Modifying FF8 Character Avatars

[xiraiya]

Hello, I'm new here but have been a massive Final Fantasy VIII fan for quite a few years, I recently Acquired the PC version and I'm loving it all over again, finding these forums I was pleased that there was a Final Fantasy Community like this, even if it's mostly around the only FF game I don't really like (that being "7") because I played 8 first it made 7 feel incredibly over rated, then again I suppose the fact most people played 7 first is why they like it more.

Anyway, I was using a program called "Eight" and found the in game player Avatars and wondered if there was someway to mod them to show the "CG" versions of the character images, this following image is an example of what I'm trying to do.




With this I just took a screenshot from one of my save files in game and used Photoshop, cropping and Resizing the CG images, I just thought it would be something different and cool.
Because I would like to see more mods for FF8.

Anyone have some advice as to how I could accomplish this?


Also I was curious as to whether there was some kind of FF8 Equivalent of that "FF7 Music" program, it would be nice to be able to use MP3's instead of MIDI's.

Thanks.

[yoshi314]

well there are tools to extract the data files from ff8, but i don't know if there are any to pack the data back.

as far as the file formats go, there were some people hacking on 3d models long ago, and it seems nobody cared too much.

i'd also like some more attention put to ff8.

[Tsetra]

I completely agree about wishing more time was put into FF8. If I wasn't using what little free time I have available to put into the FF7 Voice-Over project, I'd be all over this.
I've never heard of an "FF8 Music" type of program, however Samuel's Soundfont I believe with some utilities brings the MIDI up to the same level as the original music with slight, slight variation. Some better, some worse. But it would be sweet to have a program like that, if only to use custom soundtracks. There's enough quality remixed FF8 music to use.

As per your original question, I'm not familiar with FF8's guts at all. I'll look around off and on for a couple days and present what I find here.

EDIT - Wow. A quick glance at the QhimmWiki page for FF8 says it all. NOTHING there on this game. Just makes me want this idea to happen even more.
EDIT2 - Some tools:

http://sylphds.net/f2k3/index.html
http://rs118.rapidshare.com/files/124242233/FF8_Edit.7z

Whether any of them can do what you need, I don't know.

[xiraiya]

Ah thank you, yeah well I found the "Character Portrait's" in 8 using that "Eight" Program that let's you view and extract things only, but I'll check out that program you  just posted, I'm not really in to changing too much of the game as I would hate for it to change gameplay wise, but I do like to improve things, such as fonts and menu's and what not since I'm pretty handy with Photoshop.