Emil Chronicle Online Model Viewer
What is it?
A software you can use to look at Emil Chronicle's ingame models.
What do I need?
MrbViewer, which you can download here.
An Emil Chronicle Online client, which you can download here.
What can I do with this program?
Look at the game's models for player characters, NPCs, furniture, and monsters. You can also use it as a character simulator for planning out what your ingame characters will look like or even create characters that wouldn't be possible ingame. Finally, you can look at ingame animations such as combat and emotes, and even pause playback of an animation to strike a pose and change the lighting too.
What are some other uses for this program?
You can use it to make character art. The fact that the models are displayed on a solid colored background makes it very easy to cut them out and place them onto other images. This makes things like custom ECO avatars, signatures, and wallpapers possible.
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First Time Use
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First time you run the program(double click on MrbViewer.exe), it'll ask you where your ECO Client is installed. Pick the folder where ECO is installed and hit OK. On most systems this'll be "C:\Program Files\Emil Chronicle Online\".
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Interface
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The program's in Japanese, but it's actually pretty simple to use.
You use the radio buttons listed as Chara, monster, etc. in order to select the type of models you'd like to view. The checkboxes are for filtering out results for different items and equipment, and you double click on an item in order to load it on your character.
You need to have at least one checkbox checked in order for it to list items. I can't explain every filter here, so I made this handy dandy image you can use as a reference:
And one for the right click menu:
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Animations
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If you click on 'Animation' the animation tab will open with a list of the game's animations. Pick one(they take a short while to load) and your character should start performing that action. The first few are basic things like standing and moving, while the later ones in the list are emotes, and finally, combat animations. It's a long list so I didn't manage to translate it all. Some of the entries are placeholders and there are a few repeats too.
If you click on Setting while you have an animation running you can uncheck 'Play' to pause the animation, and adjust the frame slider with the arrow keys to move forward or back a frame.
Outline is for setting the width of the cellshading border on the model, and the color of the cell shading lines. Lighting allows you to change the horizontal or vertical direction of the light cast on the character, which is really useful if you plan on inserting the character into an image that already has lighting.
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Customization
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You can customize some aspects of MrbViewer to suit your needs. This can be done by opening up MrbViewer.ini, changing variables, and saving the file. While I can't go into detail on all of 'em, I will explain what some of the variables listed under [MainWin] does:
[MainWin]
winx=0 - On startup, the X coordinates on your screen where the main program will appear.
winy=0 - On startup, the Y coordinates on your screen where the main program will appear.
width=512 - The width of the main window.
height=512 - The height of the main window. Recommended setting: 800 width x 600 height or higher.
Toon = 1 - Turn vertex shaders on or off.
OutLine =10 - Thickness of cell shading outline.
OutLineColor =0 - Color of cell shading line.
//Alpha = 0 - Alpha Transparency
AntiAlias = 1 - Quality of Antialiasing. 0-2 can be used, or higher depending on your video card.
BackGround = 0 - Use a background if specified. Haven't gotten this to work yet. X_o
BackGroundColor = 0x00505080 - Color of the background, listed in hexadecimal format.
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FAQ
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Q: Shinra, I'm retarded.
A: Sorry, I can't help. 
Q: Will this work with other versions of the game?
A: It should, though I haven't gotten it to work with one of the Japanese clients. There's actually different versions of MrbViewer including a Thai, Taiwanese, and Chinese version. The Japanese version should work with most ECO clients though.
Q: Why are some items listed as question marks or are still in Japanese?
A: These represent items that either A)haven't made it into the game yet(test items, prerelease items) or B)items whose names haven't been translated in itempictadd.csv
Q: Most of the text comes out garbled, as question marks, or general nonsense.
A: Install Japanese fonts on your computer via Regional Language Settings in Windows.
Q: I can't read Japanese!
A: Please consult the images I've posted in this thread for details on what each checkbox does.
Q: I clicked on Favorite or some other button on the top menu and nothing'll show anymore.
A: Uncheck all boxes and then click on Main. Everything should go back to normal now.
Q: What about backgrounds?
A: When I finished writing this, I just discovered how to get it to display backgrounds. I'll include that info in a later update(after resting =w=).
Other resources:
MrbViewer Official Manual:
http://db.sagaeco.com/index.php?Tool%2FMrbViewer
Translated to English via Google for your convenience:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdb.sagaeco.com%2Findex.php%3FTool%252FMrbViewer&sl=ja&tl=en&history_state0=
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Mini-Photoshop Guide
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Tools needed:
MrbViewer
Photoshop
1. Open up MrbViewer and make a character. Then, position the camera so that the character's surrounded by whitespace(Or in this case, bluespace. O_o) and so that they're not touching the edges of the window.
2. Press the Prt Scr key on your keyboard. Also known as the Print Screen key, it's on the left side of your keyboard towards the top. Pressing this key will take a snapshot of your screen and allow you to paste it into graphics programs. Speaking of which...
3. Open up Photoshop and create a new file(File>New>OK). Now we can paste the screenshot we took. To do so, either press CTRL+V on your keyboard or go to Edit> Paste on Photoshop's main menu.
4. Now that your character's in Photoshop we're going to want to remove it from the background so we can use it in other images. Use the crop tool to box in your character and a fair amount of whitespace. The crop tool's on the default toolbar and if you can't find it just press 'C' on your keyboard(That's the default shortcut for it.)
5. We're almost finished! After you've cropped your character it's time to delete the background color. We can use Photoshop's magic wand tool to select all of the background color and delete it at once. Press W to select the magic wand tool and use these settings when you select the background:
Tolerance: 20*
Antialiased: On
Contiguous: Off
Use All Layers: Off
*Or any number between 0 and 20. The less tolerance, the tighter the selection.
6. With the background color selected, just hit delete on your keyboard. The background will disappear, leaving you with a clean and crisp image that you can use however you'd like.
[ Last edited by Rinsha at 4-8-2009 22:49 ]
