because a vr port for dual destinies was announced recently (which i still can't believe is a real thing now), i'm slowly redoing my renders here for it and spirit of justice's location models like i did for the character models. i mean... i might as well, right?

Now this is truly the one game that knows how perception works for most of the locations specifically Kyubi Manor exterior

another note to add to this one- i think it's a "using a different equation to get the right answer"-type thing, for sure. for character models, either setup works. for backgrounds/locations, it's kinda weird.
if a part doesn't require transparency, either setup seems to still work. however, if transparency is needed, for the simpler setup, the color export of the image texture node needs to be connected to the top shader slot of the mix shader node, and the transparent bsdf node to the bottom shader slot. or put more simply, switch it around from the first example i mentioned earlier.
lowkey, this is why i re-rendered the character models at all, despite there being more in quantity. having to check the little things for locations, especially the more involved ones like the courtrooms, gets really annoying if you want it to be accurate to the games. so, what i've learned up to this point is that the simpler setup is quicker for accuracy, and my initial, more involved setup allows more tweaking and customization. pick your poison lol

hello again! after i spent some time looking at models from the other 3D ace attorney games, i've learned something new:
for rendering, if you don't care to use the more complicated setup, just connecting the image texture node to the material output node should be enough, as i noted here for tgaac: https://models.spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/thegreataceattorneychronicles/#comment_list
when i have the free time (and motivation lol), i'd like to redo the renders and model previews of at least the character models with this info. i still have the original .blend files, so it won't be the worst thing in the world, but it'll still be time-extensive nonetheless as i look at the games again for reference. if i see major differences while redoing the renders, i'll just make a note here :)

you're welcome ^_^

Legend for including the shader setup too, thank you.

oh, most of my character model submissions have been approved. yippee!!!
while i'm here, i wanted to talking about the shader settings that some of the zip files have. when i was deep in the uploading trenches, i tried it on other model parts besides anything with transparency and anything that visually just look off like some lights and shadows, and it worked pretty well! unsure about the background models, but there's a chance it can work with those, too.
here's the setup for those casually browsing:

and here are 2 visual examples of how these shaders are applied in blender:


if i have anything else noteworthy to share, i'll either edit this comment or add a new one. whichever feels more suitable, really :)