KURO NO KISEKI mod

[coomi]

7 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

No I didn't bother doing any UV mapping, because I thought such a small change would not deviate so much to the point that the texture is wrong. I mean I'm merely modifying the shape of the mesh, not changing to another position. More importantly, when I imported the texture .png file, it's not aligned right, so there was no way for me to check the mappings:

You will have to either edit the texture or the UV map. Currently it's using the texture from a different part of the body.

7 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

As you can see, it would look right if I could flip the mapping vertically or 180 degree, yet when loaded in game, everything looks correct. This was one of the questions I was hoping to ask you...

This is normal with Kuro textures. I made vertically flipped copies of all my textures just to display them in Blender. There should also be a checkbox when importing/exporting a mesh that you can tick to flip the Y axis.

[amorrow28]

7 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

 

Hmm..I don't know what "normal vectors" are but let me go google them.

 

The weight groups should be no problem: the lower body part only has 3 weight groups and I thoroughly checked that on both lakovic and jmedia7's meshes, and these groups are actually very consistent and there wasn't even any need for me to rename them.

 

No I didn't bother doing any UV mapping, because I thought such a small change would not deviate so much to the point that the texture is wrong. I mean I'm merely modifying the shape of the mesh, not changing to another position. More importantly, when I imported the texture .png file, it's not aligned right, so there was no way for me to check the mappings:

 

 

As you can see, it would look right if I could flip the mapping vertically or 180 degree, yet when loaded in game, everything looks correct. This was one of the questions I was hoping to ask you...

The UV maps are flipped in game. The solution is to flip your DDS file before exporting to PNG to preview in Blender.

 

I do not think you can assume that you can keep the UV mapping. lakovic almost certainly moved the mapping when using jmedia7’s mod as a base since the base for lakovic’s mod was the original Judith model in the game.

[amorrow28]

10 hours ago, rastafarid said:

Did someon ever made mods for Ys8 or 9 here ?

 

Normally I would encourage you to make your own mods (and actually I am still encouraging you to make your own mods) but I actually started playing Ys 8 this past week or so.  So consider this a sneak peek!

 

 

I make no promises for now.  Modding this game is a huge pain.  (And yes, that is a @coomi mod, I love his mods and he has given me carte blanche to use them in the past, sooo...  hopefully coomi you don't mind me using them now!)

[tigers]

1 hour ago, amorrow28 said:

 

Normally I would encourage you to make your own mods (and actually I am still encouraging you to make your own mods) but I actually started playing Ys 8 this past week or so.  So consider this a sneak peek!

 

 

I make no promises for now.  Modding this game is a huge pain.  (And yes, that is a @coomi mod, I love his mods and he has given me carte blanche to use them in the past, sooo...  hopefully coomi you don't mind me using them now!)

you are a god!

Time to start redownloading YS8

[fakecheng]

On 12/5/2022 at 3:31 PM, Divergence009 said:

Edit: this is that final look of the mesh, and it shows even more feel of that "battered metal".

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

About the mesh,try select the whole mesh in Edit Mode,then go to Mesh --> Normals --> Reset Vectors to see if it work.

Spoiler

 

 

As for the textures,you need to make sure the uv map are at the correct position:

Go to UV Editing,select both mesh you want to edit,press C and paint the part you want to edit(make sure you are at edit mode),compare two uv map and move the uv map to the same position if they are not already.

 

For example,I want to move part of the swimsuit from Model A to Model B,let's check both model uv map position:

Spoiler

 

As you can see,they are not at the same position.Since I want to move part of the swimsuit from Model A to Model B,I will move the uv map from Model A to the same position as Model B as well:

Spoiler

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by fakecheng

[lakovic]

On 12/5/2022 at 3:31 PM, Divergence009 said:

Hello, amorrow28!

 

Thank you for your tutorials, I was learning the stuff you had in those tutorial posts because I was hoping to make some changes to an existing mod. After spending a week into trial and error, it didn't turn out so well. I was hoping that you could help me out by giving me some directions and tips. It'd be much appreciated ?

 

 

Here is a bit of context:

 

I had no prior knowledge in 3D modeling, so I started with purchasing this book: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/103212167X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I spent about a month reading through the relevant chapters, and then I went through your tutorials, starting from the youtube video by Ikaros. I went through them multiple times to make sure that I understood the material as best as I could. 

