How to: Import custom models to Cold Steel IV

Introduction

This page is here to guide you in the process of adding custom models to Cold Steel IV. It is currently one of the most complex operations in modding as it involves several steps, and is still at a somewhat early stage. The guide will lead you to insert Van Arkride from Kuro no Kiseki to CSIV, but in a very rough state. He will not be able to fight or doing anything more than running on the field.

The current process includes the following steps in chronological order:

• Obtaining the model to import (Van Arkride) as a FBX file
• Import it in Maya 2015/2016/207/2018
• Creating the dummy shaders, then applying them to Van's materials in Maya (including his shadow shader)
• Exporting Van to .dae using the ColladaMaya plugin
• Importing Van in CSIV using CSIVAssetImportTool to obtain a .dae.phyre file
• Updating the shader names in it
• Using Ouroboros' ED84 decompiler, scripting the Idle and Running animations.

Note that this guide could see an extension of it later if we find the time, where we would discuss how to reproduce craft attacks using camera control commands through ani script editing.

Obtaining the model

To extract Van's model from Kuro no Kiseki game files, we will be using KuroTools mdl exe.