Frankensteining with blender.

[Jolly]

Are there any guides on frankensteining models with blender? I have no modeling experience, but I have a few cool ideas to test out in blender. Any help would be great.

[Circa]

Not any specific for JKA yet. It seems really simple, as I said in this thread.

 

I also mentioned @@Mandalorian has had success with his own method with it, but I think he's been too busy to write one up. I offered to be guided over Skype IM or something and then I'll write a tutorial once I get it down.

[Jolly]

@@Circa Any help importing models on blender 2.71?

[Artemis]

I can try to explain what I do.  (With no pictures, sorry.  D:)  It's basic head swapping, but hopefully it'll give you an idea.  If I figured it out from a few posts, I think anyone could figure it out.

I'm hoping you have a Gamedata folder somewhere, like on the desktop or with any other modding stuff.  For frankensteining models, you need Gamedata - base - models - players and the _humanoid folder in Players, along with the folders of whatever you wanna stick together.  You also need the plugin suite for Blender.  Hopefully you know all of that; if you don't, I can explain more later!

Ok, so load up Blender (I have 2.66, so that's what this is based off of) and delete any junk it starts out with.  That'd be the lamp, camera, and cube.

Go to File - Import - JA ghoul 2 model (.glm) and find one of the models you want to use.  A quick note on this--I usually want to try and pick the model that I'll use the most parts from, just because of stuff that may or may not be explained later.

Because it's getting late and I don't want to come up with something complicated, I'm going to load Rosh.

Import Rosh's model.glm.  It should load up in the middle of the grid thing.  You can turn it to textured mode if that makes it easier to see the parts.

As an important note that might save you many restarts, don't move any part of the model.  At all.  Never move the parts around on the axes; it just makes it so much harder to line them up.

Rosh is annoying.  Tuskens are annoying.  What if Rosh was secretly a Tusken?!

There's a little 5x2 grid thingy above the timeline.  It says Visible layers or something like that.  Click in a different layer so you don't see Rosh.  (I go for the bottom right layer most of the time.  It helps keep things separate.)

In the new layer, go to File - Import - JA ghoul 2...blah blah blah, just import the Tusken's model.glm.

Ok, great.  You need to notice that every limb that has the same name as one in the first model's glm has a .001 after it (like head_02.001).  Just notice that for now.  (This is why I picked Rosh first.  Less renaming to do later!)

Go back to the Rosh layer and move the heads and faces (That's all of the heads, head_0 to head_3 and all of the faces, head_face_0 to head_face_3!) to another layer by selecting one (or more) and pressing M.  I like to move them to the layer underneath, so that's the bottom left corner.  For this model, you'll also want to move the head_teeth and head_mouth objects.

Then go to the Tusken's layer, select the heads and faces, and move them all to the layer where most of Rosh's body is.

So back on the main layer, you should have what looks like a complete model--Rosh's body and the Tusken's head.  But it's not ready yeeet.

Over to the right somewhere, you should find the "outline" of the models' hierarchy (scene_root and onward).  Ignore the duplicates with .001s attached.

Select the Tusken's head_0.001 and rename it to head_0 in the Objects tab.  You need to do this to every piece you've moved over that has the .001.  After renaming it, scroll down to where it says Parent: torso_0.001.  Change it to torso_0.  Do that for all of the heads, then all of the faces.

Correcting tags and caps can get messy, but I think the only messed up ones in this instance were between the head and torso. It's easy enough to fix the parent object.

If you export it now, you'll still get an error.  Why?  Because we renamed the object, but not the object data.  It makes no sense me, but yeah.

So select something you've renamed, like head_0 and find the Object data tab.  It still says head_0.001 there, so... fix it.  Fix every single piece that you renamed.  (At least the head and face in this example.  Check the caps if you want, but they were ok for me.)

Then select all, and File -Export - JA ghoul 2 model - and navigate to Rosh's model.glm.  It's just easier to use his and not the tusken's.

So now, go into the .skin file and delete the lines about teeth and a mouth; they no longer exist.  Aaand copy the tusken's head and face texture into Rosh's folder.  Then load it in Modview, and tada, you have a doubly annoying, frankensteined model.

 

And I lied, here's a picture:

 

 

 

 

I might have left stuff out; I've been typing this for too long now.  xD  So if you run into problems, just ask.

[Kualan]

Awesome overview Chaotic, simple and straightforward yet thorough enough for those without Blender experience to understand. I'm going to try this out and will report back with my findings.

[Circa]

I get confused after this:

 

 

 

Ok, great.  You need to notice that every limb that has the same name as one in the first model's glm has a .001 after it (like head_02.001).  Just notice that for now.  (This is why I picked Rosh first.  Less renaming to do later!)

