Requirements
- Switch Toolbox
- A 3D program capable of rigging models (Blender, 3DS Max, Maya, etc)
if using 3DS Max, I suggest 2015 or higher. Older versions may work.
This tutorial uses an example for MK8 however this applies to all games with bfres. Game specific explanations will be added below in separate pages like BOTW normal maps, bake maps, etc.
Contents
- Exporting a reference model.
- Importing and preparing the model.
- Skinning the model
- Importing as bfres
Exporting a reference model
You first want to have a model you plan to swap over. This you will use to size up to and optionally use its boneset if you don't plan on a custom one.
The toolbox can export models easily by right clicking one and "Export".
Make sure to export as .dae.
For the settings you don't need textures checked unless you want to see them in the other 3D program.
This tutorial I will be using 3DS Max 2020, but i will include another one for blender soon.
Importing and preparing the model.
First I imported the dae into the program with File - Import.
Make sure the scene explorer is displayed so we can properly see our meshes.
Now you can import your custom model and rig it over the skeleton.
Right click and scale, translate, and possibly rotate your model until it fits.
Now it's positioned!
The user has 2 options to go about importing a model.
- Option 1 You can use the original mesh amount (tends to be better to prevent crash issues)
- Option 2 You can use as many meshes as you need.
I suggest trying option 2 first as it's less time to deal with. If you get crash issues you can go back and fix it.
Note! Some older games require Option 1 due to shader limits (WWHD, NSMBU). MK8 drivers also require this!
Option 1
If you are going with this option, you must combine your meshes. This is possible with the attach feature when multiple are selected and then right clicked.
Now i suggest renaming the meshes aswell to keep them the same as the original. This will be useful later.
Then when finished to go skinning.
Option 2
For this part you can simply skip over to skinning.
Skinning
So how does skinning work? I should atleast explain it so you know the basics. You cannot just move your model in place of the bones and expect it to work. Rigging adds a weight which controls how much a bone will move a vertex/point of the model when it is animated. A weight of 1 will greatly influence movement, while 0.1 would be less.
First select your model. Now add a skin modifier. At the end of exporting make sure this is on the top of the list!! You can drag and move modifiers around to order them.
Now click on the add button.
Here select all the necessary bones. For this image i showed in red the very important bones for this particular model. You usually may want all of them depending on your import.
Goahead and set this to frame 1 with autokey enabled.
What this does is allow your character to stay in T pose in frame 0, and allow you to pose in frame 1. This is extreemly useful for testing your weights and rig.
Lets gointo wireframe and select a bone!
Now right click and press "Rotate". Rotate the bone a bit like this.
We got a few messed up areas . This is where weighting comes into play. With the model selected, in the skin modifier click edit envelopes and then check Vertices.
towards those bones.
The way the weight table works. 1 can make a vertice stay always next to a bone .5 is half to one bone, and to another one.
- and + decreases and increases weight amount of bone selected Blend greatly helps even out weights. I recommend using this alot. Downside however can possibly break some areas. If this happens you can weigh the area to a bone with a value of 1 so they go back together or undo the blend.
For DK i am going to weigh his body more to the Spine2 bone as that is where the body is.
Though this model is fairly complicated so let me talk about Select Element. This Can select all verticies of a polygon which is basically a group of faces on a mesh. The body can then be entirely selected and i can rig to the Spine2 bone.
Quick rig for shoulder area!
Lastly when finished keep the skin limit to 4 and remove zero weights (fixes exploding in game)
The rest is up to you! Do this to all bones so it looks good! I suggest looking online for some other rigging tutorials and guides! I found this one useful!.
Skin Wrapping (Optional, quicker method to rig a character)
This makes rigging alot easier as this will transfer the previous rig from the default model onto your own. This is mainly ideal for things that have similar proportions but this still gives fairly good results from my experience and serves as a good way to start on rigging.
This tutorial is very detailed and recommend. (The animation used cannot be used for your character! Make your own or pose bones as explained in the rigging part above)
Importing to bfres
Here I will export the model as .DAE. FBX is also supported.
If you use DAE, you may have to adjust the scale in a text editor from 1 to 0.1 as shown here
Make sure rotation is set to Z up.
Now in the toolbox with the bfres open, right click the model and "Replace'.
You can keep the DAE settings the same.
For bfres settings you can uncheck materials.
I suggest going into the inject tab and checking "Keep Original Skin Count" aswell. Keep in mind this will only apply for models with the same mesh names which is why i recommend keeping it the same as original to help crashes.
Now click "Save".
If your model looks weird make sure to adjust the texture maps. For Mario Kart 8 it uses shadow maps which can be filled as white.
Now swap the textures by right clicking and replacing them.
Optionally you can right click the "Textures" folder and "Replace All". This gives you an option to select a folder which swaps files that match the texture names.
The settings you can keep the same. Replacing a texture will automatically set the original format being replaced but you can alter it if necessary.
All you have to do now is File - Save. If it asks you to compress the file, select yes.