Noesis/Blender importer for TMC(L) files

[Knaeggchen]

Using this guide

http://modderbase.com/showthread.php?tid=292

it's possible to extract raw TMC and TMCL files from the game. Sure, it's a real hassle to do so all the time, but it works.

 

Someone posted a Noesis script, which lets you import most of the models into Noesis, which you then can export into a different format.

Sadly, the script is barely working. There are a couple of files that don't work at all (mostly the Birthday Swimsuits, but occasionally you'll find other ones as well) and those that do work aren't perfect either.

For once, it doesn't load materials. This means that in Noesis you won't have any textures and after exporting them, you have to manually assign the materials. You also need to assign the UVs to the different materials, which is a lengthy process.

I'm not sure if this is how the files are set up, or a problem with the script, but some parts don't have offsets applied as well. So far I only noticed it with stuff such as wrist-accessoires, which, instead of being placed where the wrists/hands should be, they are placed at XYZ 0.

 

 

 

I know that currently we have no way of re-importing those extracted TMC files into the game. This probably would kill any motivation for any modder to further work on this, especially since we already have a working framework with 3D Migoto. And from my limited knowledge and testing it's pretty difficult to get the TMC files loaded back into the game. Not only are the files completely obfuscated, making finding the "right" file very annoying and difficult, they are also encrypted. Knowing the community and observing many other games though, if someone really wanted to take a look at them, someone surely would be able to unpack them.
The biggest problem though is how the game handles the files. From my own experiments, it seems that the game always checks the file before loading it and if it's not correct, it forcibly re-downloads the file. So even if you do get the right file and manage to overwrite it, the game will simply try to fix it. And if you tag the file as read-only, the game will simply be stuck in an endless loop of trying to download it.

So unless someone finds a way to bypass that check, replacing files directly wont be possible.


Yet, I do think that being able to export TMC and TMCL files natively has it's merits, even if you cant re-import them into the game. There are a couple of people that managed to mod Venus Vacation Outfits into other DOA games, such as 5 and 6. And there are other games that could benefit from it, such as good old Skyrim.