That's the purpose of this forum—to help with the above, in case I encounter any problems. I think the models are the last content from Chrono Cross that should be ripped to the encyclopedia (we've already got background art and the character menu art, as well as relevant dynamic art such as the Chrono Cross element effect on salient pages), but it's been awhile since I've kept track of what all gets dumped, so suggestions are welcome. (Though I'm guessing people won't be interested in walkmeshes, but who knows...)
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Correspondence so far:
Make sure you've got, I think it's version 0.4.0 of Luminaire's importer. I think you should be good to go since version 0.4.0 can handle 128x128 textures (previously we had to stuff some data in to fake all textures at 128x256). However, I'm not sure whether the latest version could correctly handle double-texture enemies.
As a quick check, see if you can view these properly:
Serge Battle Model (example of 128x256)
Serge Field Model (example of 128x128)
Dario Battle Model (example of dual-texture with two 128x256 textures)
Quaddfid Battle Model (this should be really screwed up, actually -- that and the underwater jellyfish monster are the ones you'll have most trouble with since its textures function somewhat differently than most others'. I think they've got three textures and/or three palettes. If Quaddfid works properly, color me surprised).
Blender does have problems with translucency. So for some of the underwater creatures and the Time Devourer we'll have to call in someone like Unaisis or one of the other experienced modelers.
Last December I got about a third of the way through isolating all the field models from their respective rooms, to create a field model pack like I did the battle model pack (do you have that one?). That's been nagging on me since I left it unfinished, so I might make some time to finish that. Various objects, like doors and the Dragon Tear, should be in the field models.
I still don't have summons because I was having trouble isolating their textures in TileMolester, let alone their battle model data, which seems to be stored in whatever kind of unstructured format spells are stored in. The summons will definitely be last.
I had hoped to write a script for converting the Cross model files into images and/or more common 3D file formats, but it turns out Blender's scripting interface is not well suited to this sort of batch processing. Unfortunately that leaves only the brute force approach.
There is no a priori limitation on transparency from the importer; as long as your texture image files have black (0, 0, 0) set to transparent, then the transparency info will make it into Blender. The trouble is getting Blender to show it properly. If I remember right, my experience was that you needed to render (F12) to have the transparency work. If you have access to the old thread, you might skim the last part of it to see if I or anyone else left any tips behind.
Field models, battle models, and monsters covers the majority of the models. There are a few odds and ends, such as the boats, the cats you are transfomed into on the Zelbess, etc. There could be other things I suppose; that's just what I remember from the time.
You'll probably notice as you go along that strange lines that, for example, bisect a character's face. This is a bug with the handling of the texture info that I was unable to resolve at the time.
Let me know if you run into any trouble or have more questions.
P.S. Not sure how familiar you are with Blender, so this may be anywhere from painfully obvious to incomprehensible, but I might suggest a workflow similar to the following:
For each model:
1. Create a new model in Blender (File -> New or Ctrl+X).
2. Delete the cube that appears by right-clicking on it and pressing X.
3. Execute the import script to import the desired model information.
4. Change draw type to "Textured" to see model with texture applied.
5. Save model in Blender format (.blend).
6. Export model in other formats if desired. (No idea which ones would be good.)
7. Attempt to take screenshot(s).
Hmmm, I feel like I've encountered that purpleness before, but I don't remember what was going wrong. I just tried it myself with both Blender v2.49 and v2.49a and it seemed to be fine (no purpleness).
Current issue is that I'm getting nothing but a purple texture. I've tried 2.44 (script didn't work), 2.48, and 2.49a, using Python 2.6.2. I'm running Vista, if that matters. Attaching image and .blend output file for Serge, in case someone else wants to try opening it and seeing if the texture appears.