 

This is I was hoping to achieve: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

This mod is made by lakovic, and he used the meshes from jmedia7's mods: 

and I found it to be easily the best mods on the forum, even without counting in the extra costumes he added. While I really like the changes he made (high polycount on the breasts, fixing the mesh problems from jmedia7's original work, etc), I'm really not a fan of the change he made on the lower part body. It looks weird and like a "W" 

 

 

 

I was hoping to bring back jmedia7's original shape for the lower part body and replace the part of lakovic's mesh while keeping the rest of lakovic's work untouched.  Then I'll export the revised mesh and continue to use lakovic's mod.

 

 

Here is the effort I put in:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Step 1: I loaded both meshes into Blender and selected the faces on the lower body part on lakovic's mesh, and then made a copy of that small mesh and moved it over to jmedia7's mesh.

 

 

 

Step 2: I selected all the faces on jmedia7's mesh, which together they approximate that small piece of mesh from lakovic's mesh.

 

 

Step 3: Then I cut the selected faces (more like making a copy) on jmedia7's mesh, and move them back to lakovic's mesh. Before I did that, I deleted the faces that was selected on lakovic's mesh. 

 

 

 

 

Step 4: Close the gaps by connecting all the vertices using "Snap to Vertex" => transfer the weight => join the two meshes => do a "Merge by distance" to eliminate any seams. 

 

I have to say this part is the most tricky part. As a beginner, I did the best I could but apparently not good enough. I sometimes had to resort to subdividing a face to artificially create more vertices so I could do the snap. I tried to always move the vertices of the transplanted mesh (from jmedia7), and leave the original mesh alone.

 

 

 

 

I then did an export, copied the original .ini file over, split the vb files with your python script, and loaded it back into the game.

 

Final result (not very good at all, unfortunately)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

As you can see, it doesn't look like jmedia7's original mesh. On top of that, if you imagine the mesh is a metal container, then the lower body part looks like it was hammered or smashed, resulting all that "dent" looking. Last but not least, I don't know where that little "dot" came from (just above). I checked the mesh many times and couldn't figure out why.

 

By comparison, this is lakovic's mod. It looks very "smooth" and has none of the issues I have. 

 

 

 

 

At this point I feel like I'm out of options. I did it in the best way I know yet the result is less than satisfactory. I also tried to directly modify lakovic's mesh by hand (pulling / moving around the vertices) but it was a mess.

 

Besides, when you do a mod like this, how do you populate the change to the rest of the female characters in game? There is no way (for example) lakovic manually did the modification for each character.

Could you please help out a rookie modder? I'm happy to spend time and effort on the task but I think I need some directions and advice here. ?

 

Edit: this is that final look of the mesh, and it shows even more feel of that "battered metal".

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm sorry, due to China's reasons, I rarely have the opportunity to browse foreign websites. I didn't see your post until now. I am very happy that other people continue the modification of kuro-no-kiseki-mod, and I am also happy Share my method with you. Just like @amorrow28, he contributes his method of making mods to the forum for free, so there are so many excellent works.

I noticed that you grabbed a triangle-like surface to replace the body under my model, but this will cause some points to be misaligned, and the subsequent repair work will take a lot of time.

 

Below is my method

Spoiler

I suggest something similar to mine below to grab more faces.

1. Import agnesbody.vb, make a copy (used as transfer weight), and import the initial model of @jmedia7

Spoiler

2. Select the model base to be retained, similar to the picture

Spoiler

3. Stitch these two parts together, first select cover.vb, (cover.vb here is a model from jmedia7, any one is fine). Then select agnesbody.vb.001, ctrl+j, merge them together, and deal with the problem of edge connection (I believe you know how to deal with this part, I won’t go into details here)

Spoiler

4. Switch to object mode, you can also see that the two models still have obvious edges

Spoiler

5. Press tab to return to edit mode,
Normal - Auto smooth, remove the tick
Press a to select all models, press M, merge - by distance

Spoiler

6. Press tab again to return to the object mode. At this time, you will find that the hard edges of the model are gone (this step is just to check)

Spoiler

7. Go back to the editing mode, press ctrl+g, remove all groups, transfer the weight of the agnes.vb model we copied earlier to the model just made, that is, transfer the weight of agnesbody.vb to agnesbody.vb. 001, if you don't understand this weight transfer, you can take a look at the tutorial

Spoiler

8. Export the model and replace the original model in my folder, successfully

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by lakovic

[lakovic]

3 minutes ago, lakovic said:

I'm sorry, due to China's reasons, I rarely have the opportunity to browse foreign websites. I didn't see your post until now. I am very happy that other people continue the modification of kuro-no-kiseki-mod, and I am also happy Share my method with you. Just like @amorrow28, he contributes his method of making mods to the forum for free, so there are so many excellent works.

