MATBIN material definitions
MATBIN stores the shader source path, material source path, parameters and samplers behind a FLVER material’s
.matxml reference. Its magic is MAB\0 and its version is 2. Proven
Every material-binder entry is compared with SoulsFormatsNEXT: shader and source paths, keys, parameter names, types and float bit patterns, and sampler names, paths, keys and trailing floats. Extra stored float3 components and truncated values are accounted for separately. Proven · all material binders
Records
Section titled “Records”Offsets below are file-relative 64-bit offsets; strings are NUL-terminated UTF-16. Parameter records immediately follow the header, then sampler records, then referenced strings and values. Proven
| Offset | Size | Type | Field | Confidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0 | 4 | char = MAB\0 | magic | Proven | |
| 0x4 | 4 | u32 = 2 | version | Proven | |
| 0x8 | 8 | u64 | shader path offset | Proven | |
| 0x10 | 8 | u64 | source path offset | Proven | |
| 0x18 | 4 | u32 | key | Unknown | |
| 0x1C | 4 | u32 | parameter count | Proven | |
| 0x20 | 4 | u32 | sampler count | Proven | |
| 0x24 | 20 | bytes = 0 | reserved | Proven |
| Offset | Size | Type | Field | Confidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0 | 8 | u64 | name offset | Proven | |
| 0x8 | 8 | u64 | value offset | Proven | |
| 0x10 | 4 | u32 | key | Unknown | |
| 0x14 | 4 | u32 | type code | Proven | |
| 0x18 | 16 | bytes = 0 | reserved | Proven |
| Offset | Size | Type | Field | Confidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0 | 8 | u64 | kind name offset | Proven | |
| 0x8 | 8 | u64 | texture path offset | Proven | |
| 0x10 | 4 | u32 | key | Unknown | |
| 0x14 | 8 | float2 | stored scale | Observed | Nonzero values participate in captured texture tiling. |
| 0x1C | 20 | bytes = 0 | reserved | Proven |
| Type | Value | Nominal bytes | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Boolean | 1 | Proven |
| 4 | Signed integer | 4 | Proven |
| 5 | Two signed integers | 8 | Proven |
| 8 | Float | 4 | Proven |
| 9 | Float2 | 8 | Proven |
| 10 | Float3; some stored extents contain two further floats | 12 or 20 | Proven |
| 11 | Float4 | 16 | Proven |
| 12 | Float5; colours include intensity as the fifth component | 20 | Proven |
Of the 23,352 float3 values in the install’s 20,619 MATBIN files, 20,599 are stored with two further floats and 2,753
end after three. The two further floats are 1.0 and 1.0 in every one of the 20,599. Proven · every MATBIN of the install, without the DLC archive pair
A stored value’s actual extent can end before its nominal type size, because the next referenced item begins sooner. Some files also contain unreferenced tail bytes, including strings from an earlier material revision. The type code alone therefore does not describe every byte after a value offset. Proven
String and value order
Section titled “String and value order”After the sampler records every string and value is packed with no padding and no alignment between them, in this order: for each parameter its name and then its value, for each sampler its kind name and then its path, the shader path, the material’s source path, and the unreferenced tail. A string may start at an odd offset. Proven · all 20,619 MATBIN files The tail holds every byte after the source path: it is empty in 17,623 files and holds 2,235,891 bytes in the other 2,996. The source path is the last referenced item of all 20,619. Proven · all 20,619 MATBIN files Writing the records and the items in this order, with each value at its stored extent and the tail as it is, reproduces every file byte for byte. Proven · an independent writer over all 20,619 MATBIN files
The separate METAPARAM supplies binding offsets, colour flags and texture UV groups; MATBIN’s stored values alone do not specify the uploaded shader words. Observed
Shader names
Section titled “Shader names”A material names its shader by a stem, the file name of its shader path without the extension: C[DetailBlend][S2]_cloth,
M[AMSN_V][Mb2][Ov_AN]_Edge, P[ChrCustomize][Hair]. Most stems follow one grammar: ASCII letters for the category
(C a character, CS a cut-scene character, P a player part, M a map piece, S a sky or scenery piece, PC), the
shader family in the first brackets, any number of further bracketed tags, and suffixes after underscores. Proven[all 20,619
material binaries of the install] Of the 975 distinct stems, 692 follow it (19,867 materials) and 283 do not (752 materials):
the GXFlver_* family of Sekiro’s layout, SpeedTree_*, MultiBlend<n>_*, test shaders (Test_*, Fujir_*) and a few
others. Proven · all 20,619 material binaries of the install A stem rebuilt from its parts is the stem, for all 692.
