Editing a model

The model's Edit tab changes its meshes without leaving Studio: move, copy and delete parts, shape vertices, lay out UVs, paint skin weights, and add parts from other models. The changed parts are written into the project in the game's own format.

It works on RF Online and Gate to Heavens models with a skeleton. World of Kung Fu models, items without a skeleton and models not skinned on one skeleton are refused when you start.

To work in Blender instead, see Editing in Blender. To paint textures, see Painting on the model.

Starting and finishing

1. Open the model, go to the Edit tab and choose Start editing. Studio builds the model's meshes at their rest pose, the same scene Edit in Blender sends.
2. Make your changes. The animation pauses and the model is drawn faint; the shaded mesh on top is what will be written.
3. Choose Review and apply…. The tab lists every file it would write, any part it would empty, the levels of detail it would rebuild, and any warnings.
4. Choose Write … file(s) to write them, or Cancel to keep editing.

Only the parts you changed are written. A session with no change, or with every change undone, writes nothing and says so. After a write the model reloads and the session ends; Install puts the files in the game. See Projects and Install.

Discard ends the session without writing anything. Opening another model in the tab ends it too.

Undo

Undo and Redo, or Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y, step through the session's edits, up to 64 steps. Every gizmo drag, operation and brush stroke is one step.

The three modes

The row under the buttons switches between Parts, Vertices and Weights. The gizmo keys work in all of them:

Parts

Each part of the model is one mesh in the list, with its number and triangle count. Click a part in the list or on the model to pick it.

• Hide (or H) hides it from the preview only, so you can reach what is behind it. Show brings it back.
• Duplicate copies it; the copy is written into the same file as the original.
• Delete (or the Delete key) removes it. On RF Online the part's file keeps an empty entry for it. A Gate to Heavens part cannot be deleted, because the game loads each part by name.

Moving a part

Drag the gizmo to move, rotate or scale the whole part about its centre. Switch on Pivot on the part's bone (hang a weapon in the hand) to turn it about the joint of the bone it follows instead, which is the way to set how a held item sits in the hand.

Material and texture

• Material points the part at any material in the scene.
• Texture from an image… gives the part a picture of your own (.png, .jpg, .bmp, .tga or .dds). It is written as the part's texture on apply.

UV layout

The tab draws the part's UVs over its texture. Offset U, Offset V, Scale and Rotate set a change that Apply UV transform makes. Flip U and Flip V mirror the layout, and Fit 0..1 fits it to the texture. With vertices picked in Vertices mode, these act on them; otherwise on the whole part.

Shape

• Mirror mirrors the whole part along X, Y or Z.
• Keep triangles and Decimate to … triangles reduce the part to that share of its triangles.

Levels of detail (Gate to Heavens)

A Gate to Heavens part has lower-detail copies the game draws at a distance. Regenerate the original's lower LODs on Apply, on by default, rebuilds them from your edit at the same ratios as the game's own part. A part the game draws with one level is written with one. RF Online meshes have no levels of detail.

Adding a part

Under Add a part, the mesh you add joins the picked part's file and is written with it.

• Bind to chooses how it follows the skeleton: Bind by joint names (files) keeps the skinning of a file whose joints carry this model's bone names, or pick a bone to fix the whole mesh to it.
• Add from a model file (.glb, .fbx, .obj)… adds the meshes of a file. A joint whose name the skeleton does not have is refused, by name.
• Add from the catalogue searches the client's models. Click one to add it, fixed to the bone chosen above or to the picked part's own bone, standing where it stands in its own model.

Move the added part into place with the gizmo. On Gate to Heavens a part draws one texture, so an added mesh draws with the part's texture, and the review says so.

Vertices

All, None, Grow, Shrink and Linked change the selection, and Select what … moves picks every vertex the bone chosen in Weights mode moves. Select through the mesh lets a box or lasso pick vertices hidden behind the surface.

The gizmo moves, rotates and scales the picked vertices.

Proportional editing

Proportional editing (O) lets a drag pull the vertices around the picked ones too, less the further they are. Radius sets how far it reaches; [ and ], or the mouse wheel during a drag, change it. The falloff list sets how the pull fades. Reach across parts lets it move other parts' vertices.

Operations

• Smooth evens out the picked vertices, as many times as Smooth passes says.
• Delete faces removes the faces of the picked vertices.
• Recalc normals, Flip normals, Flat shade and Smooth shade change how the surface is lit.

Weights

A bone's weights color the mesh from blue (none) to red (full). Pick the bone from the list or click it on the model, then left-drag on the mesh to paint.

• Add, Subtract and Smooth choose what the brush does. Brush radius ([ and ]) and Strength set its size and force.
• Bind selection fully gives the vertices picked in Vertices mode wholly to the bone.
• Mirror weights (X) copies weights across the model's X axis, onto the picked vertices.
• Normalize makes each vertex's weights add up to one, and Limit to 4 keeps each vertex's four strongest bones. Both act on the picked part's mesh, or every mesh.

Limits

• Edits are made at the rest pose, so you pick and move a vertex where the faint model would stand at rest, not where the animation has it.
• A part the model loads twice is edited in its first copy only.
• Add from the catalogue fixes the added mesh to one bone. To add a skinned mesh, add it from a file whose joints carry this model's bone names.
• Scaling along one axis is refused on a mesh whose rest pose is turned against the scene's axes. Proportional editing reaches across parts only when the parts share one rest pose.
• A box or lasso over a very dense model stops checking what is hidden past a limit, and picks the rest through the mesh. The shaded preview stops filling past 200,000 triangles.