Time flies, and I'm a bit ashamed to say that it I haven't made a new Final Fantasy papercraft
in over two years...! So it was about time.
😉
This time, I chose
Final Fantasy VIII, since it's one of my favourite Final Fantasies but the only papercraft from it that I made so far is the
Kingdom Hearts version of
Squall Leonheart...
◾ Extract a Final Fantasy VIII PlayStation game model (Noesis)
- First things first: as always, you need the game itself. There have been a few different iterations of Final Fantasy VIII, but as you can see I'm using the original PlayStation version.
- Insert one of the four Final Fantasy VIII discs into the disc drive on your computer.
- Copy the .IMG file from the disc (FF8DISC1.IMG for example if you're using disc1 😉) to a new work Folder.
- Now download and unzip the latest version of Noesis by Rich Whitehouse:
- When you try to start Noesis, you might get a warning from Microsoft Defender Smartscreen saying it prevented the unrecognized app from starting.
- If you trust Noesis though, you can click the More info button and then choose the Run Anyway option to... run it anway.
NOTE: Only bypass your computer's protection software if YOU completely trust the software of course and NEVER disable it completely!
- Once Noesis has started, go to the File menu and choose Open File.
- Open the FF8DISC1.IMG file you just copied into your work folder and the Export Container File dialogue box will automatically show.
- You don't really need to change anything; just click the Export button and let it do its thing.
- Once the Export is complete, there will be a new FF8DISC1_files folder in your work folder with lots of .dat (and other ones!) inside.
- Use the file tree in Noesis to browse to the FF8DISC1_files folder, and the .dat files show up in Noesis too.
- Select one of the .dat files to see a preview of the model.
- Find a character or monster you like to make into a papercraft, then right-click the .dat file (Sorceress Edea is stored as model0248.dat) and choose the Export option.
- The Export Media dialogue box will automatically open; change the Main output type to .fbx - Autodesk FBX. and click the Export button.
- Once the Export is complete, there will be an .fbx model and several .png texture images in the FF8DISC1_files folder.
◾ Convert exported .fbx file to Wavefront .obj (Blender)
- Download and install a recent version of Blender (I like to use version v2.79b):
- Choose File -> Import -> FBX (.fbx) to open the extracted .fbx file.
- Once the .fbx file is imported, use the animation slider at the bottom to choose a nice pose for your papercraft.
- Once you're satisfied, choose File -> Export -> Wavefront (.obj)
- Open the exported .obj in the 3D program of your choice (I like to use
Metasequoia) to assign the
textures and change the 3D model to make the game model more suited for papercraft purposes!
😊
...which is what I'll be doing next. 😊
Stay tuned!
