Deleted2725050User

Ok man sounds good, I'll try and mess around with the textures, thanks for your help

What I'm doing is taking the .psk file out of the .upk with gildor's tool, then importing it into 3ds with the ActorX plugin. Then I change some verts around in 3ds, export a .psk, then put the .psk back into a .upk file with the Unreal Development Kit. Nothing about the armor changes in game at the barracks view or on an actual mission (Pretty sure the same mesh file is used for both of those). I've tried changing the armor meshes in the Soldier_MaleKevlar_SF.upk, and Soldier_Makeskeleton_SF.upk, and neither of them creates a change in the normal, level 1 armor. Any Ideas?

Thanks for the info man, yeah I use gildor's tools to get the .psk files out of the packages, it's awesome. The thing is that if you change the mesh around, or just take it out of the .upk file, then put the .upk file back into the CookedPCconsole folder, nothing changes in game. In fact if you just take out the whole .upk, nothing changes in game. I can't see why that would be happening. At the very least, the mesh that was taken out should stop appearing in game right?

Sorry if this is already known.... When I try and add .upks with meshes in them to the config file, running the .bat gives me error 16 Also have tried the previous solution given for error 16 involving editing the .bat. It runs fine until I add Soldier_MaleKevlar_SF.upk to the config file, adding -v to the .bat causes it to give the information it normally would about the first 3 files, then when it gets to one with a mesh in it it gives error 16. Also DaemonJax I have another question I was hoping you could answer, When .upks that have meshes in them are changed, or even take out of the CookedPCconsole folder, nothing happens in game. Is this because whatever XShape does isn't being done to them? I would think that just taking the .upk out should at least cause an error or stop the mesh from appearing right?

That post made me chuckle, Hey Tsanford have you by any chance, in your tinkerings with the game, figured out where the game pulls the armor meshes from? The thing Is that I would have thought they come from the files that look like Soldier_MaleKevlar_SF, right? The thing is that if you mess with those files, nothing changes in-game. Any Ideas? Edit: Actually it seems like none of these mesh files do anything... You can just completely take them out, and they still show up in the game. Is there something I'm not understanding about how the Unreal engine works?

Good to know Im not the only one banging my head against this, how far did you get with the UDK?

Gotta love a forum where you get dog piled with help :thumbsup:

I feel your pain, it can be rough at first if everything is on your desktop, it should go like this (For Upks with meshes and textures in them) 1. cd c:\users\avernite\desktop (or whatever the filepath to your desktop is 2. umodel -path=c:\users\avernite\desktop -export MaleKevlar_sf.upk (or whatever youre trying to get into) that should dump everything in a folder on your desktop If youre trying to get into files with scripts in them, which is what most of the threads here are about, you use the decompress tool on them then open them with UE Explorer http://www.gildor.org/downloads its the one that says "unreal package decompressor" towards the bottom, just in case you don't have it already so you put the decompress tool on your desktop then go 1. cd c:\users\avernite\desktop (whatever path to your desktop is same as before) 2. decompress -lzo MaleKevlar_sf.upk then use UE Explorer on the new file, its here if you don't have it already http://eliotvu.com/portfolio/view/21/ue-explorer hope that helps you out edit: added some links and clarified some things because being totally lost in a modding forum sucks hard

Yeah, Daemonjax's Xshape is awesome, definately a huge boost to the modding community. While that lets us put modded .upks into the game, we still have the problem of getting the modified .psk files into a working .upk so that it can be XShaped into the game. I think it's going to involve learning the UDK, which Im slowly working on, while I beg for help in the Epicgames forums. Good to know somebody else here in interested in mesh and texture editing!

The meshes and textures are really easy to get in and out of 3ds max if you are able to use it instead. The problem you're going to run into is how to get the .psk files back into a working .upk that you can XShape into the game. I've been :wallbash: with that for about 3 days now. Textures you can get into the game with a program called Texmod but I have made no progress with mesh replacing. I know there isn't a ton of interest in modding meshes or textures here but if If you or any one else has any ideas about it I am 100 % ears and would appreciate any suggestions at all, What I am basically saying is.... PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP!