I noticed that you grabbed a triangle-like surface to replace the body under my model, but this will cause some points to be misaligned, and the subsequent repair work will take a lot of time.

 

Below is my method

  Hide contents

I suggest something similar to mine below to grab more faces.

1. Import agnesbody.vb, make a copy (used as transfer weight), and import the initial model of @jmedia7.

  Reveal hidden contents

2. Select the model base to be retained, similar to the picture

  Reveal hidden contents

3. Stitch these two parts together, first select cover.vb, (cover.vb here is a model from jmedia7, any one is fine). Then select agnesbody.vb.001, ctrl+j, merge them together, and deal with the problem of edge connection (I believe you know how to deal with this part, I won’t go into details here)

  Reveal hidden contents

4. Switch to object mode, you can also see that the two models still have obvious edges

  Reveal hidden contents

5. Press tab to return to edit mode,
Normal - Auto smooth, remove the tick
Press a to select all models, press M, merge - by distance

  Reveal hidden contents

6. Press tab again to return to the object mode. At this time, you will find that the hard edges of the model are gone (this step is just to check)

  Reveal hidden contents

7. Go back to the editing mode, press ctrl+g, remove all groups, transfer the weight of the agnes.vb model we copied earlier to the model just made, that is, transfer the weight of agnesbody.vb to agnesbody.vb. 001, if you don't understand this weight transfer, you can take a look at the tutorial

  Reveal hidden contents

8. Export the model and replace the original model in my folder, successfully

  Hide contents

 

 

The following is the agnesbody model I replaced. I replaced the model in the folder Mods\UnSkirtMod\Agnes\Bathing

Bathing.zip

[Divergence009]

On 12/6/2022 at 6:10 AM, fakecheng said:

About the mesh,try select the whole mesh in Edit Mode,then go to Mesh --> Normals --> Reset Vectors to see if it work.

  Hide contents

 

 

As for the textures,you need to make sure the uv map are at the correct position:

Go to UV Editing,select both mesh you want to edit,press C and paint the part you want to edit(make sure you are at edit mode),compare two uv map and move the uv map to the same position if they are not already.

 

For example,I want to move part of the swimsuit from Model A to Model B,let's check both model uv map position:

  Hide contents

 

As you can see,they are not at the same position.Since I want to move part of the swimsuit from Model A to Model B,I will move the uv map from Model A to the same position as Model B as well:

  Hide contents

 

 

Hello, fakecheng, thank you very much. Sorry for not replying earlier. I saw your reply as well as others's right after you created your posts, but instead just replying and say thanks, I was hoping to do that when I can bring back some results or at least questions. 

 

First of all, I tried resetting the normal vectors, and there is indeed some improvement:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Though that's more or less irrelevant, because I took the wrong approach here. Still that's something useful. When amorrow28 first said my normal vectors were wrong, I thought he meant some of the faces are flipped.

 

and then after playing around more with the textures and the UV mapping, I'm starting to see what you mean: 

 

Spoiler

Whenever you selected some vertices/faces in the 3D Viewport, doesn't matter from which mesh, in the UV Editing window it's always going to show up at the same spot. It doesn't seem to matter if the selected vertices/mesh is a duplicate, or has been cut off from it's original mesh, or is part of the mesh you're working on, the position of the UV mapping is not changed. Example:

 

 

 

 

There is something that I'm confused about for quite some time now, and I think this must be clarified if I'm to continue with what I'm trying to do (After I'm done with my original goal, I'm hoping to add the pudendum from Vita's mesh to Agnes and possibly to the rest of the Kuro female characters).

 

Spoiler

Here is the question, in "UV Editing" in Blender, why is only half the UV mapping in Kuro have textures underneath it, while the other half is "hanging" in the grey area? I understand they're left and right symmetrical, but is this how things always work in Blender? The direct result of this is that when I load a .png texture file in Shading, only the right half of the body appears to have the correct textures:

 

 

However, Vita's texture applied in Blender looks much better on her mesh.

 

My understanding is that this is due to the fact that Vita's UV mapping are overlapped in UV Editing. In other words the mappings of both the left and right bodies are "stacked" onto the texture, leaving nothing hanging in the grey area. It's a hard to see since they're all stacked on top of each other, but I believe that really is the case:

 

 

 

If you imagine flipping the left half of UV mapping of Agnes (like flipping a page) onto the right half, you should get the same result like Vita here.

