Maybe you know about one of the largest community that rip, rig and convert almost all game models and if you want to extract some model, maybe someone already did it and publish it on deviantart. So how to port that models to Saints Row 4?
Note: text here is more like explanation to the videos than real tutorial article
You need:
Saints Row 4 SDK B (for template files)
Xnalara posing studio
Autodesk Maya
Photoshop or any other bitmap editor to covert textures to tga
Step:1
First of all you need to find and download xnalara models somewhere and extract them to Xnalara's data folder
Then run Xnalara and add your model to scene, after import SR4 reference model (that I added to the end of the post).
We need to scale and move Xnalara model and its joints to be close as possible to the reference model. After adjusting remove reference model and Xnalara model to OBJ. Also you need to convert model's texture to tga and rename them.
Step:2
Run Maya and open Saints Row 4 SDK character template (.mb file)
Some things in Maya is very ingenious so to freeze and make template model inactive you need to create new layer, add your model to this layer and set some attribute to the layer. This is optional step but if you really want to edit imported model that save your time.
Import your Xnalara OBJ after. It's hard to see it in viewport so open Outliner spacebar->window->outliner
In my case imported OBJ consist with two parts but SDK converter support only single mesh so we need to merge them. Also after merging you can weld all vertices.
After we clear mesh history it's not necessary but keeps Outliner more clean. Rename mesh to cm_your_model_name for male version or cf_your_model_name for female version. So model prepared to scaling and rotating. With selected Xnalara mesh open Attribute editor and in first tab set
After that freeze transform.
Open Hypershade and create new Phong material.
Apply this material to Xnalara mesh. Select the mesh and in last tab of Attribute editor you find your material, set model textures here.
Step:3
You need to create blendshapes, character model in Saints Row 4 has many blendshapes every slider in character editor is new model with some deformation. Without blendshape your model probably will be looks strange. There is three main body blendshapes body_fat_plus, body_fat_minus and body_muscle.
So copy your Xnalara model three times and rename copies like that.
If you lazy and don't want that your model react on character body changes you can do nothing with copied models
Select one of the your bendshapes, then select templates(with Ctrl) model and set Wrap modifier(Rigging interface(F3): Deform->Wrap) Any deformation of the template model will be automatically applied to your blendshape.
Select template model and find Morpher tab in Attribute editor. Find slider with the same name as your blendshape and set it to 1. After you need to delete Wrap modifier on your blendshape by clearing history. That will unlink blendshape and character template. Also Wrap modifier create some addishional copy of template model so you can delete it after clearing history.
Reapeat this for each blendshape, if model looks bad you can edit it manually but don't change topology! You can only move vertexies\edges\polygons.
When all blendshapes are ready select all of them in Outliner after this add your Xnalara mesh to selection. Go to Deform->Blend Shape.
Last thing you should do is skinning. Select Xnalara mesh in Outliner and add skeleton bone_root to selection. Then go Rigging interface(F3): Skin->Bind Skin. Yeah your Model was skinned but result probably bad. To fix that we will copy weights from template.
Select template model first then add Xnalara model to selection and go Rigging interface(F3): Skin->Copy Skin Weights. That should be all but for some reason Maya does not copy weights from pelvis right. It copy them to to root bone so we need to fix it.
Select Xnalara mesh, open Skin->Paint Skin Weights editor. Select bone_root, press RMB->Add affected vertices then add(Ctrl) bone_pelvis to selection and press Move weights to selected influence icon
That all folks! You can also check model on vertices without weights and use hammer on them.
Export model to FBX. How to add this model to the game? Step :1 and Step:4 here
Note: text here is more like explanation to the videos than real tutorial article
You need:
Saints Row 4 SDK B (for template files)
Xnalara posing studio
Autodesk Maya
Photoshop or any other bitmap editor to covert textures to tga
Step:1
First of all you need to find and download xnalara models somewhere and extract them to Xnalara's data folder
Then run Xnalara and add your model to scene, after import SR4 reference model (that I added to the end of the post).
We need to scale and move Xnalara model and its joints to be close as possible to the reference model. After adjusting remove reference model and Xnalara model to OBJ. Also you need to convert model's texture to tga and rename them.
Step:2
Run Maya and open Saints Row 4 SDK character template (.mb file)
Some things in Maya is very ingenious so to freeze and make template model inactive you need to create new layer, add your model to this layer and set some attribute to the layer. This is optional step but if you really want to edit imported model that save your time.
Import your Xnalara OBJ after. It's hard to see it in viewport so open Outliner spacebar->window->outliner
In my case imported OBJ consist with two parts but SDK converter support only single mesh so we need to merge them. Also after merging you can weld all vertices.
After we clear mesh history it's not necessary but keeps Outliner more clean. Rename mesh to cm_your_model_name for male version or cf_your_model_name for female version. So model prepared to scaling and rotating. With selected Xnalara mesh open Attribute editor and in first tab set
After that freeze transform.
Open Hypershade and create new Phong material.
Apply this material to Xnalara mesh. Select the mesh and in last tab of Attribute editor you find your material, set model textures here.
Step:3
You need to create blendshapes, character model in Saints Row 4 has many blendshapes every slider in character editor is new model with some deformation. Without blendshape your model probably will be looks strange. There is three main body blendshapes body_fat_plus, body_fat_minus and body_muscle.
So copy your Xnalara model three times and rename copies like that.
If you lazy and don't want that your model react on character body changes you can do nothing with copied models
Select one of the your bendshapes, then select templates(with Ctrl) model and set Wrap modifier(Rigging interface(F3): Deform->Wrap) Any deformation of the template model will be automatically applied to your blendshape.
Select template model and find Morpher tab in Attribute editor. Find slider with the same name as your blendshape and set it to 1. After you need to delete Wrap modifier on your blendshape by clearing history. That will unlink blendshape and character template. Also Wrap modifier create some addishional copy of template model so you can delete it after clearing history.
Reapeat this for each blendshape, if model looks bad you can edit it manually but don't change topology! You can only move vertexies\edges\polygons.
When all blendshapes are ready select all of them in Outliner after this add your Xnalara mesh to selection. Go to Deform->Blend Shape.
Last thing you should do is skinning. Select Xnalara mesh in Outliner and add skeleton bone_root to selection. Then go Rigging interface(F3): Skin->Bind Skin. Yeah your Model was skinned but result probably bad. To fix that we will copy weights from template.
Select template model first then add Xnalara model to selection and go Rigging interface(F3): Skin->Copy Skin Weights. That should be all but for some reason Maya does not copy weights from pelvis right. It copy them to to root bone so we need to fix it.
Select Xnalara mesh, open Skin->Paint Skin Weights editor. Select bone_root, press RMB->Add affected vertices then add(Ctrl) bone_pelvis to selection and press Move weights to selected influence icon
Export model to FBX. How to add this model to the game? Step :1 and Step:4 here
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