It's hard finding what I'm looking for on Google. Rather, it's friggin impossible. Can anyone direct me to a tutorial, some tools, etc, whatever it would take to do this. What I want to do is rip either all of the Soliton radar map data or be able to view all of the 3-d level data from both discs of Metal Gear Solid. Now, being familiar with how the game works, I KNOW for a fact that the entire 3-d map must be stored on the 2nd disc, and to me this is a fuckin goldmine, mostly for reference in derivative works.

Now I figure the radar is either generated as a horizontal-plane cross-section of the clip maps, or are stored as separate image files in their own right. The active part of the radar (Snake, the soldiers, and their sight distance) is definitely generated in real time, but the actual green map borders could go either way. Again, it's either stored as its own independent image files, or it's generated from the terrain's clipping data, but many levels have unreachable but "real" (visible in 3-d) boundaries defined in the image that would basically be superfluous "second-tier" unreachable clipping data that would be a waste of map/level data (unless they were defined only at the radar generator's cross-section). Perhaps it's somewhere between the two, but I personally hope it's the latter, because that would mean radar images of the "Jamming" areas (by the Ocelot boss battle, the Sniper Wolf hall, etc) would actually be generable -- I haven't checked to see if there are cheat device codes that are able to undo ALL of the jamming. But my inclination is to think, both for the sake of ease of the programmers, and the way the maps look on-screen, that they are stored as separate images. The only problem with that is that they're nowhere to be found unless they're hidden in the stage files... which leads me back to thinking it is all generated in real-time.

But fuck the speculation. Can anyone point me in the right direction? It would be the fucking holy grail if I could somehow generate a full Soliton map of Shadow Moses, and/or the full 3-d levels strung together, ESPECIALLY the latter. STAGE.DIR is definitely where I should start but I can't even find out how to open/read/explore the fucking thing. Can anyone help?

BTW, this is not illegal, because I own Metal Gear Solid for PSX (and I've bought it four fucking times), and I will not be distributing any of the game's data AT ALL, much less for personal profit. At least, this is what common sense tells me, but the law may be different. After all, if the intellectual property is on the disc I own, don't I have a right to explore it outside of the game environment, especially as a still-enthusiastic fan..?

EDIT: Also, the official strategy guide for the game has full-color 3D graphics for every screen, which was obviously ripped from the game's level data itself. Either they were sent the level files in a common 3D format or they were able to read PSX data with a devkit or some shit... I don't really know how that works, but if they can do it I sure as fuck can do it, and hopefully with 404's help.

EDIT EDIT: Ok, why the FUCK does the board sometimes add double posts together and sometimes not? Is it because it was the first post? Egh.

i have no idea how to answer your topic question, but regarding adding posts together i think if theyre within like three minutes of one another they add them together and dont otherwise

gl with that though sounds interesting