FF8/WorldMap wmx

By MaKiPL, Updated 27.5.2016 by Halfer. All thanks goes to Halfer, for rich research progress on world map file. This wiki page is also based on Blue's wmx2obj source code.

General

Wmx.obj is world map geometry model only. Contains 835 segments, does not contain textures nor additional info like general header or pointers. Collision is calculated directly from faces. Towns and places on map are part of world map and are created the same way as mountains, ground etc. File size is 0x9000*835. Every 0x9000 a next segments starts.

Segment = contains 16 blocks

Block = contains geometry

One segment is 0x9000 or 36864 bytes long. There are 16 blocks in a segment. In theory, a segment can hold 16 blocks which each hold 0x900 bytes of data.

1-768 segments are final world map. 769-835 are story based segments like Balamb garden stationary, no Esthar, No cities in DISC4.

Segment

Segment starts with a header (consist offsets for every block). After segment's header blocks data appears.

Offset	Length	Description
0	68 bytes	Header data
68	varies	Block data

Header data

Offset	Length	Description
0	4 bytes	group ID
4	64 (16 * uint32)	Offsets to blocks position. 4 bytes every offset!

Group ID can be one of theses values:

0: Trabia
1: Balamb + Fisherman's Horizon
2: Esthar West
3: Esthar South East + Laboratory
4: Mordor + Esthar North
5: Centra
6: Galbadia borders (Deling City, Timber, Dollet, Winhill...)
7: Galbadia middle (GGU, Prison, highlands...)
255: Seas

Block

Block data

General structure of a block

Offset	Length	Description
0	4 Bytes	Header
4	Polygon count * polygon length (see header)	Polygons
Header + Polygons	Vertice count * vertice length (see header)	Vertices
Header + Polygons + Vertices	Normal count * normal length (see header)	Normals
Header + Polygons + Vertices + Normals	4 Bytes	Padding

Header (4 Bytes):

Offset	Length	Description
0	Byte	Polygon count
1	Byte	Vertices count
2	Byte	Normals count
3	Byte	(Padding)

Polygon (16 bytes):

Offset	Length	Description
0	Byte	F1 (Triangle 1)
1	Byte	F2 (Triangle 1)
2	Byte	F3 (Triangle 1)
3	Byte	N1 (Normal Indice for F1)
4	Byte	N2 (Normal Indice for F2)
5	Byte	N3 (Normal Indice for F3)
6	Byte	U1
7	Byte	V1
8	Byte	U2
9	Byte	V2
10	Byte	U3
11	Byte	V3
12	4 BIT/4 BIT	Texture Page/CLUT id
13	Byte	Ground type
14	Byte	Unknown
15	Byte	Unknown

Vertex and Normal (8 bytes):

Offset	Length	Description
0	short	X
2	short	-Z
4	short	Y
6	short	(Padding)

Block explained

Final Fantasy 8's world map is pretty much sea all around. One sea block or as I like to call it water block is made of 32 polygons, which are always triangles. The data is pretty straight forward to read with the above information. One thing to note is, that there is only 1 normal which points upwards in water block.

In FF8's world data, a segment location is predefined in currently unknown place (in engine or wmset.obj) and there are horizontally 32 and vertically 24 segments to form the world map. Each block in segments follows to same logic with 4x4 grid instead of 32x24. The first block starts from the upper left corner of the segment.

Each block have their own local bounding box, which the vertice values follow. A blocks origin is always predefined to start from upper left corner of its bounding box. This bounding box is always a size of 2048x2048 units (up and down limit is not known). This means that 2048 units or 0x800 is the local max for vertices coordinate before it overlaps with next blocks bounding box. There are no limitation to overlapping, you can extend a blocks geometry out of its bounding box and even out of the local segment. However, the collision is always calculated from the block which bounding box you are in, so extending a blocks geometry out of its bounding box doesn't make it collidable in overlapping block.