don't know what the tumblr sniper wolf fanbase is like but i thought she was a pretty cool character and probably the character that left the most impact on me while playing mgs so i wanted to draw her (despite having to redraw this several times such is my torment)
How to rip models from mgs 2 and 3 to blender (or any other 3d software)
YOU WILL NEED:
Noesis (LINK)
Mgs plugin for noesis (LINK)
A copy of mgs2/3 from the master collection off of steam. for this guide i will be using mgs3 but they should work the same.
Blender (LINK) and some knowlege of the software.
DISCLAIMER ETC.
I would suggest reading the entire guide before committing to do this. the ripping part is simple. making the models useable is the annoying part here.
this tool is not perfect. There are some errors and textures that do not export correctly. this is an error with the plugin as far as i am aware. there is nothing you can do about this. also i am not responsible if you download the wrong mgs master collection free and get like a virus or something. be sensible when you are downloading games off of random websites.
And of course! Be prepared to ruin the magic of that game you like! :)
A WORD ON THE MDL FILE. MDL as a file extension is used by many different games, however these files are not structured the same. metal gear solid uses mdl files for its objects and characters. it is important that you do not use software for viewing other games MDL files, like the ones used in the quake series or for the source engine, because they will not work even if they say they work with mdl files. this is becuse they share the same file extension name but they are fundimentally not the same files. they are seperate file types that have the same name. don't waste your time.
OKAY LETS START!
once you have downloaded everything, launch noesis and drag and drop the script onto the program. if this doesnt work you can cut and paste the script into the plugins folder of wherever you downloaded noesis to.
at the bottom of the window you should see this, change all files to just mgs mdl files. this isnt vital but it helps to make sure the plugin is working and makes sure the program only shows you the files you actually want. then navigate using the file explorer sidebar to where your copy of the game is installed.
Clicking on the folder name does nothing, you have to press the plus sign by its name to open it. you want to find the assets folder which should be the first thing you see when you hit the plus. then you want to navigate to the mdl folder inside of it.
here you go :) have fun!
clicking on each mdl file should open the model up on the other side of the screen. to find the character models, you want to click on the us folder. this contains most of the models in the game. the models are slow to load. THIS IS NORMAL. it is not an error or your computer.
A NOTE ON CHARACTER MODELS.
The models of this game are split into pieces. you will have to export them seperately and then put them back together. Some characters, such as eva, have lots of parts. hair is especially problematic, if any character has long hair- expect their model to come without any, and for the hair models to be in multiple parts, and for you to have to recombine the models yourself. This is for ease of animation i do believe.
here is the boss for example. the sidebar as you can see contains a lot of files. these are all for different parts of her model, such as the bags on her belt, her cape and her hair. As well as different versions of her model for her different outfits.
A NOTE ON MODEL NAMES.
The models in this game are not named in the way you might imagine. the basic convention is that the first three letters relate to the name of the character (volgin's is THU_ for thunderbolt i think he may be the only exception to this rule. the files are alphabetical so if you want his models you do not have to scroll down that far.) (eva's is eve, but that works for if you are skimming it using the alphabet.) Files such as map models are usually named with numbers and letters, BUT they do not export or display very well.
Files marked with DEMO, to my knowlege are for cutscenes. You can consider them as copies of the other files for this purpose . DEF usually means higher definition. these are also higher quality models for events like cutscenes or when the npc is closer to you. basically as far as i know, you want to go for the DEF or DEMO files over the normal ones as they look slightly better.
OKAY WHAT NOW? I WANT TO EXPORT THIS MODEL!
Go to file -> export
This menu should come up. Create a seperate folder for this, one to contain everything in and another to store each individual model you export. this will make life a lot easier for you later. Give it a descriptive name and all of that, i don't need to tell you this.
when you have made the folder you want your file to be exported into, copy and paste the destination into the destination files bar in the menu. Then add on \(your models name).fbx on the end. then press export. you have to specify the model files name and extension here otherwise it will not work.
i say this because exports create a lot of files, and you do not control what the textures are named. it makes life a lot easier to have all of this seperate when you are putting together your models.
export it as an autodesk FBX. It also works as an OBJ but personally i have found it to be less reliable.
HANDS.
Some models do not have individual fingers. you will be able to see this in the model preview. they are modelled as a solid shape, often with only the index finger and thumb being seperate, with the other fingers curved around. this is so guns fit in their hands while also making their idle hands at their sides animations look relaxed and normal. this sucks when you want to pose their fingers, but theres nothing you can do about it.
YOU ARE HALFWAY THERE!
Do this for whatever files you want. You may now open blender. Blender disclaimer- i am not a blender expert. feel free to look at someone elses guides to these things. i am sure i havent got the best method. You can try importing as .fbx (legacy) instead of a normal fbx. sometimes this makes the textures show up immediately.
WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE THIS?
Somehow materials have been assigned to your models, this makes them look weird. The normals and faces need to be recalculated. The bones also are not connected to eachother.
