a tutorial on how to obtain creature (or even vehicle or building) models, in a more complicated way than collladaexport but one which preserves the morph handles. it looks unrigged but they do have the weight paints for each bone??
what you will be doing is obtaining the .gmdl model of the creature and importing that into blender
theres also this gmdl export mod linked here, though the guide seems to just cover how to use it. if you got the gmdl through this though you can skip to the blender section
this is how to obtain the .gmdl file in vanilla spore
first of all, view the creature you wanna rip in the sporepedia. once it has loaded it will be put in the graphics cache
for reference this is what the .dae file from colladaexport looks like. all the morph handles reset so the face looks really weird
using sporemodder fx, use either this option in the File menu or this option in the main screen
navigate to the spore location in your user's AppData and select GraphicsCache.package. it does seem to have an intimidatingly big filesize but it will almost certainly not be this big once unpacked!
so select it. you might not have to select every format to unpack but i just do it anyway
unpack it and it might take far less time than youd expect from it being as big as it is. this is because much of the package is empty data, and its size depends on the graphic cache size option you set
anyway, looking at creature_editorModelHi~ (equivalent folders for other creation types), you will find the creature you want in the .gmdl files eventually
right click on it and copy name. chop off the filetype. this is just so you have the hash thats used for textures; its 0x268CD783 in this instance
then you need blender and the sporemodder blender addon. instructions on installing it are in the link also
select File in the top left, then Import, there should be options for importing gmdl
navigate to the sporemodder fx folder, then projects, then the graphics cache project and the find the gmdl file there in creature_editorModelHi~ (or whatever else)
it will import as, most likely, several objects and be untextured
heres how to texture it if you dont know blender
you can click on it, select material properties (spherical checkerboard-looikng icon) and press New here to create a material for the mesh
from here you can click on the yellow dot at Base Color, then in the list select Image Texture
it gives you the option to open, so you can select a texture. select it from the same sporemodder fx project
(you can do this btw to view models textured unshaded)
on the creature's other mesh, make new material, but instead of doing the same process again you can assign it the same material by clicking on the little orb next to the game and selecting the mateiral you just created (Asset_Material is from the .dae file)
it does look rather transparent... i have no good solution other than editing the image to remove the alpha channel
if youre willing to also get another program and a plugin for it, the Remove Transparency tool from this plugin for paint.net works really well, but if you dont want to do that i dont know what to recommend lol. same exact problem actually happens to the colladaexport models anyways
this is the actual graphics cache texture, its not even the same texture! so youll want to keep this in mind too. you cant just reuse the texture
anyway once youve opaqued the texture you can save it as a png or whatever. it doesnt have to be a dds
now heres a comparison to the dae
from this texture importing process you can also surmise how to import the normal map texture too (where im pretty sure the specular is in the alpha channel, so you would have to separate the alpha channel and split the images)
theres probably an easier way to do this in blender without having to edit the images? but idk lol
like i said, it will be unrigged and not have a skeleton. however you can find vertex groups that correspond exactly to each bone of the creature, viewed easily with weight painting
in THEORY youd be able to import the skeleton from the dae?? ive never tried it so i dont know
anyway this entire process should still work for buildings and vehicles and (im pretty sure) cells and flora as well, which you cant get through colladaexport!
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
janainaart
stormborns
germansingergirl
