Meshing and skinning for those who can't mesh or skin

[Cyber Burn]

Ok, I think I have everything copied, that includes the discussion between the two of you. Hopefully there were no glitches in the "Copy and Paste" process. The only thing I didn't do was to identify who said what. I'm hoping other people will have copied this as well.

[SickAlice]

Adding to this and not that this one should ever be out of view anyways. Experimenting with a free program called Makehuman in some spare time. Seems very suited to making custom model swaps for Freedom Force.

http://www.makehuman.org/

[Cyber Burn]

If you don't mind me asking, what would you more likely compare this to? The Blender process, or the NifSkope body swap?

[SickAlice]

Blender, 100% so as they models then need to be weighted.

[Cyber Burn]

Cool, Classes just started, so I have about a week before things start getting too heavy. I'll definitely have to check this out.

[crosspotts1.0]

can u use 3d ripper on ps 2 and ps 1 emulator psx and psx2

[SickAlice]

Wouldn't know, I would pose the question at the Xentax or VGResource forums. Though given they're older games it would be simpler to just extract the native files from the disks then convert them to usable models. The people at those forums have all that stuff cracked already.

[crosspotts1.0]

i cant even open the zip it needs a password o well im checking out that make a human

[Randomdays]

Zombie posting on crosspotts question - for PS1 - 100% no, due to the way the machine works. When you rip, you'll get a flat 2d set of all items. I assume PS2 is the same.

Ninja ripper might be different than 3d ripper, but I doubt it.

The ripper will work with the Dolphin emu, so you can grab Wii and Gamecube versions of PS2 games if they exist.


Thanks to all who have kept the info flowing. I've forgotten a bunch of what I knew so its helpful.

RD

[SickAlice]

That's incorrect info, not sure who you got it from. All of it. Again if this mystery game request is still looming I suggest going to the people who created the programs you're talking about on the forums they are and asking them. Chances are they already cracked it or it wasn't possible/didn't exist in the first place.

Edit to explain: A part is true in that "works" but for you and you're specific system which my understand is somewhat older.

It is the way the machine works. You don't rip a 3d model from the PSX itself to begin with though the PSX didn't work that way anyways. You rip from an OS, you're graphics card, an emulator of choice and choice of the specific plugins available to it. All of those things matter, what graphics card you have and how it is set at the time. What emulator and version of it. What graphics plugin and how it's settings are toggled (Openglide or Direct X by specific version in the PSX case).

Since the game in question isn't mentioned I have to guess but going with the era of PSX it's because there where no 3d models at all. What looked like 3d models where either just video footage in a cutscene though more likely 2.5d. 2.5d is a process in which a 2 dimensional sprite is rendered to appear 3-dimensional. It's an old format now and mostly only still used by the company WayForward via their EngineBlack game engine and debated whether it's a proper form to use in this era. The PS2 is not the same as PSX, it was made in a different era and updated. Likewise this again goes to the emulator, plugins and so forth. The PS2 emulator PCSX2 has a graphics plugin with a built in 3d model dumper. This again doesn't always work because of 2.5d and/or it just being a video (Bink Video is well known for this, something Activision and SEGA relied a lot on). So all the above has nothing to do with the system either, different companies use different formats for their games and again none of it on the 3d rendering end on a PC is dependent on those systems hardware but rather it's emulation and own graphics set-up.

3d Ripper is abandonware and outdate. Most modern systems, being ones beyond Windows XP SP2 and modern graphics cards do not support it. Ninja Ripper does not work the same as 3d Ripper at all and is still updated, sort of. Windows itself made changes to Direct X and is planning to try and scrap it all together along with Java. Likewise changes were made to OpenGlide and Vulkan has been introduced. In short this bugged out most 3d screen capture programs in turn. I use the up to date version of 10 x64 myself with a Ryzen 5 for example, none of the capture programs work on it at all. 3d screen capture itself was only intended for 3d printing stuff, favorite game characters in certain poses and generally specific popular ones whose models have already been figured out and shared on the internet. The makers of Ninja Ripper seemed to have a modding purpose but for a specific game they were modding and models from a specific game hence why it's buggy with other things though still the most usable of the bunch. Though none of the above designed at all with any game formats, game engine settings or anything game specific in mind to them. These programs simply interact with the (outdated) memory store from either Direct X or OpenGlide graphics cards on PC's and translate that data to a 3d model. There's been much better ways of doing this discovered since those programs were a thing that do work with the exact game format, game engine settings and most that emphasize on reading the files at the binary/hex level and translated them to choice format.

