Reverse Mesh Converting

[Flying_Fox]

Hyey guys, just a quick one.

Is there any way to convert  meshes so they can be used in  ?

Cheers
FF

[GogglesPizanno]

As far as i know, no.

Someone like Tommyboy may know some really complicated method involving nifskope, multiple versions of 3D studio Max, a goat, some garden hose and your first born child... but as for simple method... not so much.

[Gremlin]

As far as i know, no.

Someone like Tommyboy may know some really complicated method involving nifskope, multiple versions of 3D studio Max, a goat, some garden hose and your first born child... but as for simple method... not so much.

Dude, that IS the simple method.

[daglob]

Johnny Patches once started and explanation, but he lost me around "Then Superman flies around the Earth so fast that it begins to spin backwards..."

Okay, actually, he never really finished his explanation; he lost me after the first word.

Depending on the mesh, you might ask if anyone has that particular one in FF1. Some meshers no longer work in FF1, and in that case, you're stuck. Or it might be a hex that IS available in a FF1 version. Or, there may be a suitable skin for a different mesh (seems like C6 did dozens upon dozens of skins for "basic" meshes) that works in either game.

Best thing to do is go to the requests forum and ask.

[tommyboy]

It can be done.
It's a bit of an effort, but can be done.
Use niftools importer plugins to get ffv3r mesh into 3ds max, re-rig (physique), as that is lost, and then re-export as ff meshes with irrational ff plugins.
However.
Those who make for FFv3r only could make for FF if they chose to, and they choose not to, so I would respect their wishes and not back-convert myself.
And I would expect most others to respect that too, as we respect meshers wishes concerning nifskoping or hexxing, and respect skinners wishes concerning kittbashing.
If we are talking about Irrational FFv3r meshes, I'm not 100% sure the same objection applies. But it might..

[GogglesPizanno]

It can be done.
It's a bit of an effort, but can be done.
Use niftools importer plugins to get ffv3r mesh into 3ds max, re-rig (physique), as that is lost, and then re-export as ff meshes with irrational ff plugins.

But where do the goat and the garden hose come in?
I think you missed a step...

[Flying_Fox]

Thanks guys but I've already promised my first born to er...let's say...somebody else...

Plus, I was only going back to the original for the sheer number of FX available, I'm going to reinstall FFvTTR and crack on..not played in a while so should be fun 

[daglob]

Play both (I would if I had a video card that would do both).

[cmdrkoenig67]

You could alwasy do it the easy way....Wave your hands at it and say...

"trevnoc esrever".

[daglob]

You could alwasy do it the easy way....Wave your hands at it and say...

"trevnoc esrever".

Yeah, but that only works if your last name is Zatara.

[Johnny Patches]

very true it they can be converted back. . and tommyboy is also correct do to respect and wishes of the original creators if they want them for  they would of did it from the start,
so i guess we will never know how to sorry guys

[stumpy]

I know I am late to this discussion, but what difference would it make if someone converted a FFvT3R mesh to work in his FF install? I am assuming, of course, that he is not going to release the mesh and he is doing it just to enjoy while he plays the game, which appears to be the case here.

I guess, I don't see the problem as long as it's for personal use. The reverse happens all the time and no one has mentioned a problem with it. By now there are probably hundreds of meshes created for FF that people are using with FFvT3R, whether or not the meshers ever explicitly gave permission for individual players to use them on the newer game. Moreover (to bring this closer to home), most regulars on this site have probably used one of those FF meshes altered using my lighting hexer (to tweak FF meshes so that they don't look "dark" on FFvT3R), and typically without the meshers' express permissions. Ditto for doing NIF Conversion. Ditto for people who have had to convert TGA and DDS skins to accommodate their installations. Etc. IMO, while it would definitely be wrong to release someone else's lighting-hexed or converted mesh or skin without the mesher's or skinner's permission, it's okay to do whatever it takes to get it to work on your PC.

It seems a little like placing that sort of restriction is analogous to saying, "Here is a public release of my web page in HTML, but I don't want you reading it in Firefox because I intended it for Internet Explorer." Or, "Here is my code for a new attribute or power swap for FFX, but I don't want anyone using it for a hero because I wrote it for use with villains." Or, "I intended the shadows this mesh casts to look good, so no one can use it if you have to turn off shadows to play the game on your machine."

Anyway, I was just wanting clarification if people feel it's wrong to get an FFvT3R mesh to work on FF when it's for personal use, which is how I understood the OPs question? Apologies if I misread the OP.

[GogglesPizanno]

You're still forgetting the goat and the garden hose... Won't someone think of the poor goat!?!

[stumpy]

I thought the goat was only part of the process if you were trying to convert the mesh to fertilizer. A goat will eat all NiSourceTextures, NiTriShapeData, NiNodes, NiFooters, etc., no matter what the NiMaterialProperty. After that mesh-to-fertilizer conversion is complete, you need the garden hose (and a shovel) for cleanup of the resulting NiClods. 

