[Tabidzukare]

Hi there Steve,

I've been digging up dirt on Kaiyodo and his exploits, it's like uncovering an ancient legend or something, quite entertaining! Regardless, this mystical Kaiyodo found out that in chequip.s3d ALL of the games character and NPC models were stored there.. it's a gigantic archive. The newer .s3d's contain those busted up static images and before Kaiyodo left this scene he was working on (but never completed) solving that problem himself. The implosion results from him not knowing where bone structures were stored in the newer .s3d's.

Now, if you'll look, you'll notice you probably don't have a chequip.s3d... Well I've looked around and the reason is because long long ago model data was stored in an unencrypted format by verant in .spk files and textures in .dds files. The .spk files were plain text and easy to manipulate like .obj files, however this old original format of storage only exists afaik in the kunark release of the game.. which is supposedly where you'll find a chequip.s3d file. Because of the ease of manipulating .spk files the model viewer can only display them correctly.. not the newer conversions distributed amongst the .s3d files. This is why Kaiyodo's viewer works off of the chequip.s3d for model viewing.

I'm in the processing of getting a copy of this chequip.s3d myself.

Once you've obtained a copy here's what you do.

1. Open Kaiyodo's Model Viewer
2. Select 'chequip.s3d' from the left-most dialogue box
3. Click 'Load from .s3d' at the bottom of said Dialogue Box
4. Select the .spk file of your choosing to see in the viewer
5. Extract the model to .POV format OR .MS format with skins
6. Load the object in the program of your choice
7. Render the object

That my friend I hope works for you.. in a few hours I'll be posting in my .MTL Information thread some exciting screen shots of zone art that worked using similar guidelines. Also, I could suggest you download the 3dsMax Trial from AutoDesk's site.. it is completely fully featured and you could easily export the .ms file from the model viewer, and load it up with (incredible isnt it..) skeleton and everything in tact for animating if you should choose. That way you'd have a month to get your work done because who can actually afford 3ds who's not in that field??

The beauty of living in Korea is that with a PC Room, every time I go in the install of the trial is fresh, so I have it indefinitely. Either way, if you're not a fan of pirating (as I myself am not generally) the trial is a great way to get some work done now while you work on other things in say.. povRay.

Any more issues let me know.. if I find chequip.s3d I'll let you know what release I was able to get it from and then you could go about acquiring it!

Kindest Regards~