Naming Blue Spiders: Any way to identify file names of character models?

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Jul 30, 2018
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sppeac1987
(I also posted this in the Random Shenmue III thoughts thread but wanted to see if any members who are more mod/hacking savvy could help with this somehow)

So I've started some early work on a 'Shenmue III Character database' (like the one I did for S2) - and have been able to determine there are 314 named characters in the game - which I've collated into a spreadsheet here.

However, one niggling issue comes with two of the Blue Spiders - obviously we all know Yanlang is the leader, but the two thugs with him do not have their names divulged at all while the player is in Bailu Village.

The Blue Spiders then reappear within the 'Story Quest' DLC in Niaowu, and we meet these two again:
blue spiders.png
After you fight them and leave the back alley in Vendor Avenue, you speak to an associate of Zhang's at the hotel - who tells you the following:
gao and li.png
Ok, so we now know that these guys are named Gao and Li. Great! Just one issue - which is which?! The game does not make this clear, as far as I can determine this single line of dialogue is the only time their names are ever mentioned. We never see their names appear on-screen otherwise, as you don't interrogate them like Yanlang, nor are they seen as NPC's in normal gameplay, just in cutscenes and battles.

There may be a clue however, in how the names of the two Red Snakes members are divulged in the game. We know the name of the leader is Ge Longqi (more commonly known as Mr Muscles on this forum!) via one of the notebook entries, but we do learn the names of his two cronies as well. When speaking with Mr. Hsu about the Red Snakes, he tells you their names are Lu and Xiang; and furthermore, that 'one was thin' and that the other 'was as big as a panda'. Assuming he is referring to them respectively in order, we can gather that Lu is the thin guy in the grey shirt, while Xiang is the bigger guy with the bandana.

Should we assume that Gao and Li are referred to in the same order - i.e. that the thin, scrawny guy comes first, and the bigger guy second? If that's the case, Gao would be the thin, bald guy with the spider tattoo on his head, while Li is the bigger guy with long hair. But frustratingly there's no way to really confirm this.

Which leads me to my query - is anyone able to determine the file names of these two's character models, in the hope it may shed light on which is which??

Thanks in advance :)
 
When speaking with Mr. Hsu about the Red Snakes, he tells you their names are Lu and Xiang; and furthermore, that 'one was thin' and that the other 'was as big as a panda'. Assuming he is referring to them respectively in order, we can gather that Lu is the thin guy in the grey shirt, while Xiang is the bigger guy with the bandana.
The Japanese wikipedia page actually has them listed as the reverse. Not really a perfect source, though, and there's no further source given, either. I was looking at this scene in Japanese again, though. Does it really say he's "as big as a panda" in English? 'Cause that's not right. Hsu says, 'One of them was thin, and the other was a large man with a bandana.' In the next line he references them in the order Lu, then Xiang. Lu is also apparently a sixth-dan, at least before he became part of the Red Snakes.

If I had to guess, I feel like Gou is probably the larger one, and Li is the thin one. Just sort of a hunch. It's 50/50 either way, though.


That's some very fashionable hair he's sporting there.
 
The Japanese wikipedia page actually has them listed as the reverse. Not really a perfect source, though, and there's no further source given, either. I was looking at this scene in Japanese again, though. Does it really say he's "as big as a panda" in English? 'Cause that's not right. Hsu says, 'One of them was thin, and the other was a large man with a bandana.' In the next line he references them in the order Lu, then Xiang. Lu is also apparently a sixth-dan, at least before he became part of the Red Snakes.

If I had to guess, I feel like Gou is probably the larger one, and Li is the thin one. Just sort of a hunch. It's 50/50 either way, though.



That's some very fashionable hair he's sporting there.
That's interesting - do you have a link to the Japanese page? And yes, he does say 'as big as a panda' in the English dub. That's interesting that Hsu explicitly refers to one as wearing a bandana in the Japanese voicetrack. So in that case, if he still refers to them in the following line in the order Lu, then Xiang, my assumption that Lu is the skinny one and Xiang is the one wearing a bandana is still correct?

As for the Blue Spiders, from Google it seems 'Gao' can mean 'high or tall' and Li can mean 'powerful', which may suggest its the reverse of your guess...I'm tempted to assume the order they are referred to in dialogue follows the same logic as the Red Snakes. The fact that the skinny guy's model is GRA and the bigger guy's model is GRB would also suggest its Gao first, Li second...

@LemonHaze, sorry to press again, were you able to find out the model names for the Red Snakes?
 
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That's interesting - do you have a link to the Japanese page? And yes, he does say 'as big as a panda' in the English dub. That's interesting that Hsu explicitly refers to one as wearing a bandana in the Japanese voicetrack. So in that case, if he still refers to them in the following line in the order Lu, then Xiang, my assumption that Lu is the skinny one and Xiang is the one wearing a bandana is still correct?
Sorry I missed this. Here's a link to the JP wikipedia page for Shenmue (specifically, directing to the 'enemy characters appearing in Shenmue III' section):
Wikipedia

Well, yikes, confusing "Bandana" for "Panda" is pretty bad. Not sure how someone doesn't double check that.

In Japanese, Hsu says their names in the same order as in English, but he gives their descriptions in the reverse order. So if you paired the order of their descriptions with the order their names are given, in Japanese, it would go:

Lu -> tall and skinny
Xiang -> large, wears a bandana

Which I think is probably why they're listed that way in the Japanese Wikipedia page as well, but there could be some more conclusive evidence for that, that I'm unaware of.


As for the Blue Spiders, from Google it seems 'Gao' can mean 'high or tall' and Li can mean 'powerful', which may suggest its the reverse of your guess...I'm tempted to assume the order they are referred to in dialogue follows the same logic as the Red Snakes. The fact that the skinny guy's model is GRA and the bigger guy's model is GRB would also suggest its Gao first, Li second...
Yeah, could be. 'Kou'/'Gao' is definitely "tall." I don't know if there's some other connotation for 'Li' in Chinese, but in Japanese it mainly represents a tree that bears a lot of fruit. It has a heavy connotation of fruit, and somewhat of a tall tree. I would sort of associate that somehow more with a skinny person, but that doesn't mean it would necessarily be accurate, so your method is probably as good as anything.
 
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