Need assistance with base class -> NPC model/texture swapping.

kromlech

Member
Hello all, sorry in advance for the huge post,

I’m trying to “make” a RaNewearl for my private server. I want to achieve this by replacing one of the NPCs, selectable with the /NPC# command, into a single texture/model of a HUnewearl. I do not want to mess with any of the 12 classes' model files, because that may interfere with another player's choice. I don’t think any of my players will miss the Guild Lady, so I’m trying to replace the Guild Lady in the NPC command list with a HUnewearl. The end result will be something that looks like a HUnewearl, but has the same stats and abilities as a Ramarl (or whatever class they choose to be before using the NPC command). I saw that someone on Univers-PS managed to swap out Flowen for a Racaseal, so I thought it was possible to achieve the same thing, but with a HUnewearl over the Guild Lady. Trying to copy what they did wasn’t too helpful; HUnewearl and Racaseal are too different.

This is the guide I've been following:

https://www.pioneer2.net/community/threads/character-model-swapping-tutorial.3510/

This tutorial only helps for replacing the model files in plZsmpnj.afs. It doesn’t say how to get HUnewearl’s outfit, face, hair, and other textures into the Guild Lady’s 16-slot AFS texture file. I’ve tried to rename the Hunewearl’s plBtex.afs into the Guild Lady’s plPtex.afs, and using that in the Data folder, but that also results in a glitch-texture body. Both methods resulted in a body that took textures it finds in the environment in place of the ones it can’t find in its own file (apparently PSO does that?). Creating a room and moving from location to location made it clear some of these were just textures from the environment.

This was my method, please say if you see anything incorrect here:
  1. Using AFS explorer 3.7, I overwrote guild lady’s 14 head and body .bin files (294-307), with the 20.bin (head) and 21.bin (body) file of the HUnewearl, then created the updated the plZsmpnj.afs. These two .bin files were dumped using the Export Folder command, and they load properly in Neosis, so I believed they were correct.

  2. I copied and renamed the HUnewearl’s plBbdy00.nj, plBhai00.nj, and plBhed00.nj files to match the Guild Lady (turning the capital B into a P).

  3. I exported an outfit and matching skin files from the Hunewearl's plBtex.afs using Texture manager. I created several DDS files for outfit/skin, arms, legs, hair, ears, face, hands, and all those parts I thought I would need.

  4. I opened the Guild Lady's plPtex.afs file with Texture Manager 2010, and imported the HUnewearl outfit, hands, face, hair, ear, etc. textures I wanted, not knowing where they go in the Guild Lady’s smaller texture afs file (I figured I could trial-and-error rearrange them by seeing where they end up on the model in the game). I tried to match face to face, body to body, and so on, but they really don't share texture pieces like that.

  5. I tossed those 5 files into my Data folder of my PSObb client, overwriting the 5 files that were already there. I did not touch the .bml or .rel files of the Guild Lady, because the guide above did not mention them.
What I ended up with, upon using the NPC command and changing blocks, seems to be the right model, but the textures are all completely wrong. It’s taking some of the textures from the plPtex.afs file, and some of the textures from the environment (the lobby). It seems unlikely I'll be able to trial-and-error these textures into the correct slots like this.

My main question is: how do I know what textures are imported into what slots in the plPtex.afs file when I’m using Texture Manager 2010? I need that explained to me like I’m 5 years old. Preferably in a way that is applicable to other situations as well, not just HUnewearl and Guild Lady. (is there another guide that focuses more on the texture swapping aspect of this model swap?).

My other questions are:

-Is there any way to adjust Proportions (height and weight) when using an NPC model from the NPC command? Will it inherit the Proportion settings the base character had before using the NPC command? I'm guessing no, thought I’d ask anyway.

-Is this doable on all 11 NPC slots? Or are some not eligible for some dumb sonic team hard-coded nonesense reason? Likewise, are there any PC classes that are ineligible, for whatever reason?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thanks. And thanks for reading that wall of text!
 
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