Final Fantasy 7 The Shinra CHARACTER overhaul MOD.

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My Character Overhaul mod project for Final Fantasy VII PC, swaping all the playable characters with enemies from mainly the Shinra organisation - all the models of characters are swaped. Being version 0.5 at the moment, the mod is still not finished - it's in alpha state as such because the characters of Yuffie/Reno, Cid/Palmer, Vincent/Sephiroth/Tseng and Caith Sith/Rude still haven't been swaped. As for the others they are ready, and it is also using the Bootleg Configuration and as such the NPC:s are the models of Tifa's Bootleg MOD from the Qhimm Forums.

Backstory:

I started modifying FF7 characters as early as in the year 2006 -2007 using the earlier versions of the Kimera program. However, the program stoped to function on my computer and as such my work from back then were never released or finished. I had already tried to convert Aerith into Scarlet of the Shinra, Cloud into Rufus, Tifa into Elena, Vincent into Hojo and Barret into Dyne - some of these characters had finished models such as maybe a field-model done, but each character in the game consist of multiple models for various roles during the story - such as one model for battles, one in the field, one in the parachute scene, one in the Honney Bee Inn scene etc, and additional models of the characters when they are kids.

My skills back then weren't great, and of course the models looked fat in my eyes many years later. I got the program to run again on a new computer in 2013 but then it stoped working again. This i didn't solve until the summer of 2015 when i searched the entire internet for hours to get the correct DLL-file - i even got a virus on two of my computers and had to struggle with removing it for some days. Still - i did backup that file and since then the most recent version of Kimera is working fine. And so i decided to continue my project from 2007 when i was only 17 years old - starting with turning Aerith into Scarlet of the Shinra.

Since the summer of 2015 i have done the following:

Summer 2015 - Scarlet battle-model were created from scratch using the field-model from Bootleg as the base, and this took me a lot of struggle when riging it to all the models animations without one part of the model disconnecting with the rest, and i had to redo certain models such as the field-model three or four times - as i did also finish the Avatar and the other models which only needed to be copy/pasted unlike the battlemodel. Copy/pasted in the Kimera program - while it is still work required it isn't a 13h job like the battle-model. I can copy/paste one model in maybe an hour. And as such i could do many models in 13 hours unless they are extra detailed (certain models are harder). The Scarlet character, unlike all the other characters - didn't have a battle-model and that is why i had to create one out of the field model. That took 13 hours of struggle. In any case i finished Scarlet in her first version during the summer of 2015.

March 2016 - I completed the improved and superior battle-model of Scarlet. The older one used my very old body for the character and it was remade. I did also almost finish new animations for her, but i did only release the battle-model as i wasn't done with both animation-files.

July 14 2016 - I released the update with improved fitness of Scarlet's model, as well as new walking/running animations and a new victory pose made out of the field models animations by copy/pasting certain numbers in the Kimera program manually. Let's just say a five sec animation could take a couple of days of siting for hours doing the same thing. Like i sat for 8 hours doing the same boring copy/pasting, then a pause - and then another 8 hours. This continued for a couple of days per anim. So lot's of hours spent on those short animations. Of course Scarlet feels more like Scarlet with the animations and i did regard the character as done - the mod was called a Scarlet Mod by this point as only this character were done.

June 9 2017 - I finished a Cloud to Rufus overhaul. This were the only character done in 2017. Unlike Scarlet it already had a battle-model, and didn't require new animations as it were using the NPC animations.

July 2018 - I decided to continue this mod, and added new avatars to Scarlet and Rufus, added a couple of new models for them such as the minigame-models for the MC-minigame and the Chocobo-race. I did also upgrade the Scarlet character by adding new lip-textures and arms from another mod, and made by Kaldarasha - after watching a Youtube video where i saw that his Scarlet had much better hands and lips than the vanilla model from Bootleg. As such i did redo all the Scarlet models and replaced those said things. I did also create two different versions of the Scarlet character - the Kaldarasha version as a playable character, and a mix between mine and his. Finally i did the simple swaping of RED XII to Rufus's pet Dark Nation.

August 2018 - I wanted to finish more characters, having focused a lot on mods for Medieval 2: Kingdoms i wanted to finally do some more FF7 characters to hopfully finish off this project. I did finish Elena the Turk which took Tifa's place and vice versa, and then on aug 21 i did finish Dyne who replaced Barret.

And yes, this is the current progress, five characters completed out of nine and with two extra's planed as well as alternatives - with the Tifa's Bootleg Modification or Tifa's 7th Heaven the entire mod will look good with battle-models as the characters in both the field and in battle. I do not like the old models as much, even though they have a certain charm too.

I've decided to release the Alpha 0.5 of the Shinra Character Overhaul MOD now - because i do not know when i will finish it. The individual characters are already available to download, but for those who want the actual LGP-files with all the bootleg-characters and my work already implemented - then this new upload will be for you guys. You won't need to use the LGP-program and instead can simply swap the files of your FF7-game with the LGP-archives that i have - preferably after installing Bootleg but if not - it should still work. I cannot promise that everything is the same if not using Tifa's Bootleg first, because it also enhances graphics, menus and resolution of the mod - which might not be the case if you add these files to an original version of FF7. But you will have all the upgraded models, avatars, magic spells and some battlefield/limit changes for sure.

I may actually upload a more complete version later where i include more files. Be aware that you do need the full installation of any of the PC-versions of FF7 for this to work. It requires you to own the original FF7 PC, the E-BAY version or the Steam-version - be advised that i only ever used the first two. I got the original in 1997, and the E-BAY version i bought from the Square-Enix store in 2013 - i don't have the Steam version.

I do advice anyone who wants to install Tifa's Bootleg or Tifa's 7th Heaven to visit the Qhimm Forums for instructions and downloads. But my 0.5 version will hopefully be enough even without it - only the resolution might be worse and you won't get the PSX sound as an option.

For info regarding installing individual characters i do point to the older article. The new upload is about skiping that part, so you'll get the whole package already packed and ready.

Credits:

Tifa's Bootleg Team - For the Bootleg NPC-models, and this includes all the NPC models with the exception of the playable counterparts.

Grimmy - For the NPC battle-models that he hex-edited to make them follow the players commands.

Kaldarasha - For the Barret base-model in use by the Dyne NPC, and the Aerith base-model in use by the Scarlet NPC.