Some of the early discussion can be found here if you are interested:https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=6788.0
The new importer is based on Luminaire's old work, however, it now focuses on importing animations. The script is stilling using blender 2.49 APIs, so whoever use it need to get that version. I'm planning to port it on new blender, but for now it only works in 2.4x.
How to use?
1. Get a blender 2.49b from here:
http://download.blender.org/release/2. Download
import_ccmodel2.py3. Put the script in blender's script folder (on windows, it should be in .blender\scripts under your blender installation directory).
4. Get the model rips from
here. Extract them in a folder.
5. Edit import_ccmodel2.py:
** Find line 2740, edit the directory to match where you extract the models, there should be a "Battle Models" folder, that is your destination. On windows you should replace use \\ instead of \
** Find line 2745, the value can be either 'battle_model', 'room_model', 'room_anim' or 'tech_anim', the paths to the models and animations are defined in several tables(chars, rchars, ranim, techs). I will explain later.
** Line 2746 is the index to the battle model or tech animation. For example, if you want to import Serge's model with standard and attack animations, change the value to 0. If you want to import Serge's Luminaire animation, you need to change line 2745 to 'tech_anim', then change line 2746 to 180.
6. When you are done editing the script, run it from the menu: file-->Import-->Chrono Cross Model V2, and wait for blender to finish.
7. Find and reopen the output file in blender. For battle models, the .blend files should be saved in your "Battle Models" folder, for tech animations, the files are in "Battle Models\techanim". It is important to "force" blender to refresh by reopen the file.
Now you can preview the animations by pressing the right arrow key on your keyboard.
Character Table format:
i -- Index, it has no use but making it easy to find things
m -- model file path. It is relative to your "Battle Models" folder, the script will add the file extension ".mdl" for you.
w -- weapon model path. Check "Battle Models\weapons" to find the files. Again, the script will add ".mdl" for you so leave it alone. If you don't fill this value, "dummy" will be used, it is for those with no visible weapons.
d -- Can be 0 or 1. If it is 1, the character will wield two weapons. For now, only glenn2 has this.
a -- Alternate texture suffix. For example, by default Serge.mdl will use Serge.png for its texture, but if you add 'a':'2' to the table, the script will use Serge2.png instead. This is used when you want to edit the texture manually but don't want to overwrite the original one, for example, Harle use HaleA.png instead, because of the transparent pants.
p -- prefix to the model object to be created. Useful when you want to import two models into the same .blend file.
Tech Animation Table format:
i -- same as above
c -- character index, see above, basically, it is the i value from the character table.
w -- weapon, if you want to override the model's weapon. For example, Viper does not hold his weapon when using Flag Bearer tech.
t -- tech animation path, check "Battle Models\techanim". Those are usually ripped from battle field drps. This time the script will not add file extensions for you.
p -- same as above
d -- same as above
am -- Import the model instead. Usually this is used to load a model inside a tech drp, for example, Starky's robot. If am is set, t can be a fake path just to save the output file.
How to fix the meshes?
Well, the importer will leaves unused vertices. They are not visible but if you want your models to be clean, you can delete them manually.
It is pretty easy to do:
1. Switch to edit mode
2. Right click or open the Select menu, click Non-Triangles/Quads (hot key: ctrl+alt+shift+5).
3. Press delete key, then click vertex