Noesis – Advanced Commands

On the surface, Noesis may appear to be a relatively simple and straightforward program. But it actually has a lot of hidden depth to it. Most of this depth comes in the form of special advanced commands for loading and exporting data files. You can view a complete list of all advanced commands by opening the "Export Media" window and clicking on the "Advanced commands" button. The "Export Media" window can be opened by going to "File" in the main toolbar, and then selecting either "Export" or "Export from Preview" from the dropdown menu.

For your convenience, I have compiled a list of advanced commands which are most likely to be relevant when using Noesis to view and export data files from FINAL FANTASY XI. Please note that some of these commands can only be invoked when loading a file, while others can only be invoked when exporting a file! In order to invoke a command when loading a file, you must first use Notepad to create a .noesis scene file which points to the model you want to load, and then open that scene file in Noesis instead of opening the actual file directly. I will explain how to create a .noesis scene file in another post.

I'm still not completely sure which commands can only be invoked on load, and which ones can only be invoked on export, but I will continue to experiment and update this post accordingly. For now, I will distinguish between commands which I know for certain can only be invoked on load or export by marking them with either a red "Load" tag or a blue "Export" tag, respectively. If a command is unmarked, that means either that command works on both load and export, or I am uncertain.

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Generic Noesis Commands:

Command	Purpose
-rotate # # #	transform all vertices by the given angles. (Order is X Y Z)
-scale #	scale all vertices on the model, where # is the scale factor.

(There are many more generic commands than just these two, but so far these are the only ones that I've personally found to be useful when working with data files from FFXI.)

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FF11 Model/Data:

Command	Purpose
-ff11blendhack <arg>	sw render to determine alpha coverage, <arg>=min frac.	Load
-ff11optimizegeo	remove degenerates and redundant verts.	Export
-ff11keepnames	keep map object names intact.	Export
-ff11renderunref	render unreferenced map geo at identity.	Load
-ff11forcelighting	force lighting.
-ff11forcecull	force culling.
-ff11novertcolor	no vertex colors.
-ff11noshiny	no special assignment for shiny materials.
-ff11shiftvertalpha <arg>	explicitly shift vert alpha <arg> bits.
-ff11shiftvertcolor <arg>	explicitly shift vert color <arg> bits.
-ff11shiftcolor <arg>	explicitly shift tex color <arg> bits.
-ff11shiftalpha <arg>	explicitly shift tex alpha <arg> bits.

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FF11 SQLE Model:

Command	Purpose
-ff11sqleanim	load sqle animation as relative path.	Load

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Autodesk FBX:

Command	Purpose
-fbxnewexport	exports current fbx format instead of legacy.	Export
-fbxzup	sets the scene axis to z up on export.	Export
-fbxsmoothgroups	generate smoothgroups from vertex normals on export.	Export
-fbxtexrelonly	only set relative paths for texture filenames.
-fbxmultitake	export a take for each anim sequence.	Export
-fbxbsnonormals	don't use blendshape normals.	Export
-fbxbonestomeshtf	derive mesh transforms from bones, and don't write bones.
-fbxpreservecp	does not allow welding between controlpoints.
-fbxnooptimize	disables fbx geometry optimization pass.
-fbxnoesidecar	enables .noefbx sidecar files to preserve extra data.
-fbxcanimtime	use curve key times instead of clamped evaluator time.
-fbxmtlfrommeshname	create materials from mesh names.
-fbxunifybi	unifies binormals on import. (0=no, 1=yes, 2=flipped)	Load
-fbxrottan	rotates tangent/binormals on import.
-fbxnotan	disables reading/writing tangents for fbx.
-fbxnoextraframe	avoids adding an extra frame for timing.
-fbxframecount	overrides the fbx anim frame count.
-fbxframerate	specifies the fbx framerate. (frames per second)
-fbxtexext	appends given value to texture names on export.	Export
-fbxscalehack	transform override for scale correction.
-fbxtritopoly	tris to polys, is max degrees for combine.
-fbxtritopolyconctol	is concavity tolerance.
-fbxcollapsecp	collapse controlpoints.
-fbxreducekeys	reduce animation keys.
-fbxnonlinrot	specifies nearest snap for rotations.
-fbxnomeshhierarchy	no separate udcommon mesh hierarchy.
-fbxnomeshbones	no bones generated from mesh nodes.

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WaveFront OBJ:

Command	Purpose
-objmtl	enables export of mtl file with the obj.	Export

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DDS:

Command	Purpose
-ddsati2nonorm	don't derive+renormalize when decoding DXT ATI2/BC5.

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That's all for now. Please comment below if you've found any other of the advanced commands for Noesis to be useful for working with FFXI's data files.