 

However, this now becomes a problem --- if I wish to add the pudendum from Vita's mod to Agnes, I'll have to add that piece of texture to Agnes:

 

 

Would that work out? Since Agnes's mapping is left and right symmetrical or half-half, and Vita's mapping is "stacked".

 

 

 

[Divergence009]

On 12/5/2022 at 11:09 AM, coomi said:

You will have to either edit the texture or the UV map. Currently it's using the texture from a different part of the body.

This is normal with Kuro textures. I made vertically flipped copies of all my textures just to display them in Blender. There should also be a checkbox when importing/exporting a mesh that you can tick to flip the Y axis.

 

Hello, coomi, so....what would be the correct approach for Kuro mods, perhaps like:

1. Create a vertically flipped copy of all texture files

2. Work with these flipped copies in Blender.

3. Once finished, flipped them back and load those texture files in game

 

Are the above steps correct? ?

 

Also, is there a reason all the texture files in Kuro are flipped? Maybe it has something to do with the game engine Falcom was using for Kuro? It is a new engine, different from the CS series. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Divergence009

[Divergence009]

On 12/7/2022 at 5:40 AM, lakovic said:

 I'm sorry, due to China's reasons, I rarely have the opportunity to browse foreign websites. I didn't see your post until now. I am very happy that other people continue the modification of kuro-no-kiseki-mod, and I am also happy Share my method with you. Just like @amorrow28, he contributes his method of making mods to the forum for free, so there are so many excellent works.

I noticed that you grabbed a triangle-like surface to replace the body under my model, but this will cause some points to be misaligned, and the subsequent repair work will take a lot of time.

 

Below is my method

  Reveal hidden contents

I suggest something similar to mine below to grab more faces.

1. Import agnesbody.vb, make a copy (used as transfer weight), and import the initial model of @jmedia7

  Reveal hidden contents

2. Select the model base to be retained, similar to the picture

  Reveal hidden contents

3. Stitch these two parts together, first select cover.vb, (cover.vb here is a model from jmedia7, any one is fine). Then select agnesbody.vb.001, ctrl+j, merge them together, and deal with the problem of edge connection (I believe you know how to deal with this part, I won’t go into details here)

  Reveal hidden contents

4. Switch to object mode, you can also see that the two models still have obvious edges

  Reveal hidden contents

5. Press tab to return to edit mode,
Normal - Auto smooth, remove the tick
Press a to select all models, press M, merge - by distance

  Reveal hidden contents

6. Press tab again to return to the object mode. At this time, you will find that the hard edges of the model are gone (this step is just to check)

  Reveal hidden contents

7. Go back to the editing mode, press ctrl+g, remove all groups, transfer the weight of the agnes.vb model we copied earlier to the model just made, that is, transfer the weight of agnesbody.vb to agnesbody.vb. 001, if you don't understand this weight transfer, you can take a look at the tutorial

  Reveal hidden contents

8. Export the model and replace the original model in my folder, successfully

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

Haaai, Lakovic, I'm surely glad to see you come online! 

 

Yes I figured that was probably the reason because I saw you mentioned in a previous post that you get blocked from visiting foreign websites. I knew all along that some websites like youtube are blocked, but didn't know you'd have trouble visiting a game forum, too. 

 

I was really hoping to talk to you, and I was actually a bit worried because blocking like this in China could become permanent at any point without warning, like what happened with Steam last year :X

 

Thanks so much for taking the time and share your steps with me. I haven't got the time to reply to you and the others because I was just getting some stuff done at my workplace before my Christmas vacation starts, but that's all settled and I intend to focus on this modding work from here on.

 

After I went through your method, I was kind of speechless because your method is exactly what I did on my first attempt, except that at the end I was not happy with something and I deemed this method a failed approach. I didn't even add it to my first post on on the forum and instead what I added there was my second attempt.

 

My first attempt:

Spoiler

 

 

Same as your method, but I tried to cut a much smaller piece.

 

End result:

 

 

These marks at the edge of the cut piece after I merged them (ctrl + J) are what I was not happy with. I didn't see these marks on your mesh or jmedia7's mesh, so I abandoned this idea and started over.

 

You can even see the date of those files. Other than the .ini file which directly came from your mod, which I downloaded on Sept 20, I completed my first trial on November 23, but abandoned it right after because I didn't know all I had to do was turn off Auto Smooth ?