Proven · all 20,619 material binaries of the install
| Part | What the install holds | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Category | M 11,016 materials, C 8,082, S 378, P 280, CS 109, PC 2 |
Proven · all material binaries |
| Family | The last tag, else the first brackets, that is one of AMSN (10,796 materials), DetailBlend (5,592), Fur (911), Crystal (269), Hair (159), Shell (84), Eye (18), Face (8); the first brackets as written for the rest (232 distinct families in all) |
Proven · all material binaries |
[MbN] tag |
The number of blended layers: 1 for 16,679 materials, 2 for 1,644, 3 for 908, 4 for 617, 5 for 19 | Sourced · soulstruct for the meaning, Proven · all material binaries for the counts |
[Ov_*] tag |
An overlay layer and the maps it holds: N 4,289 materials, AN 873, then eight other spellings (5,314 in all) |
Sourced · soulstruct for the meaning, Proven · all material binaries for the counts |
| Suffixes | cloth 1,293, Edge 914, Glow or Emissive 590, SSS 207, Alpha 144; a Snow tag on 211 |
Proven · all material binaries |
Sampler names
Section titled “Sampler names”A sampler’s kind name is <shader>_snp_Texture2D_<n>_<map> with an optional GSBlendMap_ or RGB_ before the map name and an
optional _<k> index after it (C_DetailBlend__snp_Texture2D_7_AlbedoMap, M_AMSN_Mb2__snp_Texture2D_1_GSBlendMap_AlbedoMap_0).
Proven · 152,138 samplers of the install, except 2,269 legacy names The map names fold into sixteen kinds: AlbedoMap (59,034
samplers), NormalMap and Normal (62,747), MetallicMap (15,810), Mask1Map (5,863), Mask3Map (2,507), EmissiveMap (930),
DisplacementMap (625), VectorMap (588), BlendEdgeTexture and BlendEdge (422), DistortionDepth (312), ReflectanceMap (253),
ShininessMap (156), Shadowmap (21), 3Mask (19), BlendMaskTexture (16) and UniqueOpacityMask (4). Proven[all
samplers of the install] Another 562 samplers carry 47 other map names (FlowMap 113, Generic_* sky maps, Fire___* effect maps,
Extra__Base), and 2,269 samplers of 28 names (g_DiffuseTexture, g_BumpmapTexture2, …) have no _snp_Texture2D_ part: they
belong to the GXFlver_* shaders. Proven · all samplers of the install
Texture coordinate sets per shader
Section titled “Texture coordinate sets per shader”A community table of 176 shader stems names the texture coordinate sets each reads (UVTexture0, UVTexture1, UVDetail,
UVFurAlpha, UVSubNormals, UVBlend) and, for 168 of them, the set each sampler group reads; it marks the entries by how sure
its author is. Sourced · soulstruct Held to the models that use the shaders, its tuple lengths fit: of the 452 stems on the 76,319
meshes of the map, character, part, asset and object models that have a material binary (SpeedTree models excluded), 181 are in the
table, and for every one of them the length of its tuple is the number of texture coordinate attributes of some mesh using it; 56,256 of
the 57,215 meshes of those stems have exactly that many. Observed · the models of the map, character, part, asset and object binders
What the pixel programs read
Section titled “What the pixel programs read”A surface shader’s pixel program computes each sampled coordinate from vertex-program outputs through constants of the material
(FC_TextureTilingScale-style scale and offset), and the vertex program passes the coordinate on from a TEXCOORD input. A
TEXCOORD input declared int xy is one coordinate set (two int16 lanes, divided by 2048), one declared int xyzw is a pair of
sets (a UVPair vertex member), and a float one is a single attribute that is not always a coordinate (the UVBlend layer weights of
M[AMSN][Mb2]); numbering the declared TEXCOORD inputs by index and counting a pair as two gives the shader’s coordinate slots.
Observed · the Gbuf pixel and vertex programs of the 688 stems of the install’s shader bundles that have a pair, walked as DXIL
Of the 3,698 Texture2D_<n> textures they sample, 63 take no TEXCOORD into the coordinate, 204 also depend on the vertex position,
normal, tangent or colour, and 392 depend on another texture’s sampled value. Observed · the same programs
Against the community table, 172 of the 177 stems in it declare exactly as many coordinate slots as the table’s tuple has entries;
the five others are the vertex-animation shaders C[AMSN][VA_Loop] (4 declared, 6 in the table), C[c3320]_VA_Frame (3, 5) and
CS[c8901][VA_Frame]_Burn with its _cloth variant (6, 8), and M[AMSN_V][Mb3][3Mask][Ov_N] (1, 2). Observed[the 177 stems of the
table that have programs] Of the 980 textures whose group the table names (the group of each texture is in the shader’s metaparam) and
whose coordinate reads a slot, 811 read exactly the slot or slots whose name the table gives for the group and 169 read another; the
169 are in 24 stems, all character, hair, eye, grass and test shaders (the map shaders agree: 144 of 146; the character shaders
C[...], CS[...] and P[...]: 579 of 740; C[c4520]_Dragon, C[c4720]_Beast, C[c4480]_Flower_1 and CS[c8901]_Burn
each read slot 0 for some of their groups that the table puts on UVDetail). Observed · the 980 textures The table’s authors’ own marks (HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW)
are not checked against this beyond the count. Unknown
The keys are preserved and compared bit for bit, but their complete generation rule and runtime use are not established here. Unknown