Shenmue I/II character swapping guide?

[Berzee]

Hi friends, I've managed to use the SDTextureOverride guide with some success but I haven't seen much information about character/model swapping. Is this doable, and is there an official best approach to make it happen?

I found the following two pages with some instructions, but they both seem a little convoluted. If these are the best there is to go on, though, I will give it a shot. =)
Tutorial on Swapping character models
Character Swapping Tutorial

Thanks pals!

 

[LemonHaze]

Yeah character swapping is definitely feasible and already tested.

For this you'll either need to make a TAD/TAC which replaces the character model for another one.. or you can use Forklift to allows you to do the exact same thing, without needing to make a TAD/TAC.

I'd suggest using Forklift while making your mod and then if you want to make it a proper mod, make a TAD/TAC pair out of it when you're done. :)

Characters can mostly just be replaced, so in Shenmue I, Ryo's model name is YKB_M.

Feel free to ask any questions etc, I'm around most of the time.

 

[Berzee]

Thanks for the tips! I've had a partial victory.

I was trying to replace blue dress Xiuying (scene/01/model/chara/SYE_B.MT7) with red dress Xiuying (scene/01/model/chara/SYP_B.MT7). This seems to have no effect, but I was able to replace RYO_M.MT7 with either of these models and turn Ryo into Xiuying...although with the oddity that she is about 50% transparent.

I also found blue dress Xiuying in scene/01/WB00/BOSY.PKS so I replaced that with the red dress version found in scene\02\npc\_humans.afs_\file_1361.PKS -- which also did nothing, but I expect that's just because swapping PKS files like that would be invalid?

I will keep tinkering but let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

Note: I'm testing this at the point where you first have to follow Xiuying so I think I'm still in scene 01 territory, but I also made the MT7 change in 02/03/04 for good measure.

 

[LemonHaze]

Thanks for the tips! I've had a partial victory.

I was trying to replace blue dress Xiuying (scene/01/model/chara/SYE_B.MT7) with red dress Xiuying (scene/01/model/chara/SYP_B.MT7). This seems to have no effect, but I was able to replace RYO_M.MT7 with either of these models and turn Ryo into Xiuying...although with the oddity that she is about 50% transparent.

I also found blue dress Xiuying in scene/01/WB00/BOSY.PKS so I replaced that with the red dress version found in scene\02\npc\_humans.afs_\file_1361.PKS -- which also did nothing, but I expect that's just because swapping PKS files like that would be invalid?

I will keep tinkering but let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

Note: I'm testing this at the point where you first have to follow Xiuying so I think I'm still in scene 01 territory, but I also made the MT7 change in 02/03/04 for good measure.

Maybe try humans.afs. There are a few AFS tools around so you can easily replace stuff with a GUI. Really busy as always but you're on the right track, good work :)