 

 

It was not until I finished reading through your method yesterday did I know that your step 5 - "Normal - Auto smooth, remove the tick" was the key. Once I tried that, the marks were gone and it turned out really good:

 

Spoiler

 

End result:

 

 

 

 

I do have a couple of questions for you though. Really hope you could help me with them:

 

Question 1: When you created this mod, after you're done fixing your first character (high polycount on the breasts, moved nipples down, shape of the lower body part, etc), how did you add these changes to the rest of the female characters? There is no way you manually did the modification on each of them, right?

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Having said that, I just noticed that not all female characters received the high polycount mod for the breasts -- so far only Agnes and Risette amongst the ones that I loaded into Blender here, but that's whatever. The important thing is the lower body part which I think is something you put on all the female characters. Could you please let me know how you did it? Did you use the first character as the base (which was done manually), and then modify all the female characters one by one using your method ("cut and replace")?

 

 

Question 2: If I wish to add Vita's pudendum to Agnes's mesh, is there any advice you can give me?

 

Spoiler

My original goal was to replace the lower body part of your mesh with jmedia7's for all the female characters and that's it. When I went through amorrow28's tutorial, in one of them he was modifying vita's mesh (https://www.loverslab.com/topic/166239-trails-of-cold-steel-4-mod-request/page/18/#comment-3786873) 

 

I noticed the pudendum on this mesh was really well done. amorrow28 was kind enough to provide the finished work at the end (download link: https://www.loverslab.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=1464808&key=3cf03509548383f9a5f759c4458c3441)

  

 I think it would look better than all the existing mods we have on the forum for Kuro. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vita's mesh is from another game and it's quite a bit different from Agnes's mesh and other female chars in Kuro, so I'm not sure if your method would still work well here. Also, this single piece of pudendum mesh is quite easy to select. I just kept pressing "L" in Edit Mode.

 

 

Lastly, I really appreciate you even uploaded a mesh I was hoping to have. Truly didn't expect you to do so much. I already downloaded it.

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Divergence009

[fakecheng]

1 hour ago, Divergence009 said:

 

Hello, fakecheng, thank you very much. Sorry for not replying earlier. I saw your reply as well as others's right after you created your posts, but instead just replying and say thanks, I was hoping to do that when I can bring back some results or at least questions. 

 

 

About the half "hanging",does the uv map look like this?

Spoiler

If so because half of the uv map is out of the uv map box area(red area),that why only half of the body texture is render correctly in Blender.It should be fine as long as the texture work in the game.And yes,Vita's uv map are overlapped so the texture render correctly.

 

About add the pudendum from Vita's mod to Agnes,it will work.If your uv map look like the screenshot above,you can overlap it by select the part outside the box,right click>Mirror X,and then move that part to the same position as the other half:

Spoiler

 

 

After you overlap the uv map and add the pudendum texture from Vita's mod to Agnes,make sure to move the pudendum part uv map to the same position as the pudendum texture.

[Fate Maker]

On 12/6/2022 at 9:20 AM, amorrow28 said:

 

Normally I would encourage you to make your own mods (and actually I am still encouraging you to make your own mods) but I actually started playing Ys 8 this past week or so.  So consider this a sneak peek!

 

 

I make no promises for now.  Modding this game is a huge pain.  (And yes, that is a @coomi mod, I love his mods and he has given me carte blanche to use them in the past, sooo...  hopefully coomi you don't mind me using them now!)

I'm interested in how to make YS8 mods，Is there any tutorial about it？Should I use  script such as “kuro_vb_merge.py” to import Data to Blender？ or blender can identify the frame dump  data directly？

[amorrow28]

Ys 8 mod is uploaded here: https://www.loverslab.com/topic/201999-ys-viii-lacrimosa-of-dana/

[amorrow28]

21 hours ago, fateli said:

I'm interested in how to make YS8 mods，Is there any tutorial about it？Should I use  script such as “kuro_vb_merge.py” to import Data to Blender？ or blender can identify the frame dump  data directly？

Here in the Ys VIII thread.

[Divergence009]

On 12/9/2022 at 5:05 AM, fakecheng said:

 

About the half "hanging",does the uv map look like this?

  Reveal hidden contents

If so because half of the uv map is out of the uv map box area(red area),that why only half of the body texture is render correctly in Blender.It should be fine as long as the texture work in the game.And yes,Vita's uv map are overlapped so the texture render correctly.

