Generally modding questions(Help! Updated!)

[chasedark]

I would like to inquire what modders generally use as a 3d modelling tool when they are creating custom models?
I have Wings 3d, but I don't know if that's a good tool.  I tried Milkshape but that program always causes errors for me when trying to import to pcreator.

[Kaldarasha]

Blender.
http://www.blender.org/download/

Some people will recommend 3D Max but it don't has a free license. The student version is for free, but only if you are a student and only for 3 years.

[chasedark]

Thanks!  Now all I have to do is get my cousin to teach me to model better and I should be all good(granted I can get pcreator to agree with me.)

[WolfMan]

I learned on zBrush but as Kaldarasha pointed out, Blender is free. zBrush cost around $750.00 but I have done so much with it that it has really paid for itself already!! Please on pixologics website(the creators of zBrush) the is an entire school of forums and tutorials in a classrooom style. And its FREEE!!!! Software is expensive but full blown front to back classes for free pays for the software all on its own. In my opinion

[chasedark]

Well, here's another important question:

I saw someone had done it, but what would happen if I replaced one character's skeleton+animations with anothers?(IE: Gave Barret Cloud's skeleton and animations)  Would they end up using the character's skills but show the skeleton's animation?  would it just end up being really wonky?

I guess a continuation of this question would be, is there a way to change one character into another(both playable) and make them use different limit breaks?

[cmh175]

Definitely check out the Red XIII Werewolf thread, that's exactly what's being done.

[WolfMan]

I have the tutorial finished here.

---

-Final Fantasy 7 Tutorials By Kuroda Masahiro-
How to make Nanaki a human.


1 - First we need to begin by changing the battle skeleton, for all intents and purposes, we’ll be using Barret’s skeletons.

2 - Barret’s battle skeletons are sbaa, scaa, sdaa and seaa, each one is used for different battle animations for his weapons, the standard one is sbaa, which has the initial weapon.

3 – Use Kimera 0.95 onwards and save sbaa as rwaa which will overwrite Nanaki’s battle model.

4 – In order for this to take effect, we need to create a new battle.lgp instead of simply inserting the model, this will prevent issues, such as crashing and missing body parts.

5 – In order to ensure the battle animations work correctly, we need to change his limit breaks and weapon information, but that can come afterwards.

6 – The real meat of the change is the field side, field models and animations are stored separately to allow for different models to make use of them, and in terms of these animations, from the playable characters, there are 9 skeletons with their own animations.

7 – For simplicity we shall refer to them as follows:
Cloud is Skeleton A
Aeris is Skeleton B
Barret is Skeleton C
Tifa is Skeleton D
Nanaki is Skeleton E
Yuffie is Skeleton F
Cait Sith is Skeleton G
Vincent is Skeleton H
And Cid is Skeleton I.

8 – In terms of the NPCs, the vast majority use Skeleton A and B, so it is not recommended to change the playable characters on the field for who is Cloud or Aeris because of this, but this means we can make any of the 7 barring the latter with any of the 9 skeletons.

9 – In order to do this, we need to identify what the animations are, for the sake of this tutorial, we shall replace Nanaki with Skeleton C.

10 – In Kimera 0.97a, open adda.hrc and click on ‘Show har.lgp DB’ which will open up the list of what models use which animations, from there, we need to find adda.hrc (Nanaki) and make a list of every animation that he can use.

11 – A basic list example is this:
aeae.a -
aeaf.a -
aeba.a -
ajgc.a -
aqae.a -
aqaf.a -
dcia.a -
egce.a -
ecbe.a -
egcf.a -
ajgd.a –

12 – Then we need to load each of these animations using Kimera and list what does what, like so.

aeae.a - Idle
aeaf.a - Walk
aeba.a - Run
ajgc.a – Shaking Head
aqae.a - limp walk or shoulder barge
aqaf.a – Sniffing or looking up
dcia.a - Howling
egce.a – Lying down, tail shaking.
ecbe.a – Getting up and sitting down again
egcf.a – Sitting down and getting up again
ajgd.a – Scratching his ear

13 – Now we need to find out what animations Barret has, we do this by opening acgd.hrc, which is Barret and making a list of every animation that he can use, like so.

adcb.a –
adcc.a –
adcd.a –
hojf.a –
aqad.a –
byfe.a –
hpaa.a –
didb.a –
caga.a –
didc.a –
agga.a –

14 – Then we open and find out what each of these animations do, like so.

adcb.a – Idle
adcc.a – Walk
adcd.a – Run
hojf.a – Stretching, but his feet are 90 degrees up.
aqad.a – Waist and leg wiggle
byfe.a –Waist and leg wiggle opposite direction.
hpaa.a – Raising right arm to point, then shakes his head
didb.a – Shrugging
caga.a – Handing someone something with his left hand.
didc.a – Beckoning someone to come over with his right hand.
agga.a – Disheartened, tired or angry looking down and shaking hands and shoulders.

15 – Then from the lists we compiled, we find what animations can be used instead of each one, then we copy each of the default animations to a secondary location, back them up before actually switching them over in case we make a mistake.

16 – Now that we have the animations sorted, we need to get the field skeletons sorted, to begin with, copy and rename acgd.hrc to something else, such as ncgd.hrc and then open it with a hex editor.

17 – Change every single model part, texture and rsd from axxx to the same name, except with an nxxx instead.

18 – Save it as adda.hrc.

19 – Now you can change the new Nanaki’s field and battle model to whatever you want and it won’t have any issues physically loading.

–Fixing the limit breaks and weapon data-

20 – You can use Wallmarket to directly change Nanaki’s limit breaks to Barret’s under the character information, and simply copy all of the weapon data for Barret’s wepons across to Nanaki, pay special attention to the attack sound, effect and whether its long range or not.

[chasedark]

Thanks for the tutorial lol.  The part that was annoying me the most was field models, Since I wanted to change Barret's field model but I didn't know to open a hex editor(Not that I'm sure I'll be able to figure out what to do with a hex editor at that point).

[WolfMan]

Yeah that's full tutorial from battle to field so u can change an entire character.

[chasedark]

Edit: Looks like It's just kimera being weird in general.  Version 81 works fine, but it makes them too dark.  Gonna learn how to fix that.  once I get the full hang of Kimera I think I may be able to do a lot more with it than I thought.  After some help from Kuroda Masahiro I was able to splice Young Cloud's ponytail onto Cloud's battle model head Yay.

Also working on changing the animations and parts for cloud to make it MP Cloud.  This will be a long process but hopefully worth it.

[chasedark]

New question after two weeks.  I'm trying to make cloud into a goblin(yes, a tiny goblin).  But I wanted to know if there's a way to fix the animations to fit the size of the parts or if I'll just have to move the parts individually or something.  I'm pretty sure if I start from square-0 on all parts in animations I should be able to get it going, but is there any other way?

Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out.
However, now I wanna know if it's actually possible to use kimera's "Computer weapon position" button.