If you press the show textures button, they might also appear purple, and therefore need to be assigned their respective textures.
when the model is shown as purple, this is because blender doesnt recognise the texture. this has an easy fix.
open this and navigate to the folder you opened the model from. then press open image. the texture should now load. if they did not export correctly, try again. this can be an issue with the export, however sometimes it straight up doesnt work. this is a reported issue with the plugin. i cant solve that for you, thats on the person who coded it, and thats wayy beyond me.
WHY IS IT SHINY?
for some reason it adds materials and shaders when you put it in blender. in the shading window remove principled bsdf. drag the colour of your texture to the surface.
NORMALS?
You will notice that random triangles look funny and are a different colour. this is because they are inside out. this is the most annoying part. you have to flip all of these faces. if you are lucky you can select all and then recalculate the normals. if this doesnt work you have to manually select all of the inside out faces and press alt+N and flip them.
the models export in multiple pieces, sadly you cannot do this just once per character. i find it best to rotate the camera around the model and doing it for every face i see. remember the teeth, eyelashes and eyeballs! they are easy to miss here. to help with this, go into the viewport menu and check face orientation. this will make the wrong sided faces easier to see.
select all of the red faces and hit recalculate normals (alt+n) if "recalculate inside" does not work, try "recalculate outside". this does not automatically fix the faces being half opaque and half shiny. you still have to flip them manually as far as i can see.
To make sure all of your faces are the correct way around, to into the edit mode overlay settings and hit the display face normals button. if the faces are the right way around a blue line should be coming out of the centre of them.
The skeleton should work in blender, even if the bones looking like this are unintuitive and terrible for things like faceposing. they still do work and you can still use blenders pose mode for your models.
WHAT ABOUT THE HAIR/COATS/BAGS ETC?
import them in seperately and use the move tool to move them in place, and then join the two groups of models together. joining and parenting objects and meshes in blender.
THERE YOU GO! you have all of the models you could dream of, and the ability to do whatever you want with them. I know my blender method is a bit jank, but it works for me, and i am not really a blender expert. However, i feel as if there are infinitely more blender tutorials than there are metal gear model ripping tutorials so i'm sure you can find something out there.
I'm so glad to see someone made a tutorial for this (because I was not motivated to)! You discuss issues with textures, so I want to share my solution. On this blog you can also find a link to my DA account. About two years ago I ripped a shitton of models from MGS3 and converted them to .xns for use in XNALara. Please feel free to download and make use of them.
Noesis and Jayveer's plugin will allow you to open, view, and export the 3D models with minimal casualties. They are stored in the game folder under …assets\tri\us with some supplemental models in …assets\tri\eu. Open the folder up on the left side of the screen and navigate to the model that you want. Large models such as characters may take some time to load. Don't be surprised if the program freezes for a moment. Select the model that you want to save and navigate to File > Export. The main output type should be set to .fbx and the texture output needs to be set to .png.
I always make sure to save each model in its own folder so that the textures don't get scrambled together.
You'll also want to make a separate dump of the texture files, as Noesis may occasionally corrupt textures. This is especially true for textures with transparent elements. To do this, you can use the CTXR Converter to mass-convert the files in …textures\flatlist\_win. Like with the above, don't be surprised if the program stops responding, just let it run.
I prefer to go through the textures at this point and pull out any of the ones I need for the model I'm working on. I'll drop them into a folder of their own, then open up chaiNNer to pull the alpha layer off of them.
For textures like hair, I've found it easiest to pop them open in my art program of choice - Krita. I'll then duplicate the semi-transparent layer three or four times to make the texture solid while maintaining the transparent background areas and preventing hard, pixelized edges on the object.
I've gotten into the habit of simply replacing all of the textures that Noesis pulled. The important part though is to at least fix the corrupted textures. This can be done in one of two ways.
The first is to rename the textures that you just converted to the jumbled ones that were exported from Noesis, then replace those old files with the new ones. This is my preferred method, as though it is sloppier, it is faster. You can usually tell what corrupted textures are supposed to be which so replacing them isn't too big of an issue. The alternative method can only be done once you have converted the model to .mesh.ascii, so let's do that first.
Blender 2.80 is required for this conversion because the plugin to import and export files for XNALara doesn't work on more recent versions of Blender. Import the .fbx model to begin. You will probably have to resize or reposition the model at this point too. After the size and position are correct, export the model using the export dialogue. Make sure that you export all objects, not just selected ones. The model needs to be exported as .ascii, but you need to set the name to [name].mesh.ascii for it to save properly.
This is when you can alternatively replace the textures. Open the .mesh.ascii file in Notepad, WordPad or another plain text editor. Gradually go through and find and replace the scrambled texture names with the ones that have been fixed. You will likely have to check to make sure the textures are correct by opening the model in Blender or XNALara. This is a very time consuming method, but leads to a better organized end result.
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