Air War’s AH-64. This is an edge case in the vertex transformation, and I never fixed it because it would make processing of all other models significantly more complicated and slower.
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A submarine from EF2000 v2.0.
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The F-117A cockpit was included in EF2000 v2.0 (with damaged textures) although the plane was only playable in the predecessor, TFX.
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Unreleased content from EF2000 v2.0: The YF-22; a EF-2000 prototype; the ABRAMS tank; a spaceship; textured missile trails; a Lamborghini Diablo.
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A terrain tile from EF2000 v2.0.
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Carrier deck from EF2000 v2.0.
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First EF2000 v2.0 model to be displayed in 3View: Glitchy view of the AH-64.
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Bill’s Limo from Total Air War. The tires took me quite some time to emulate correctly.
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F-22 from Total Air War with formation lights enabled – something the game does not normally allow. The green areas are occluders for stencil shadows (not visible in the game).
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Premultiplied alpha is the only way to make transparency work correctly with fog.
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Comparing 3View’s rendering with Total Air War’s software rendering on the same model from the same perspective.
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With extreme distance and zoom, rounding errors in the GPU’s texture coordinate handling become appearent.
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Displaying not just individual models, but the entire terrain from Total Air War. This would later become TFXplorer.
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Displaying only a runway from Total Air War, without terrain underneath – this, too, is controlled via shape parameters.
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An error in 3View’s texture cache causes a glitch displaying a terrain tile from Total Air War.
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This airport is the only terrain tile in Total Air War that does not match the predefined grid. Moreover, the rendering order messes up the runways.
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3View confusing some model indices in a supershape from Total Air War.
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Displaying the F-22 player model from Total Air War transparently makes the stencil shadow occluders visible.
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This missile trail from Total Air War should not be red but blue. For some reason, all missile trails are blue in Direct3D mode.
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Trying to make sense of the bone information in the player models from Total Air War.
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3View having problems with transparency handling.
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This problem with 3View’s emulation of Total Air War’s ZSU-23-4 was hard to find, but it proved to be the root cause of many subtle bugs: Geometry can be defined relative to vertex data that has already been transformed by the GPU. (Discussion)
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Fixing transparency problems in 3View.
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For some reason, there are green dots at the afterburners of Total Air War’s Typhoon model – I had to check in-game.
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Total Air War handles afterburners specially – neither the normal colors nor the normal textures apply. (Discussion)
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Reverse engineering Total Air War’s quad color handling.
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Glare from Total Air War’s missiles. The color is not a bug.
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Debugging 3View’s problems with Total Air War’s animations.
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Total Air War’s 0051 and 0086 opcodes designate special points on plane models.
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Extending for the very first time the landing gear of the player’s F-22 from Total Air War.
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Total Air War uses sprites for pilot heads, so all pilots always face you. Nicely seen here with a Harrier. (Discussion)
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One of Total Air War’s animated particle effects.
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Seams in the terrain due to 3View having problems with Total Air War’s transformations.
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Total Air War’s occluders for stencil shadows on the player’s F-22 (not visible in the game).
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Decoding opcodes for discs (used with tires) and transformations (used for markings) on Total Air War’s AH-64. (Discussion)
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A complex polygon on Total Air War’s F-16UB which 3View does not properly triangulate.
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Reverse engineering Total Air War’s transformations (yaw/pitch/roll with their order and handedness) was a constant pain during development of 3View. (Discussion)
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Identifying a new kind of polygons in Total Air War.
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Total Air War’s 001A opcode is used only with this dam; it is some kind of semi-transparent effect.
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The KC-135 from Total Air War.
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The E-3 AWACS from Total Air War.
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Total Air War’s player F-22 model, displaying almost correctly. (Discussion)
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Total Air War’s 0051 and 0086 opcodes designate special points on plane models, here on the EF-2000.
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Analyzing Total Air War’s transformation instructions on the Chinook and E-3 AWACS.
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3View having trouble with the transformation of tires on Total Air War’s limo. It requires traversing the Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) tree correctly. (Discussion)
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3View displaying Total Air War’s player F-22 model for the first time. (Discussion)
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Total Air War’s hut.3 requires special detail textures on some polygons. DrKevDog started the game and checked what it should look like.
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The F-15E from Total Air War.
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The ZSU-23-4 from Total Air War.
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This is not a cloud, but a flooding sprite in one of Total Air War’s Aswan tiles. (Discussion)
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The Su-27 from Total Air War.
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A damaged skyscraper from Total Air War. (Discussion)
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The AIM-9X from Total Air War. At this time, 3View was unable to process the required transformations.
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The SA-17 from Total Air War.
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Total Air War’s oliver.3
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3View’s transparency finally assigning white to Total Air War’s clouds, but still failing on the alpha blending. (Discussion)
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One polygon with a different texture mode than the rest.
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Total Air War’s F-22 wingman model actually requires backward jumps in its bytecode to display. (Discussion)
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3View having trouble with triangle colors.
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One of Total Air War’s terrain tiles with a dam. (Discussion)
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The model of the player’s head from Total Air War is named dave.3, although according to DrKevDog, this could just be an accident.
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Total Air War’s shadows use a different texture mode than other polygons; 3View had to take that into account.
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Another terrain tile from Total Air War with a dam.
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3View displaying a light at the wrong position in Total Air War’s Aswan tile.
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The first ship ever displayed in 3View – glitches everywhere! arleigh.3 uses more than 16 subroutines in its virtual machine. (Discussion)
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The Jeddah terrain tile from Total Air War, seen from different distances, wrongly with traffic lights.
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Total Air War’s AIM-120 pylon. (Discussion)
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3View displaying a damaged model for the first time via parameter handling (Total Air War’s ftruck.3). (Discussion)
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Thinking about Total Air War’s 0007 opcode.
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The first F-22 ever displayed in 3View, albeit very glitchy. (Discussion)
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The first non-terrain tile ever displayed in 3View – a low-detail version of the B-2. (Discussion)
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I misunderstood the 006A to 0070 opcodes in 3View. (Discussion)
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First try at implementing time of day in 3View (with lots of transformation errors). Total Air War uses dotted OpenGL lines as traffic lights. (Discussion)
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3View displaying a terrain tile from Total Air War for the first time without wires or errors.
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3View showing the exact same display error as Total Air War.
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3View using an alpha-blended overlay on a terrain tile for a river. Depth buffering had to be disabled to avoid flickering. (Discussion)
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At large distances, Total Air War draws tiles without textures – probably to apply fog. (Discussion)
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Hello world!
Have you seen my Ace Combat Experiments?