 

Screenshots would help in this case. I'm not sure where to find a lot of this stuff you are referring.

[Tavik]

@@Jolly, I'm not sure if Blender 2.71 works with the Jedi Outcast/Academy import tools, but I use 2.64, which I believe is the version of Blender that the tools were made for. I've only been Frankensteining models in Blender since earlier this year, but if anyone has any questions I'd be more than happy to try and help. Oh, and just so everyone knows, there is a way to combine Academy models with Outcast models, and vice versa, but I honestly can't remember how I did it! I still have a model somewhere with Rosh's head on HapSlash's Improved JK2 Imperial officer that works in Academy, as well as the JK3 Luke head on the JK2 body that is for JK2 itself. Anyway, I've been meaning to put one of the male Jaden heads on HapSlash's officer body to complete my simple Jahan Cross reskin, so I'll try that later and see if I can get it to work.

[Circa]

The import tools work with the latest version, yeah. @@Tavik maybe if you post your own version of a tutorial like @ did we can get an even better idea. Particularly with screenshots, because the interface is pretty confusing.

[Kualan]

It worked! Thanks again for the tutorial @ 

[Artemis]

@@Circa

 

Does this help?  :/

 

 

A - The outline that I was referring to.

B - Object tab.

C - Object data tab.

D - Where you rename the object.  (You probably already know what these are, but labeling is my specialty.)

E - Where you rename the parent object...

F - Layers grid/tab/thing.

G - Idk why I marked that one.

 

I think those were really the only parts you need for swapping pieces.

 

 

[z3filus]

LOL - that model

[Jeff]

Just tried this out and it works, thanks alot @

[Circa]

Whoa. Finally figured it out.

 

Just whipped this up tonight.

 

 

 

 

[z3filus]

Lando system ?? I want this..

[Kualan]

This deal's getting better all the time...

[Kualan]

Knocked these up this morning, taking the realistic face from Toshi's Padme model ( here )and combining it with the wide-range of outfits from StingRay's Padme pack ( here ) . Also stuck the base JKA male human head and the Gweth female head on the Legacy-era Imperial bodies, to create some agents for my comic series:

 

 

Pretty awesome what can be made with the JKA equivalent of kitbashing.

[z3filus]

AWESOME   SHIT !!!!   I WANT THIS !!

[Jolly]

These are all really cool, though I run into so many errors it makes it practically impossible for me to do anything (specifically loading up a second character on a second layer) 

[Artemis]

These are all really cool, though I run into so many errors it makes it practically impossible for me to do anything (specifically loading up a second character on a second layer) 

Do you absolutely need 2.71, or could you switch to 2.64/2.66?

 

I don't know much about the program itself; if you think it's just some weird compatibility issue, you'd probably have to ask @@mrwonko.

[Jolly]

@ChaoticConundrum

 

I switched to to Blender 2.64. I got past this error, and made the frankenstein. 

 

https://jkhub.org/images/APwhiUN.png

 

Though when I export it, and load up the model in modview, I get a normal StormPilot but this one has really low quality in the polys. 

 

https://jkhub.org/images/V7mniuc.png

[mrwonko]

Read the manual included with the plugin, you will have to adjust the hierarchy for it to export properly.

[Artemis]

@ChaoticConundrum

 

I switched to to Blender 2.64. I got past this error, and made the frankenstein. 

 

https://jkhub.org/images/APwhiUN.png

 

Though when I export it, and load up the model in modview, I get a normal StormPilot but this one has really low quality in the polys. 

 

https://jkhub.org/images/V7mniuc.png

You only needed the Kyle and Stormpilot, right?  Because you have a model_root.004 in there... and see all of the little pieces above scene_root?  Those belong somewhere, and they're not in the right place anymore.

 

Try starting over, and import only 1 Kyle and 1 other model, and don't delete pieces of the models.  Usually, that's what makes things break and become unparented.

[Jolly]

@ Yes I am using Kyle and the Tie Pilot. When it comes to the hierarchy how do I know what exactly to rename and what not to? 

[Circa]

@ Yes I am using Kyle and the Tie Pilot. When it comes to the hierarchy how do I know what exactly to rename and what not to? 

Only the pieces you moved to the layer. So in your case it would probably be head_0.001 and other head/face related ones. One thing that helped keep things organized for me was to change the visible hierarchy to only the layer you're on:

 

 

 

 

 

I also couldn't/didn't need to rename as much stuff as previously mentioned. All I had to rename was the parent. Everything else was fine and exported fine. Though I've only done capes so far. Maybe heads are different.

[Jolly]

@@Circa I hate to bother, but could you PM me a step by step of how to make a simple frankenstein on blender?