 

About add the pudendum from Vita's mod to Agnes,it will work.If your uv map look like the screenshot above,you can overlap it by select the part outside the box,right click>Mirror X,and then move that part to the same position as the other half:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

After you overlap the uv map and add the pudendum texture from Vita's mod to Agnes,make sure to move the pudendum part uv map to the same position as the pudendum texture.

 

Yes that's right, by half "hanging" I meant half of the UV maps are on top of the texture in Blender, and I've been wondering why that's the case:

Spoiler

 

So to add the pudendum from Vita's mod to Agnes, based on my understanding, here are the steps:

 

Step 1: Open Agnes's texture file in Paint.net, and then flip it vertically, as the texture files in Kuro no Kiseki are upside down by default:

Spoiler

 

flip it vertically in Paint.net so I am able to work with it:

 

 

Step 2: Copy and paste the part of the texture for the pudendum from Vita's texture and put it on Agnes's texture, in a spot that is "free" (not used by any existing UV mappings).

Spoiler

 

Step 3: And once I moved over the pudendum mesh, I can put its UV mapping on top of this texture part. Don't forget to also flip Agnes's UV mapping with "Mirror X", and overlap it on top the other half that is "inside the box". This way both Agnes's UV mappings and the pudendum's mappings are consistent in this way.

 

Spoiler

 

Step 4: After that is done, flip the texture (vertically) back so it can be loaded in game.

Spoiler

 

I hope these steps/logic are correct...?

 

Questions:

 

1. After it is all done, can I leave the UV mapping stacked like this and do the export? Would it work?

 

2. It won't work if I add the mappings & texture for the pudendum without doing the overlapping for Agnes's UV mappings, right? Like this:

Spoiler

 

[fakecheng]

4 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

1. After it is all done, can I leave the UV mapping stacked like this and do the export? Would it work?

 

2. It won't work if I add the mappings & texture for the pudendum without doing the overlapping for Agnes's UV mappings, right? Like this:

 

1.Yes,you can leave the UV map stacked,the game still recognize it.

 

2.It should work too but I am not modding kuro for a long time so I can’t quite remember.You can try to add pudendum without overlap her uv map and see what happen in game.If it's not work,you can always go back to blender and overlap it.

Edited December 11, 2022 by fakecheng

[lakovic]

On 12/9/2022 at 4:07 PM, Divergence009 said:

 

 

Haaai, Lakovic, I'm surely glad to see you come online! 

 

Yes I figured that was probably the reason because I saw you mentioned in a previous post that you get blocked from visiting foreign websites. I knew all along that some websites like youtube are blocked, but didn't know you'd have trouble visiting a game forum, too. 

 

I was really hoping to talk to you, and I was actually a bit worried because blocking like this in China could become permanent at any point without warning, like what happened with Steam last year :X

 

Thanks so much for taking the time and share your steps with me. I haven't got the time to reply to you and the others because I was just getting some stuff done at my workplace before my Christmas vacation starts, but that's all settled and I intend to focus on this modding work from here on.

 

After I went through your method, I was kind of speechless because your method is exactly what I did on my first attempt, except that at the end I was not happy with something and I deemed this method a failed approach. I didn't even add it to my first post on on the forum and instead what I added there was my second attempt.

 

My first attempt:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Same as your method, but I tried to cut a much smaller piece.

 

End result:

 

 

These marks at the edge of the cut piece after I merged them (ctrl + J) are what I was not happy with. I didn't see these marks on your mesh or jmedia7's mesh, so I abandoned this idea and started over.

 

You can even see the date of those files. Other than the .ini file which directly came from your mod, which I downloaded on Sept 20, I completed my first trial on November 23, but abandoned it right after because I didn't know all I had to do was turn off Auto Smooth ?

 

 

It was not until I finished reading through your method yesterday did I know that your step 5 - "Normal - Auto smooth, remove the tick" was the key. Once I tried that, the marks were gone and it turned out really good:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

End result:

 

 

 

 

I do have a couple of questions for you though. Really hope you could help me with them:

 

Question 1: When you created this mod, after you're done fixing your first character (high polycount on the breasts, moved nipples down, shape of the lower body part, etc), how did you add these changes to the rest of the female characters? There is no way you manually did the modification on each of them, right?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Having said that, I just noticed that not all female characters received the high polycount mod for the breasts -- so far only Agnes and Risette amongst the ones that I loaded into Blender here, but that's whatever. The important thing is the lower body part which I think is something you put on all the female characters. Could you please let me know how you did it? Did you use the first character as the base (which was done manually), and then modify all the female characters one by one using your method ("cut and replace")?