My suggestion if a model is desired to check at the forums that make these programs. Chances are they already cracked it and/or it isn't actually possible for the above stated reasons. It is not suggested to rip 3d models at all anyways because it breaks them. Most formats have been cracked to where there native format can be extracted then converted via any of the available tools at said forums (Noesis, Quickbms, Blender .py plugins, so on). Wii and Gamecube as you mentioned for example. Using the Dolphin emulator one can click on the properties of choice game and just extract the files to their hard drive then go over to Xentax, Zenhax, VG-resource and so on and ask the method if it exists at all. Chances again is if it does they already posted and shared it if not the models themselves then. For real, nice people who love to help with this stuff and know everything about it by the very numbers. If it exists I guarantee to you they already went through it with a fine comb and figured about anything there is to know about it.

[Randomdays]

Yeah, I posted that back in January when I was first getting back into things, and still going off of old information. I know there are a lot of models out there now for both sytems.

The models resource site wasn't around back when I was active before, but there, and other places found with simple web searches, are turning up a lot more models.

Though I'll still hold that 3dripper works for me and my win7 system for the Dolphin EMU.

Thanks for the update SA

[SickAlice]

For clarities sakes and this more directed to new users whom we have entering the forums RD, I know you know your stuff. To be clear to the reader here the game has limitations I believe listed by number even in the art docs. I also recall the docs for  are off and seem were recycled from  where in  they used a very different process. However neither lends itself very well to game modding. Odd for ones pushed for that reason though mostly the tech was just lacking itself when these games were made. At any rate the game will bank out when it reaches a certain data limit, culminative between every model, texture and other art resource it loads into a scene in each given circumstance. Likewise Character Tool which itself is integrated and used in the game. My count is on average a bit over thirty textures cycled through in a single session cause it to shut down give or take. Just a note for conversion to users here and why to avoid certain models that will eat up large chunks of memory, coming from me who violated that badly myself (I got hyper when it come to that Spider-man one, what can I say). Collecting and looking at stuff like a Poser, XNA or Daz enthusiast is totally fine of course but just to know those game limits here which unfortunately are pretty restrictive for what we are doing. I think it might be part of the reason other games in the same tree kept going, like Elder Scrolls due to having a much more flexible graphics environment to work with (a lot more of the features of Nif itself seem available to them for that matter).

Else just easier to get the models from whomever already done it. Personally I got of it mostly for FF because it ended up being a waste of time and otherwise do it still to analyze certain model types. Unity currently which I discuss with you on and off of course though a lot of that is lightweight centric (I think that's smart personally) and would lend itself to conversion and use in these games well. At least from what I've rifled through anyways. The psuedo-HD method of just jacking up face counts on otherwise simple models to weird proportions isn't utilized much in Unity games, too much to load on phones I imagine as much is it seems to have been on say PS4 game models. Honestly I'm not sure I got why either. Increasing face count increases the availability to make textures more defined and reduce jaggles but only to a point and otherwise traditional most artists in the field can rely on texture alone to make the difference without all that.

I can cite for example a TMNT game which I think is Rooftop Run where the artist literally uses pixel sheet. Like the texture is just a square with a handful of smaller single colored squares arranged palette style. And they just shrank and assigned certain parts of the models to those points on the graph. But if you say it in game or a model viewer you'd swear it wasn't the case and it was HD work. Totally low poly models to boot. I recycled this method among others into Spider-mobile speaking of just so you can guys can take a look at it and see what you can do yourselves with that. It comes in pretty handy when you have that one piece, not much room left on your textures to allocate and the part itself isn't worth the space. In this case it will be a fire extinguisher as well a dancing hula doll hood ornament which itself I also had some fun with that new pose export trick we came across. Soon, a couple textures to finish off now, page arrangement and SpMb will be ready to roll then I'll move to your Cpt. Caveman.

[Randomdays]

 

[SickAlice]

Sorry for the necro too, this came up as brand new for some reason on my end. On the subject of people learning and seeing a lot of new ones here now I can never stress enough to take time and just take apart copies of the games files. More than any of them though the chicken. There's a reason I did so much with and it wasn't fascination. That is the single most basic resource in these games and contains the bare bones needed settings and set-up. By studying that one, learning what everything is and what it does and experimenting with what you can do you will learn exactly how everything in this game works. No joke, again why it shows up so much on my pages in one form or another.

[JoeWinko]

is there any place else to see the pictures from this tutorial? this is something i've been trying to learn

[Randomdays]

sorry for the late reply, but try here;

Edited - it looks like only the first page has been saved. I thought all 3 might have been.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190627025447/http://catman.freedomforceforever.com/rdays/rdays.html

[Randomdays]

I was able to recover almost all of the original images for my original lessons by looking for the original imageshack pictures by their links on Wayback. They've now been added back in to the forum posts on the first page. I suggest anyone that found the lessons useful save the page as "Webpage complete" to preserve them for future help on your own computer.

I hadn't thought this would have been needed since SA had graciously been hosting a backup on his site, but with all of FreedomForceForever shutting down, that took SA down with it.

Hopefully a lot of FFF got backed up to the Wayback and iis still available that way.

[Randomdays]

Just a bump to the top for now

[Randomdays]

Bump to go with the new tutorial