Getting hero data from FF Gold to FFV3R

[freegentile]

Just curious if anyone's made FFV3R hero recipes for the FF Gold heroes, like all the communist-themed characters; i.e. Marxist Man, Commumiss, Punishment, Redbot, etc. Where do those live in FF, that is, the built-in meshes & hero files? I suppose if I find them, I could simply copy them & use EZNifConvert to bring them over to FFV3R. Perhaps. Gracias.

[UAF]

Who?
What?
What is FF gold? Isn't that  ?
I don't remember any Maxist Man in 

[freegentile]

Maybe it was the last FFX update for FF. Anyway, after I installed it, I had a bunch of new characters & many of them have a commie theme...commie versions of the good guys in FF.

[BentonGrey]

Ehh, just use Alex's newest hero tool and convert them.  If they are built in, just copy them through the character menu in FF (which will create an HF which can then be converted).

:EDIT: Sorry, I misread your post.  It's been a long while since I messed with FF1 herofiles, but if I remember, they are located in your custom folder in your main FF directory...although I could be wrong.  The meshes will be around there too.

[freegentile]

Duh, sorry, brother man. I forgot to do my digging in customforce-x directory. Of COURSE that's where they are. Sheesh. Again, sorry   

[freegentile]

OK, so I still have an issue, sadly. I got the hero files w/ no issues & snagged the new skins for the Commie characters from the customforce-x folder. I noted that I only have Mentor, Bullet, El Diablo, & Alchemiss available for modification, so simply plugged the skins into their folders & good to go. However, w/ the rest, I can't find any of their folders available in any of my FFV3R folders, so they must be in some file that I have to rename to open, or something like that. I tried to rename characters.dat to characters.rar & characters.zip & neither will open. Which folder is it that has those built-in characters? Anyway, I loaded in the mesh folders from the Master Mesh list, ran EZNifConvert on them, & noted that the keyframes piece errors out. Yet I can see the characters w/ no movement issues in Character Tool...but there are 2 entries for each. This was the case w/ Minute Man, Law, Order, & Man-bot. In-game, they show as a big white box w/ a black X across it. Beautiful. Everything's in the right place, but I have a feeling I have to get @ the default mesh directories & use those instead of the downloaded ones. I'll try to load in the meshes from the Irrationalmeshes1 Yahoo site again & just not use EZNifConvert on them, but I'd like you guys' take on this. Thank you.

[freegentile]

I had to reinstall FFEdit since it was buggy. Let's take Commumiss for example. Created a new character in FFEdit called commumiss_xl. Same config as commumiss. Saved. Created template same way. Still no hero file in hero folder in customforce-x. How does one copy in FFEdit? Sadly, no copy button like in FFV3R.

[GogglesPizanno]

I may be coming in the middle of this, but I think their needs to be a little clarification about hero files and FFEdit.
If you are editing characters in FFEdit, there will be no hero file created. Characters in FFEdit are usually referred to as built-ins.

When you you use the in-game character editor, a hero file will be created. This is primarily due to the fact that hero files are regarded as characters created by a player for use in their game only, whereas built in characters are stored in the dat files and are used for things like mods.

To get a Hero file converted into a built in, you can use Alex's tool to create/load/edit a hero file and send it to the dat.

To get a built in converted into a hero file, load the game, go to the character editor, select the built in character you want to use, and click the copy button. This should create a hero file with the same stats and settings as the built in you copied.

Since it appears the problem you are having is trying to create a new hero file from a built in, rather than use FFEdit, which only allows you to copy character info within a dat file, you want to load up the game, go to the character section, select Communiss, hit the copy button, then give her a new name and save. That should create the hero file.

For your second question about the locations of the meshes.... within the data folder is a bunch of files with the .ff extension. These are really zip files and contain the game assets. The meshes/skins for build ins are in the art.ff file.

I think you are about 80% there, its really just a matter of working out where files are in relation to one another, and navigating your way around some of the quirks of the file types.

If you haven;t already you might poke around the Tutorials Section:
http://freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=50675.0

As well as the wiki:
http://frworld.wikispaces.com/

[freegentile]

10-4, GP. Thank you. I think I am truly about there, as you said, I just needed that reminder about art.ff. Oddly enough, FFEdit doesn't have a copy button...just save, new, & delete. I actually reloaded it from freedomfans just to be sure something wasn't whacked out on my copy. That's why it was hard for me to try to copy any of the built-in's. I didn't realize, either, that the folders labeled "alchemiss", "bullet", etc. that I was seeing in customforce-x mod in FF were only TGA's & not the entire mesh package w/ the NIF & keyframes. I had tried to get those built-in meshes from the Master Mesh List & load them in like you would any other custom mesh for FFV3R, but when I converted the NIF & keyframes for FFV3R w/ EZNifConverter, they showed just fine in Character Tool, but wouldn't display in-game. I'm goin' after those built-in's in art.ff & will letcha know how it goes! Thank you again.

[freegentile]

Clarification...FFEdit for FF doesn't have a Copy button (or Rename button), FFEdit for FFV3R does.

[freegentile]

OK, so since FFEdit for FF doesn't have a copy button, only a Save, New, & Delete, do you just select New (which actually looks a lot like Copy in FFV3R, since you keep all the attributes of the character you're on, by default), & then go @ it that way? I can't find a way to get all the attributes to copy so I don't have to toggle back & forth & set it up manually...the hero file, that is.

[freegentile]

Dang, sorry guys. You DON'T keep the strength, endurance, energy, etc. settings @ the top of the character tab screen, but you keep the stuff @ the bottom. If you wanted to create the new character, you'd have to copy down the attributes of the character you're trying to copy & put them into the new character manually. Yes, to clarify, I'm trying to create a FF hero file to then use as FFV3R hero & attach to a FFV3R converted mesh...in general, copy a FF built-in character to use in FFV3R. Thank you!

[freegentile]

OK, so I've whittled this down to one question:

Where are the hero files located in FF for the built-in characters?

Let's take the Great Hunt mod for instance. Lots of varied & crazy characters here. But I can't go into the game & copy them as they are...I can only create new characters & pick their mesh. I can't go into FFEdit & create hero files, right? I've tried to use New on the Characters tab & you can create something, but it doesn't create a hero file that I could find. I don't know which dat or ff file the hero files or hero settings are located in. I was able to make the Communist version of the Freedom Force good guys from the customforce-x mod in FF because FFV3R lets me copy the built in characters...& the Commie characters were only different skins for existing characters. FF won't let you just copy most of the characters in the game, though. At least I don't see that it will in DCU, JLA, or Great Hunt mods.

Thank you, senores.