 

 

Question 2: If I wish to add Vita's pudendum to Agnes's mesh, is there any advice you can give me?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

My original goal was to replace the lower body part of your mesh with jmedia7's for all the female characters and that's it. When I went through amorrow28's tutorial, in one of them he was modifying vita's mesh (https://www.loverslab.com/topic/166239-trails-of-cold-steel-4-mod-request/page/18/#comment-3786873) 

 

I noticed the pudendum on this mesh was really well done. amorrow28 was kind enough to provide the finished work at the end (download link: https://www.loverslab.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=1464808&key=3cf03509548383f9a5f759c4458c3441)

  

 I think it would look better than all the existing mods we have on the forum for Kuro. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vita's mesh is from another game and it's quite a bit different from Agnes's mesh and other female chars in Kuro, so I'm not sure if your method would still work well here. Also, this single piece of pudendum mesh is quite easy to select. I just kept pressing "L" in Edit Mode.

 

 

Lastly, I really appreciate you even uploaded a mesh I was hoping to have. Truly didn't expect you to do so much. I already downloaded it.

 

 

 

Question 1:

Spoiler

Question 1: I try to understand your question 1 through translation, but the translation is not accurate, I can't understand your meaning very well, maybe there are two meanings.
If you want to transfer the lower genitals of jmedia7'mod to all female characters under my mod, you need to open my mod file, find all the bodies in it, repeat the same steps to transfer the lower genitals, I didn't think of a faster way , when you are proficient, I estimate that a body model can be made in 2-3 minutes.
If you want to ask me how I completed the bodies of so many female characters, I initially established a standard body, and then modified the size and shape of the chest to achieve the differentiation of each character (there is no differentiation in the genitals). This is also a relatively tedious task.

Question 2:

Spoiler

Question 2: Transfer the vulva of vita to the body of agnes. In fact, this is a direction I have been exploring recently, but I found that the game engine of Kuro has very low support for high-precision textures. When I use high-precision (4k textures) When used on agnes' body, her performance effect is not as perfect as I thought. (I don't have a good workaround for now)
I explored with another Chinese player who likes to make mods. We used 3 kinds of vulva models, and the effect it produced was actually very average. So I won't put screenshots of the game here, I still need to improve it so that it reaches my satisfaction
Here I don't intend to use this kind of vulva in the kuro1 game, because most people have already cleared the level of kuro1, I plan to use this kind of vulva in kuro2, and at the same time bring you a new experience in the game.

Spoiler

 

In addition, I noticed your post above, there is a map that needs your attention, I believe you should have found the problem during the production process, that is, the area in the map is not blank, it is connected to the above (red circle) Yes, if you want to use the texture of vita vulva, you need to find another blank place

Spoiler

 

 

[yesman613]

How can I rotate camera angle using the free camera mod? On the free camera tables for hajimari and cold steel there's a rotate camera option (not pan), but not the one for kuro.

Edited December 20, 2022 by yesman613

[amorrow28]

2 hours ago, yesman613 said:

How can I rotate camera angle using the free camera mod? On the free camera tables for hajimari and cold steel there's a rotate camera option (not pan), but not the one for kuro.

Are you talking about roll? If so, that is unavailable in my Kuro script. This game engine does not use Euler angles as far as I can tell, so pan / tilt / roll are not directly adjustable. Pan and tilt are only available because my script is calculating them in real time and moving camera coordinates.

 

(In case you are unaware, CS3, CS4 and Hajimari share the same engine, Kuro uses a completely new engine.)

[yesman613]

10 hours ago, amorrow28 said:

Are you talking about roll? If so, that is unavailable in my Kuro script. This game engine does not use Euler angles as far as I can tell, so pan / tilt / roll are not directly adjustable. Pan and tilt are only available because my script is calculating them in real time and moving camera coordinates.

 

(In case you are unaware, CS3, CS4 and Hajimari share the same engine, Kuro uses a completely new engine.)

Aw man...oh well. If there's ever a way to do roll in the future, I'd greatly appreciate it!

[amorrow28]

2 hours ago, yesman613 said:

Aw man...oh well. If there's ever a way to do roll in the future, I'd greatly appreciate it!

If you or anybody can identify the quarternion in memory controlling the camera (or even copied directly from the camera control), I’ll take it from there!

[Divergence009]

@amorrow28 , I ran into a few problems when trying to import a frame analysis dump into Blender, could you please see if you know what's going on?

