Hello fellow FF7 modders, I have made a working mod to replace Tifa's Battle model with a newer more detailed one.
I'll explain what I've done so far and then I'll proceed to ask questions on what I would like some advice or to know if there is a better method.
So far I have taken my model and separated it into the necessary 25 pieces and fixed them so there are no openings in the pieces so they will work properly. I then exported each piece to .3ds and made the texture a .bmp at 256 colors. I have then opened the individual .3ds files with PCreator and set them to battle models, the Battle Scale to 10 (this is what the program defaults too), I then check Texture File(s). I open my bitmap texture to it, then I flip the UV maps on the Y axis. After all this I save the model as the proper .p name. I also opened Tifa's battle skeleton and saved it as 1 texture rather than the two it uses initially. All of this is done while I have the piece's group selected from the drop down menu.
I then open the model (the battle skeleton "ruaa") with Kimera and I move each piece to it's proper place applying changes with Kimera's P Editor as necessary. I also set the texture to the correct .tex file.
Now this method is working and I have been able to successfully replace portions of her model.
I have two reference images:
What I get:
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5113/0kima.png
What I'd like to get:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6464/0kimb.png
Is there anyway whether it be how I export my pieces or something I do in PCreator that would help me to have the piece load up in a more logical position initially so I don't have to worry about so much rotating and moving in Kimera?
It also seems that my model seems a tad smaller in some aspects so I just scale it up in Kimera by 105 on all values. Though if there were a way to have my model pieces initially bigger. So they fit easier that would be nice. I realize I could scale it up before exporting but I what I'd like is to have the pieces roughly the same size so I don't have to resize once in Kimera. This is a small issue. I can live with fixing this one manually
My third and final question for the day is that I had transparency on my texture before I saved it as a .bmp. Now I noticed in Kimera there is an option with a check box with "0 as transparent". I'm assuming this means the 0 or first color in the 256 palette. And from what I could tell sold black (what my transparency became) is the first color in the pallet but it doesn't seem to do anything when I check this button. I noticed it was black that became transparent on the original textures Tifa used. But I seem unsuccessful in recreating this situation so far. Can anyone tell me how I can properly add transparency because I may be far off.
So in short, I'm working on a Tifa battle model, I want to adjust the initial position of the models when they appear in Kimera, I want to match up piece sizes as close as possible upon initial import, and I'd like to add working transparency to my 256 .bmp texture.
I have solved all problems with getting the model to work and I found an easier method to get my desired results. I guess live and learn is all I really needed.
Though I still have one question. How can I enable transparency on a texture? This is all I really need help with now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.Here's some in-game screenshots, I should point out that sometimes it seems like the lower half doesn't match up with the upper half of the screenshot, this is because the camera was moving a lot and so it was only able to take the screen capture so fast and so it didn't get it all at the same instant. I apologize but these give you an idea what it looks like in-game:
Is this a model that would be allowed to submitted at Qhimm as I'm willing to share it if such is the case?
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