- Soos - Animation Knowledge, Issue Diagnosis
- The1andonlyDarto - Model and Texture editing, Guide page formatting
- Block137 - UV texture Insight
- Arturony - ReFrontier Usage, Python Script Editing
- ReFrontier - [Github]
- Expected to compile on your own, so the download link I've included has a pre-compiled version that you can use immediately. File directory is
ReFrontier\ReFrontier\bin\Debug\ReFrontier.exe
- Noesis - Official Download Page
- This is the download link for Noesis, a very useful program for loading models and texture files, as well as exporting them into usable formats.
- Noesis FMOD plugin
- As far as I'm aware, this comes with noesis naturally, but the plugin has been hosted just in case it isn't something that natively comes with Noesis.
- Blender 2.79c - [Official Download Page]
- 2.79c specifically due to the plugins used for importing the animations. On the official blender download page 2.79c is referred to as "blender-2.79-e045fe53f1b0".
- Monster Hunter Frontier Importer: edited by Arturony - [Github for official release]
- Blender Plugin for 2.79 used for importing the .fmod and .fskl files that ReFrontier extracts. Edited by Arturony to streamline the .fskl conversion process.
- Free HyperKinetics - [Github] - [Documentation]
- Has a MHFU animation importing function that must be selected in the plugin installation window in blender.
EDITORS NOTE Hyperkinetics works for MHFU animations, MHFZ anims are usable but not supported due to .fmod and .fskl importers messing them up on import.
This option is only compatible with 2.79c, and will not appear using 2.79. Needs a client restart after selecting to take effect, make sure to save your user settings beforehand.
ReFrontier
File Extraction
To begin, you're going to need the ReFrontier executable file.Its normally expected for you to compile it on your own from their Github files, so the download link I've included has a pre-compiled version that you can use immediately. File directory is ReFrontier\ReFrontier\bin\Debug\ReFrontier.exe
Once you've downloaded executable, your first step would be locating the files you wish to extract the contents of. Dragging and dropping like so is usually enough for most files.
Alternatively, if you want to extract a lot of files at once, you can drag a folder onto the ReFrontier.exe
. This will function as a batch process, going through each file in the folder one by one until each file has been extracted.
Here are some File directories for finding commonly sought after asset types;
Player Armor (i.e. m00_arm.abn or f01_leg.abn) are contained in:
MHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\extend\
Weapons (anything starting with 'w' i.e. we000.abn or wi500.abn) are also included in:
MHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\extend\
Monsters (i.e. em080.pac or em80-hd.pac) are contained in
MHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\emmodel
andMHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\emmodel-hd
, hd containing the higher resolution textures.Stages, which include Hunting Locals, Villages, Pubs and Hubs are contained in
MHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\stage
andMHF-ZZ-Root-Folder\dat\stage-hd
.
Its worth noting that the
stage-hd
folder does not contain higher resolution textures for the models as you would expect, but rather it contains cubemap (fake reflection) textures used in tandem with theemmodel-hd
textures in-game.
Stage Extraction
Refrontier has a wide variety of options that can be helpful when working with Frontier files. When typing Refrontier.exe on the console without any parameter it will return a list of all of the options and a short description of them. Here is a screenshot of that.
You can type Refrontier.exe and it will unpack every single file that it finds within that directory. Showed in this video, the usage of Refrontier with a folder and additional options. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the folder and it will unpack without any option.
The first method is to use some of the commands stated above. The command we are interested in here is -autoStage
which is to be used for maps such as the various hubs and hunting locales. When unpacking some of the stage files, a message on the console would appear saying that the unpacked file might be stage-specific. If left alone, the data unpacked would be incomplete or be irrelevant in terms of usage. That’s why you can use that command to try and force the extraction of the additional files only if the program sees so. Don’t try to use -stageContainer on non stage-specific files because it would lead to an infinite loop of extraction between sub-folders.The other commands are useful when trying to modify the game, such as changing textures or adding models.
You can also drag and drop individual .pac files onto the ReFrontier.exe in the file explorer and it will extract only that pak into the directory where it is located. This is particularly relevant if you're trying to extract a single, specific file.
To continue this guide, there are 2 different programs you can use to process models. Both of which have guides written for how to use them;