User:Robotortoise/NoteobladeChronicles
How Xenoblade Works: What I've Figured Out So Far
Contents
Bone structure
Models all use the same bone structure, aside from Nopons and enemies. So if you wanted to switch two NPC models, you can easily do that. However, some bones may not display correctly or move correctly, especially in action cutscenes. For instance, Sharla's breasts expand impossibly far, if you're placing them on any character without a "DJbust" bone. Or if you replace, say, Shulk's action cutscene face, with Shulk's arm model, it may or may not expand infinitely just like Sharla's breasts do. (Yes, it will.)
How Armour works
Armour works very simply in Xenoblade, as I've found out: Each model contains all the bones for that character. For instance, Shulk's normal headgear will contain his leg bones, hair bones, etc., even though it's just his head. The bones themselves don't actually EXIST in that model, just the references do. So what this means is that if you open Shulk's overworld animations on top of his head model in BRRESViewer, his head will animate like it has a body attached.
I've theorized there is a "list" somewhere of which armour goes to which character, and that's how the game can map each armour piece to the correct body part. I have yet to find such a list.
Theory on replacing full characters
You may be able to replace a character by simply overwriting one of their pieces of armour and dummying out the rest so it's invisible. I have not been able to find a piece of armour large enough or an NPC small enough to do this, as QuickBMS requires all replaced files to be smaller than the original file. (For instance, say you wanted Mumkhar to replace Sharla in-game. You would blank out the .brres for every piece of armour Sharla's underwear set has, and then simply overwrite her underwear torso file with Mumkhar's model.)
Cutscene face model replacement
You can swap cutscene face models the same way you can swap armour models. They are not correlated to the head armour model the character is currently using, meaning Dunban's head can use Melia's face, as an example.
If you dummy out the data for a character's "action cutscene" face model, the game will deal with this fine. It will NOT swap out their cutscene face and use the normal overworld face model that doesn't have special bones for face movement. The character will not blink, etc, as those are all texture changes.
Non action cutscene face models on "action cutscene"-exclusive characters?
Bizarrely, Goddess Lady Meyneth and human Meyneth and human Klaus have "normal" face models without bones. This isn't odd in itself, but other characters that appear exclusively in real time cutscenes, like Short-haired Homs Fiora, DO have bones on their eyes and face rather than switching the face model out, meaning that at one point these three characters may have been intended to appear in-game itself, or in a "dialogue" cutscene like Giant Zanza has.
Animations
General
Animations have names, but these aren't viewable in BRRESViewer 1.1.3, for some reason. They are viewable via a hex editor. This is why if you switch, say, Fiora's battle animation's with Shulk's, she will not animate in battle.
Playable Characters
Animations are stored in the .mca file for playable characters. Each MCA file is a character's "set" of animations. The sets are the following: Overworld animations (jumping, climbing, swimming,etc.), battle animations (pulling out weapon, hitting enemy with weapon, etc.), "friendly" animations (idle animations, like Fiora pulling on her ponytails or Reyn stretching his arm, or animations for talking to NPCs.)
NPC and Enemy animations
NPC and enemy animations are stored in .kyp files. The .kyp file includes the model AND the associated animations. It's worth noting that each NPC and enemy has a .brres file AND a .kyp file, even though the .kyp file includes the models. It is currently unknown why there are both, other than to consume storage space.
Starting a battle
I replaced Shulk's battle animation .mca with Melia's .mca, but when I tried to start a battle, the battle icon "clicked" but Shulk wouldn't pull out the monado and start the battle. I suspect this is because the game tries to use one of Shulk's battle attack animations, but since all his are "missing" (his battle animations have different names than Melia's), it can't find the relevant file and gives up. I'm sure if I renamed Melia's battle animations with a hex editor to Shulk's names it would work properly. I will have to test this out.
But as Shulk had Melia's animation file, none of her attacks are the same name as his, and thus, it couldn't find any relevant animation files to use. So nothing happened.
Jigglebones
Aside from Sharla's breasts, any jigglebones (such as Dunban or Fiora's hair, Melia's wings, or any attachments, like Proto Fiora's pigtails) will work properly in-game, including in all cutscenes, unless the game thinks they're another bone. (For instance, if you replace Proto underwear Homs Fiora with the ending cutscene short haired Fiora, the game thinks her ponytails are her bangs, presumably because they share the same name.) I don't know WHY the game doesn't like Sharla's breasts being where they don't belong, but I will find out. It may have to do with them being named "DJbust".
script.pkb
Script.pkb seems to contain the following: background music spawn locations (what music plays where and for what time, doesn't include battle music), NPC walk paths and spawn points, cutscene triggers, and possibly the text the characters use.
If we could just figure out script.pkb's secrets....we could switch the cutscene trigger and have the unused cutscene play.
Kyp files
Kyp files are used by NPCs and enemies. They contain the animation (mca) files within them, and sound effects for that enemy/NPC in them.
Xenoblade Hacking Videos
Misc
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