Lego Backlot Extraction

[Tweesee]

Hey there, Long time no post. I just wanted to create a post documenting what I've found and managed to do within the context of trying to extract Lego Backlot.

 

For context I have no experience developing or even extracting assets from shockwave games. If you want to lend a hand please chip in. I'd love to get all the assets from this game including the music and sounds.

 

The easy:

The way backlot loaded levels is interesting. The first areas of each level is downloaded on the first run but everything else, like the back of the studio, has to be downloaded when you travel there. Probably the reason why I remember the loading times between areas being so awful when I was a kid.

The backlot file structure is like so:

 

level1, level2, level3 contain the downloaded assets for each level
backlot.exe is just the Adobe Projector exe, this allows for the game to be played natively on windows
dbaction.php seems to be handling save data for the game, This is then stored in state.txt
havokTeaser.dcr and havokTeaser_.dcr seems to be files associated with the physics engine for the game (Yes backlot used Havok of all things)
LegoStudios.dcr and LegoStudios_.dcr contain the main files associated with the game. DCR files seem to be pretty locked down. Reading online, there's very little documented about them and even if you have a genuine copy of Adobe director you're unable to open them.
start.dcr seems to be what's initially downloaded.

state.txt contains save information

teaser.cct is something associated with Adobe director too, again I don't know too much about Shockwave and adobe director, so unsure what this file does.

Within level1, level2 and level3 are just raw assets.

.hke files are data associated with Havok, I'm assuming physics data such as colliders.

.W3D files are a compressed 3d environment files containing textures and models.

The .W3D files are easy to extract with this tool. This made getting the rear of the backlot, the stages and the inside of the cafeteria super easy.

 

Here is the back of the backlot within Unity.
I am missing some textures from here, I'm wondering if there are stored else where within the game files as they seem to be base colors.

 

Some other W3D seem to only contain animation data. The tool I'm using is unable to extract that from the W3D files so they tend to be blank. The only thing of note that I found was that Johnny Thunder already has the gun when you meet him at the entrance. 

 

Also within the W3Ds was the awful coffee machine sound. Now in sorta compressed MP3 format!

I wanted to get the front of the backlot too. Meaning I needed to get into that DCR file and start poking around. Doing some research around, I managed to find a tool that could decompile the lingo scripts from the game.

 

 

Every NPC from backlot has a unique name that you don't even see for half of them. Johnny Thunder is also referred to "gilbert" in one script.

 

I also had a look into whether the Lucky Pen item actually did anything. In the released version of the game it doesn't but seems to of at least been planned at one point to help with the generator. This was in hankstoryline.ls:

me.pSequence.append([#text: "Hm. Nothing happened. Hey, maybe we need to fiddle with that generator."])
  tChoice = [#key1: [#handler: #yesIHaveAPen, #object: me], #key2: [#handler: #noIDontHaveAPen, #object: me]]
  me.pSequence.append([#text: "You got a small stick, or a pen or anything?" & RETURN & "1) Yes" & RETURN & "2) No", #choice: tChoice])

 

#yesIHaveAPen and #noIDontHaveAPen aren't mentioned anywhere else within the scripts. 

 

The Hard:

 

Moving on to trying to rip the assets from the DCR. Following this guide I was able to extract about 50% of backlots assets. I was hoping to at least get all the textures and the front of the backlot. The files I got was a real mixed bag:

 

A lot of them seem to be garbage data to me, Repeating the same few bytes over and over. (This is where I'd like people to come in to help identify what some of these files are) 

The .3de files are just W3D files and behold, I have the full backlot!
 

I'm still missing some textures and would like to get the sound files and music if possible. But may not be possible with only a 50% extraction of the DCR file.

I'm really curious about that 412KB dat file, It's the largest file I've extracted and just have not been able to decipher what it is and what it's used for.

 

It's referencing some scripts and some models so who know what it's purpose actually is.