[tommyboy]

My own personal, not-speaking-for-anyone-else take on it is this:
Personal use is personal use, and pretty much anything goes if people are not distributing it. On this or most other matters.
As for public distribution, what "objections" I personally have to back-converting meshes is based on nothing more than an assumption and an extension of an existing precedent about something slightly different.
The assumption I make is that those who make FFv3R only meshes don't want their work back-converted. I can't remember off hand if that has ever been explicitly stated by anyone, maybe it has.
I assume it because everyone is capable of exporting for both games, and they choose to make ffv3r meshes only. If they wanted FF versions of those meshes, they are more than capable of releasing their own, and they don't. I read into that that they don't want FF versions.
I am aware that again, for my own part only, with my own meshes I could release both an FF version and a ffv3r "native" version exported with the ffv3r export plugins, but I don't. I don't do it because of laziness and bandwidth. I don't want to release two versions of every mesh, and have to make two entries on every page of my site. I don't know if that is the reason the ffv3r only meshers do not release an FF version as well. It is probably some other reason. I don't know. So I make the assumption that they don't want an FF version, because I'm not sure.
Why is my assumption a negative one? Well, that's where the precedent part comes in. We, as a community sort of "decided" that the meshers who were no longer active, and could not be contacted, should be assumed to say "no" to nifSkoping. That it requires a conscious consent to be given by the mesher, and unless or until consent is given, we assume "unknown" = "no". I choose to extend that precedent to back-conversion. For me personally. I make no rule for anyone else on this matter, this is just why I wont be doing it for public distribution, even though I've tried (and succeeded) in doing it privately.
If the ffv3r only meshers say, or have said, that they have no issues with it, then neither do I. (I probably still wont do it, because I'm lazy and can barely bother to rig my own meshes, let alone do someone elses).

[stumpy]

What you are saying makes sense. I think I just misunderstood the scope of some of the earlier comments. It looked to me like Flying_Fox was asking about back-converting meshes for his own use in playing with FF. So, when people mentioned the respect-the-originators'-wishes proviso, I though it might have been referring to personal use, when it seemed that the only reason for him not to do it was because of the technical difficulty.

I didn't realize anyone was considering the case of someone back-converting someone else's FFvT3R mesh with the intent to distribute it, which (to my understanding) is verboten anyway without consent of the mesher. For distribution of another's stuff, I wouldn't change anything without the author's permission, not even typos in the readme.

But, I can see where it would come up, since there are permission lists and so on for use with mods and skoping projects and so on where people have laid out boundaries for distributing their content and those boundaries probably don't address this particular subtlety.

[Tomato]

I guess my issue with it has more to do with the fact that once you've imported and rigged it, suddenly you've got a fully working version of a mesh. At that point, it becomes all too easy to edit it slightly (tweeking a vertex or two) to suit your own needs... and then to modify it even further.

[tommyboy]

I guess my issue with it has more to do with the fact that once you've imported and rigged it, suddenly you've got a fully working version of a mesh. At that point, it becomes all too easy to edit it slightly (tweeking a vertex or two) to suit your own needs... and then to modify it even further.

I'm of the opinion that anyone with the skillset and knowledge to import a mesh, rig it and export again can probably make their own geometry. And if not, there are enough Max files "legitimately" available to serve as jumping off points for a neophyte or lazy mesher.
But if not, unless substantially altered, I think we'd spot meshes made by someone else. Meshers have as distinctive a style as skinners, if you know what to look for. I can tell a Vertex from a Grenadier or Renegade mesh, and I'd be pretty sure each mesher could spot their own work were someone else to misrepresent it as their own.
Tweaking a vertex or ten and adding or deleting a few polys can't hide what a mesh started out as. I can spot my own bootcuffs or gloves or cape on a 'skope without even trying. I also know my mapping, geometry and most of all, my shortcomings as a mesher. All those are like hallmarks or security numbers.
And, to be frank, if someone wanted to they could use DXRipper or a number of other programmes to get someone elses geometry into max, and could have done so for the last few years. Nobody seems to be doing that, so I think and hope that your concern remains unwarranted.

[daglob]

You could always ask the meshers. How many we got now doing FFv3R only?

[Ares_God_of_War]

Renegade I believe is only doing FFv3R

[Tomato]

I try to work in both FF and FF2, but if I have too many issues I keep to FF2

[fractal]

I'm quite interested in this topic given that I only play  (due to lazyness in having to convert everything over to  & being too cheap to actually buy the game even though its only a few $ now) and I'm glad to see there is some recent interest in this issue. Currently the only alternatives are to not use the msh at all, switch to  , or to try and recreate the msh/scope on your own. I  figured I'd throw in my 2 cents. However, keep in mind that I'm just a consumer of all the wonderful work from all these great creators over the years not someone who's actually producing anything. Therefore I don't think might opinion holds as much weight as the actual creators of these mshes/skopes & the creators and the community as a whole can do whatever they want.

Anyway...wouldn't the major concerns as I understand them (i.e. individuals who backward convert mshs on their own deciding to release them or some altered form of an original msh/skope) be true regardless of whether or not people are backwards converting? Specifically if someone wanted to mess around with skoping another creators mesh and release it as their own they could do this now, backwards conversion only provides another opportunity to do so. Also I'm not sure how telling everyone how to backwards convert mshes in general (or creating a prog to do so) would necessarily violate any creators works (again people could be messing around with any of the mshs/skopes on their own w/out anyone knowing it & the point made by stumpy that the same process occurs when people convert old  to  possibly w/out consent).

Now if we were talking about one or a few people backwards converting mshs for others then I think this would be an issue but not one that a simple request to the original creator (to get the yah or nay either for any individual msh or a series of mshs) wouldn't solve. If some creator really didn't want their msh/skope converted to  (rather than just not wanting to make 2 versions of their mshs since most everyone plays  ) they could just state this & the msh/skope wouldn't be converted. A problem would only occur if the person/people got out of control and stopped asking permission, altering the mshs/skopes, etc. Again though there is nothing to prevent people from doing this right now that would be different if people were doing backwards conversions.

Anyway that's my thoughts on the matter just figured I'd throw it out there b/c I would love if there was a way to do this for me & the small number of other people (assuming there are others) still playing  Thanks again for everyone's great work that's been done in both  &