FFXI DATs

A long long time ago, I was a DAT modder for FFXI. At one point I was actually spending more time making DAT mods than playing the game. And I know there was a brief time where I had unsubscribed from the game but kept making mods. It was a lot of fun and quite rewarding, is what I’m saying.

If you don’t know, all the resources for FFXI were stored in .dat files. Someone had created a program that let you take those files and extract the textures, alpha maps, and meshes from them, edit those files, and put everything back together. Replacing one DAT file with another allowed you to change what that model looked like in-game. Being a huge fan of playing dress-up in games, I was totally charmed by being able to make armor sets that looked cool to me without having a level restriction. These mods were technically against the TOS, but since they were just armor swaps they didn’t actually let you cheat or anything.

I originally uploaded my DATs to some kind of file sharing site, from which they have since been removed, and submitted them to FFXIDATs.com, a site that sadly no longer exists. But I had such a great time and I loved the community there. I learned a lot about 3D modeling and game assets. I recently found an old USB stick on which I had backed up all my DAT mods, so I thought it would be fun to share them with the world.

“Avadon” robe, made using textures from Lineage II, one of my first mods.

This is the “Idrial” robe, based on Idrial from LOTR: The Third Age. Another early mod.

The robe combined a mage robe with the neckline of a thief armor set, plus an under-layer of flaps. I still like that effect.

I ported this hair feather thing from an NPC and made it blue to go with this set.

I made this robe the way I did a lot of my mesh edits: by frankensteining a few different things I liked together and then coloring it. The boots are a recolor and port of someone else’s mesh. I didn’t make the tights.

An alternate version of the dress with different sleeves.

Alternate boots.

This was just a port of a friend’s set she made for Elvaan.

I made a summoner artifact version of the Idrial robe.

I cut off some wings from one of the “Sea” enemies and made them into a “hat”. And I slapped the texture from another sea enemy onto a staff.

There was an NPC named Aphmau who was pretty cool, so I ported one of her outfits to human female player characters.

Crowns for everybody! This was also stolen from an NPC.

An NPC had a cool outfit so I stole it for the player character again. It was originally a dress, but dresses are hard so I made it a regular tunic and designed pants and boots to go with it.

I cut up a Sahagin and made him into a hat. Hats were a lot of fun to make because they only had one “weight” value.

Another hat stolen from an NPC.

A recolor of the earlier dress + matching pants, boots, and hat.

This might take some explaining. Late in my “career” someone figured out how to mod animations. I don’t remember how or anything, but I was able to port Shantotto’s distinct laugh animation to Hume female.

Long before I made Yuna’s trainer outfit IRL, I made it in FFXI. Someone had extracted textures from FFX-2, so I used them. Shameful secret: the bodice texture is upside-down.

I made one of the game’s enemies into a set for hume F. I’m pretty sure this won one of FFXIDat’s Halloween contests.

I interpreted an NPC outfit for hume F. The NPC was named Aldo and his shirt was wide open so that’s why it’s like that. I THINK this one also won a contest.

Someone (I don’t remember names 😦 ) figured out how to make higher quality textures work in the game. This is my first original HQ set, a recolor of some of my favorite meshes.

HQ versions of certain mage armors.

HQ versions of another mage set.

This one is my favorite. I chopped up one of the summons, Ifrit, and made him into hume F armor. It even had the “avatar glow.”

Alternate Warrior of Ifrit mask.

I made a lot of hume F mods because I played Hume F. I got a lot of requests for other races. So I made one of my avatar sets for Mithra.

Alternate pants for Ramuh.

I love Garuda, and this set turned out so cool. The headdress actually animated in an amazing way, which was difficult to achieve. I think I based it on the ponytial movement on one of the Hume F heads. Still really proud of this!

I have uploaded the RAR files to my dropbox, if somehow you are still playing FFXI and want to use any of these DATs. The RARs contain README files that explain how to use them and sometimes my inspiration and how I made them.

• Aern Wings and Staff for Hume F
• Aldo for Hume F
• Orange Aphmau for Hume F
• Ariannas’s Errant set for Hume F
• Avadon Robe for Hume F
• Chaos: Incarnation of Ramuh for Mithra
• Chieftaness Headdress for Mithra
• Corse Costume for Hume F
• Predator: Incarnation of Garuda for Hume F
• Grav’iton set for Hume F
• HQ Seer’s and Garish sets for Hume F
• Shantotto laugh for Hume F
• Hat Collection for Hume F
• Idrial set for Hume F
• King Destin’s Crown for everybody
• Mystic Mage Set for Hume F
• Alternate SMN Artifact for Hume F
• Sahagin Hat for Elvaan F
• Sahagin Hat for Hume F
• Trainer Yuna Set for Hume F
• Vermillion Wizard Set for Hume F
• Warrior of Ifrit set for Hume F
• Yve’noile Dress for Hume F