Thanks for the detailed response, man I am learning a lot working on this. OK! Im gonna try to do what Im doing the way you guys are doing what you're doing.

Noob question inc :pinch: If some of you guys aren't re-packing the .upks then what are you doing, do you just have a folder with the right file structure in its place? Also Ive been working with the .upks that deal with meshes and textures, and I know you guys are working mostly with game mechanics, maybe theres a difference in how they are set up and thats whats throwing me off?

Im getting "could not find the main class:XShape" What incredibly retarded thing am I doing wrong edit: nevermind, Im retarded

With XShape it should be possible, the problem is getting the mesh into a .upk. Since the UDK is unable to open XCOM .upks because of the licensee version issues, It looks like you'd have to build the .upk from scratch using parts from one broken down with Umodel and then whatever replacement files you wanted to add. Has anyone successfully done this, or gotten a mesh in game using another method?

Ha! The avenger was like a giant bus with people crammed elbow to elbow, it was great.

Hey Brother, because the game uses the Unreal 3 engine (as Im sure you already know), all we really needed was a way for the game to load modified .upk files. Whether your experience is with modding textures and meshes like me, or you want to mod the dynamics of the game, it looks like you are good to go at this point. I can try to answer any questions you might have about the Unreal 3 file structure or anything related to Unreal and 3ds max, but anything on a coding level is beyond me.

Hats off to the guys like Jax with actual programming knowledge who make it possible for laymen like me to make the game what I want it to be.

The gates are down, everybody storm the castle!

Thanks for the info and the update ripptide It was suggested in the "finding the first step" thread that firaxis had altered thier version of the UDK on a programming level during development, maybe that's why the UDK is giving you an error when trying to open XCOM .upks. I haven't messed with the UDK in over a year but I plan on re-installing it this weekend. I was going to try changing a mesh and seeing if that shows up in the game with a UDK re-packed file, just to see if it's possible, unless you or someone else has already tried that. In any case hopefully soon somebody can figure out a way to re-pack these things so that the game will recognize them. Thanks again for the information.

Where the heck are the mesh files? Im wandering through the CookedPCconsole folder extracting everything and I can't seem to find them.

Hi everybody, I've used 3ds max for a while now and don't know my way around blender at all. I have an animation that alters a skeleton, and I have them both imported into a scene. I just need to know how to change scaling caused by the animation. It's probably pretty simple I'm sure, but Ive been stumbling around blender tutorials for a couple of days now and all Ive managed to do so far is crash blender. If I can get the animation changed then I can just export the whole thing and delete the parts I don't need in niftskope. Thanks in advance for any suggestions or insights.

Oh my gosh it's finally working, now I can close the 4 million tutorial windows I have open, thank you SO much Nivea, thankyou thankyou thankyou! :laugh:

It's gotta be the skin shader, I rechecked the textures and they all work for other .nif files so skin shader for my .nif file must be wrong somehow, aside from reshaping the mesh I didnt do anything else to the model in 3ds max, is this where I missed a step? If somebody can tell me how to set up the skin shader or point me to a tutorial I think I'll be out of the forum's collective hair, lol. I've read in a few tutorials about using the materials editor for custom meshes in 3ds max but it seemed to only have to do with edited item meshes. Also sorry for the double post I'm just excited that I'm closing in on the problem :smile:

Hi Nivea, thanks for the reply! I am actually trying to figure that out right now, I loaded both my .nif and a working one in niftskope and am literally just looking at every block trying to see what the differences are. I don't know my way around niftskope very well but on the BSShaderPPlightingProperty block the Shader types are different on the two versions. I changed mine to SHADER_SKIN from SHADER_DEFAULT to match the working .nif but the model still isnt working in-game. Maybe this is indicative of something I did wrong during the 3ds max export? or its something I need to fix in Niftskope? How would one normally set up the skin shader? Thanks again for any light you can shed on this.

I am 100 percent sure the problem is in the femaleupperbody.nif file, I am missing a step I think when I am editing the mesh and it has something to do with the skin