Stumbled upon successful Field Model replacement video (FFVIII)

[Tetraspore]

I saw that FFVIII was on sale on steam today, so I wanted to check what the status was on the model aspect of modding, and came across this video posted approximately one year ago.

Does anyone have any clue as to how this person managed to do what they did? I'm just itching to start a series of high-poly models and high res textures for FFVIII.

 

[dkma841]

.

 

[Shard]

That was posted here on qhimm by the person who tried it. I don't remember the name of the thread, but I'm sure you'll find it if you look.

 

[Shunsq]

Vehek did something similar here on qhimm. I'm also doing some programming on it. Yet i only succeeded exporting models in obj format without animation. No one has succeeded yet in replacing with custom models.There are some issues with texture count.

 

[Tetraspore]

Vehek did something similar here on qhimm. I'm also doing some programming on it. Yet i only succeeded exporting models in obj format without animation. No one has succeeded yet in replacing with custom models.There are some issues with texture count.

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm simply ignorant but what does that make of the video in the original post? Clearly he's done precisely what you claim no one has succeeded at.

 

[Shunsq]

I expressed myself the wrong way. I mean no real HD model. In the video he just used a dummy without complex texture and complex mesh. I suppose he modified manually the character file ( .mch).
To replace the model with a complete textured HD model you have to write a program that converts a model from a known format like obj/mtl, dae, fbx,3ds,blend to a .mch.

Then you will have to replace the actual .mch by the custom one.

 

[Tetraspore]

I expressed myself the wrong way. I mean no real HD model. In the video he just used a dummy without complex texture and complex mesh. I suppose he modified manually the character file ( .mch).
To replace the model with a complete textured HD model you have to write a program that converts a model from a known format like obj/mtl, dae, fbx,3ds,blend to a .mch.

Then you will have to replace the actual .mch by the custom one.

I think I grasp what you're saying, but the description says it's a custom model he made in Blender. Am I missing something?

 

[Vehek]

I was the one who made that video. I have a Blender script for importing the .mch models, and another script for reconstructing a .mch (mostly, I have to add the texture section manually) from the imported model. After importing, I delete the mesh, then make a new mesh using the same names as the old mesh (the export script refers to things by the names assigned by the import script), keeping only the skeleton and any animations that were loaded.

 

[Tetraspore]

What is stopping you from being able to apply this method to battle models?

 

[Mirrorman95]

This is quite the accomplishment. Vehek, if you could release those Blender scripts, we may be able to refine your procedure and advance our modding capabilities for FF8.