Summary
- Requirements
- Notes about APC
- Basic guide for full body models
- Vertex groups and bones
- Proper posing
- Weight Transfer tool
- Normalize All tool
- Precision painting
- Essential bones
- Vertex Weight Mixing tool
- Multi-model system



Requirements:
- APC
- FPC
- Weight painting



Notes about APC:
- PES loads everything you write in the xml and that exists in the folder.
- Adding lines for model files that don't exist is fine.
- Adding lines for model files that exist, but whose mtl doesn't exist crashes pes (16, never tried with 17).
- Hair_high is particular, though. If it's in the folder, pes will load it. It doesn't need a line in the xml.
- The "uniform" type makes the model use the kit texture as diffuse map, ignoring what you set in the mtl for it. It still follows the shader choice from the mtl, though, and I think the normal and specular maps too.
- The "parts" and "uniform" types can't be used with face, hands and gloves models, since those have groups which follow the skf (face) and skh (hands) families of bones (that somehow only get enabled with the "face_neck", "hand_R", etc. types), unless you export meshes of that kind with no weight assigned to those bones.




Basic guide for full body models:

(Remember to save a blend file before each step just in case.)

- Get the original model, clean it by having the textures merged as you'd do with a head blender and join everything into one mesh.

- Open the medical_staff blend into another window, copy your model into it.

- Crucial part: 'Pose' your model to align it to the shape of the medic model.
*If your model has a skeleton (pmx or dae files): you can do it by moving and resizing its bones using posing mode on the armature.
*Otherwise (obj files): you'll have to do it by hand using edit mode on the mesh itself.

- Now you need to get the weights:
*If your model has a skeleton (pmx or dae files):  The model already has weights. You should unparent it from the armature with ctrl-p (keeping deformation), then use apply modifier from the modifiers tab to stabilize it. Now just rename its bones to the suitable bone names of the medic model (e.g. R_hi_arm to dsk_upperarm_r).
*Otherwise (obj files): You can either paint by hand (good fucking luck) or click on the medic model, shift-click on your model, go to weight paint mode, press T and use Transfer Weights, and finally from the panel that opens up below it scroll down and choose Source: By Name. This does a decent job on copying the default pes weights, but you might want to tweak some weights later depending on your model's shape (e.g. an armor plate shouldn't bend as the default shirt, you'd need to fully paint it to the chest bone).

- You're almost done, now move the medic suit away while in edit mode, and join your model into it. I recommend scrolling the weights list while in weight paint mode to check the end result. Then delete the original medical suit in edit mode.

- Your model is done, time to export it. First get a face folder ready with the model's texture and a clean copy of the medical_staff model and its mtl (which you might need to edit by writing the texture's actual filename), and add both to the face xml with the type set to "parts" (read up on APC).

- Open a new blender window, load this model file into the arms slot, and click the black arrow next to the list of bones and select Delete All Groups. This is very important since if you don't do it you'll end up with double the amount of bones when combining the renamed bones of your model with the original bones of this model, and the exported file will be corrupted.

- Finally, move this medic suit away while in edit mode (again), copy your model into this window, join it to the suit's model and delete the original suit while in edit mode.

- Export and you're done.




Vertex groups and bones:
- They correspond to each of the bones the model can use, adding any messes up the exporting process, in blender only their order matters, not their name.
- You don't need to have a bit of paint on each group for each of the verts, you can leave any groups unused.
- But, you do need to make sure that every single vertex in your model is fully painted to least one of the bones. Vertices that aren't painted will collapse towards the (0,0,0) point in pes.
- There's like 3 different bones for each part of the arms. One's for the actual arm, one for the shirt sleeve (which as you can imagine follows the arm a bit loosely), and a third one for the rotation the arm can do. You only need to paint to one, and I recommend the dsk versions.



Proper posing:
- One should completely modify his model so that every junction corresponds to those of the pes skeleton. This is actually the most difficult part of the whole process.
- The end result may also look a bit weird, with manly proportions, but what's important is that everything moves properly. The only thing that matters is the alignment.
- At this point the physique settings in the game menu can be used to improve the body's proportions by making the arms/legs shorter or longer, etc.



Weight Transfer tool:
- It lets you copy the paint and vertex groups from any model. The weights are transferred by proximity.
- Shift select the origin mesh then the destination mesh and enter weight paint mode, then press N.
- It's a button on the left panel. After pressing it choose Source: By Name in the settings box below it so that all the vertex groups get copied.