 

Question 1:

 

Spoiler

Here, for example, when an index buffer of Feri is 4336d7ae 

 

 

And as you can see when comparing to how it normally looks, this index buffer removes her panties and the top part of the slippers.

 

 

 

I wish to remove only the top part of the slippers but keep the panties, so I did a frame analysis dump and then searched with index buffer through the files, and I expected to find at least 2 files, after which I was hoping to do the "match_first_index = xxx", but I only found 1 file:

 

 

Shouldn't there be 2 files, which would correspond to 2 pieces of meshes here (the panties and the slippers)?

 

It was the same when I tried another bigger piece (her body), and I also only found 1 file:

 

 

 

  

 

Question 2: I tried to import the frame analysis dump files in the output folder into Blender, but I couldn't, because I got this error: 

Spoiler

 

Question 3:

 

Whenever I set "analyse_options = dump_vb dump_ib txt dump_tex dds" in 3dmigoto, pressing F8 to do the frame dump generates a super huge folder, going to 60GB+ or even more depending on how many index buffers are present in the scene, and that's apparently not what was in the video or what you got.

 

Setting "analyse_options = dump_vb dump_ib txt dump_tex" (without the "dds") generates a much smaller folder of files but there is no texture files.

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Divergence009

[amorrow28]

2 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

@amorrow28 , I ran into a few problems when trying to import a frame analysis dump into Blender, could you please see if you know what's going on?

 

Question 1:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Here, for example, when an index buffer of Feri is 4336d7ae 

 

 

And as you can see when comparing to how it normally looks, this index buffer removes her panties and the top part of the slippers.

 

 

 

I wish to remove only the top part of the slippers but keep the panties, so I did a frame analysis dump and then searched with index buffer through the files, and I expected to find at least 2 files, after which I was hoping to do the "match_first_index = xxx", but I only found 1 file:

 

 

Shouldn't there be 2 files, which would correspond to 2 pieces of meshes here (the panties and the slippers)?

 

It was the same when I tried another bigger piece (her body), and I also only found 1 file:

 

 

 

  

 

The match_first_index technique does not work for Falcom games.  It works in Gust games because of the way the engine processes submeshes.  If you want to remove part of a mesh, you will need to edit it in Blender.  I wrote a tutorial on how to do this here.

 

2 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

Question 2: I tried to import the frame analysis dump files in the output folder into Blender, but I couldn't, because I got this error: 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

You need to process the vertex buffers using my Kuro-specific merge tool, available here.  After exporting from Blender, you need to use my Kuro-specific split tool, available here.  Of course the newest versions of both are always available from my GitHub as well.

 

2 hours ago, Divergence009 said:

Question 3:

 

Whenever I set "analyse_options = dump_vb dump_ib txt dump_tex dds" in 3dmigoto, pressing F8 to do the frame dump generates a super huge folder, going to 60GB+ or even more depending on how many index buffers are present in the scene, and that's apparently not what was in the video or what you got.

 

Setting "analyse_options = dump_vb dump_ib txt dump_tex" (without the "dds") generates a much smaller folder of files but there is no texture files.

 

Textures take up a lot of space.  I suggest frame dumping from inside the equip menu, the dumps will be smaller than in the game itself since the engine is drawing fewer objects.

 

Overall, the Fairy Tail video is amazing and I reference it all the time, but you need to understand it was made for a completely different engine.  Many things in the video do not work for Falcom games - I suggest using my tutorials instead with the video as a supplement to see how Blender works, etc.

[Divergence009]

16 hours ago, amorrow28 said:

 

You need to process the vertex buffers using my Kuro-specific merge tool, available here.  After exporting from Blender, you need to use my Kuro-specific split tool, available here.  Of course the newest versions of both are always available from my GitHub as well.

 

Yes I was well aware of that. I did use your python scripts (merge) after the frame dump, that's how I got that "output" folder. (And I used your split script for exporting as well).

Edited December 25, 2022 by Divergence009

[amorrow28]

50 minutes ago, Divergence009 said:

 

Yes I was well aware of that. I did use your python scripts (merge) after the frame dump, that's how I got that "output" folder. (And I used your split script for exporting as well).

 

Hmm, interesting.  First, I want to make sure you're using the latest version?  This game engine throws in a bunch of garbage that really screws with python, and I've had to code in a lot of workarounds.

 

Assuming you're using the latest version, post the frame dump that doesn't work, I'll take a look.  Just post the mesh that fails, don't post an entire dump please.