Normalize All tool:
- This tool will take care of increasing or decreasing the weights on each group for vertex until they get to 1. It's done in a proportional way.
- It doesn't work on vertices with completely zero weight in all the groups, since it can't know which of the bones to assign to them.
- You can switch the Show zero weight vertices display from Active to All in the Options tab of the T menu, and this will make them the only ones to appear black, if any exist.
- Normalize all has a setting enabled by default that locks the weights of the vertex group enabled at the moment, so that they stay unchanged while everything else changes. So, for example, if you want to move some weight from the leg to the chest bone, paint the vertices you want to the chest bone, keep the chest group selected and use normalize, the extra weight will get removed from the leg.



Precision painting:
- The easiest way to make sure that something is fully painted.
- From weight paint mode, switch directly to edit mode and select the part of the model you want to paint, then go back to paint mode. From there switch to vertex selection mode using the button on the bottom bar.
- The stuff you had selected in edit mode lights up, and now you can only paint lighted stuff.
- This is useful because now by pressing Shift-K you'll paint all the lighted up verts, without having to hand paint stuff.
- After this, choose another bone, press tab to go into edit mode again, select another part of the model, press tab to go back into paint mode and press shift-K again. And so forth until you've painted the whole model.
- You can also Box/Circle select and unselect stuff while staying in paint mode, but you can't select Linked verts.
- The color given to the vertices with shift-K is exactly the weight you set for the brush.



Essential bones:
(medical_staff model)
Arms_0_bone 0 - dsk_hip
Arms_0_bone 1 - sk_thigh_l
Arms_0_bone 2 - sk_leg_l
Arms_0_bone 3 - sk_foot_l
Arms_0_bone 4 - sk_thigh_r
Arms_0_bone 5 - sk_leg_r
Arms_0_bone 6 - sk_foot_r
Arms_0_bone 7 - sk_belly
Arms_0_bone 8 - sk_chest
Arms_0_bone 9 - sk_neck
Arms_0_bone 10 - sk_head
Arms_0_bone 14 - sk_hand_l
Arms_0_bone 18 - sk_hand_r
Arms_0_bone 23 - dsk_forearm_l
Arms_0_bone 24 - dsk_upperarm_r
Arms_0_bone 25 - dsk_forearm_r
Arms_0_bone 31 - dsk_toe_l
Arms_0_bone 32 - dsk_toe_r
Arms_0_bone 47 - dsk_upperarm_l

- These are the bones I use when either painting models from scratch, or taking a model which already has bones (e.g. the fate models from the fighting game) and renaming them. If you're using transfer weights you're better off rolling with the weights you get from the pes model and then just fixing stuff here and there.
- The others (e.g. wrist and shoulders) should only be used if you really want a perfectly moving model. They take a lot of time to add properly, time you could spend on making more models instead.

- Pretty much the only kit model that has bones not covered by the full body models is the pants model, which has some bones for a movement that depends on that of the legs but not entirely (similarly to how irl shorts would move).
- That makes it interesting for painting properly moving skirts, then loading them together with a full body model which has everything except the skirt, but since the pants model doesn't have bones for the lower part of the legs you can only export short skirts with it (I haven't tried this out yet).



Vertex Weight Mixing tool:
- It lets you move weight from a group to another in the same mesh.
- Modifiers tab on the right window > Add > Vertex weight mix
- Select destination group as A, select source group as B
- Mix mode "Add", Mix set "All" > Apply
- Then delete the source group
- The Global influence slider lets you add only a fraction of the source group's weight, but after you do it you'll have to use Normalize all (while the destination group is selected so that it stays locked) to remove that same fraction from the source group, since you're not deleting it in this case.




Multi-model system:
- Example:
= Two full body models in the same place, one with its uvs set on the left half, and the other with its uvs set on the right half.
= Kit 1's texture with the textures on the left and transparent on the right, and the opposite with kit 2's texture.
= Transparency enabled for both models in the mtl.
= Both models are always present, but only one of the two is visible at a time.

- Theoretically, you could have 9 different models for each player depending on kits by exploiting this to the extreme. And thanks to alphatest making the game not render polys with full transparency, they don't actually make the pc work more than usual.
- The largest constraints of this system are having to make space for everything in the kit texture (though 8192x8192 is around 50mb, not that much especially if you zlib it bringing it to around 5mb), and having to organize every placement in advance, which takes a lot of time if you're using multiple models.