All Unreal Engine Model Swaps End up With a Crash or T-Pose!

[Raccooncity1998]

I started learning Unreal Engine just to do a very simple character swap and I've been watching over 30 videos on YouTube but unfortunately I could barely find any tutorials for model swaps. most of them are all about materials and textures. the one and only video that explained everything from start to finish was this one:

Spoiler

 

(however this video has a major issue as well. nothing was mentioned about the model used for swapping the PhysicsAsset and Skeleton and it took me a very long time to figure out)

==================================================
The Overall Procedure to Mod an Unreal Engine Game
==================================================
Let's say I want to swap the exact same model without even making any changes (just to see if it works):

1. Convert the model to .psk using either Fmodel or Umodel
2. Open the file in blender and export it to .fbx (you'd also need to check and uncheck some options for an error-free export)
3. Open the correct unreal engine version for the game you'd wish to mod
4. Create a project (excluding the Shared Content)
5. Create the same folder hierarchies in Unreal Engine
6. Drag and drop the .fbx file into the folder to import the Skeletal Mesh (PhysicsAsset and Skeleton will be generated by UE)
7. Name all three assets correctly
8. Allocate a Chunk ID only to the Skeletal Mesh (because the mesh must use the original PhysicsAsset and Skeleton from the game not the ones generated by UE).
9. Export it
10. Add _P at the end of the mod name so that it can override the original file

11. put the mod in the Paks folder

 

==================================================
How I Managed to Fix the T-Pose Issue for One Game
==================================================
I've tested 3 game so far. in Echo (2017) the model is always in T-pose, in Alone in the Dark (2024) the game crashes (I noticed one of the reasons that a game may end up crashing is the model being way too big when you export it to .fbx and you can simply scale it down to 0.01 to fix the issue. but it wasn't the case for this one) and in AEW Fight Forever (2023) the same T-pose issue as Echo (2017)'s. 

I managed to fix the issue for AEW Fight Forever (2023). I noticed that when I export the .psk format using Umodel, a text file is generated where you can find the exact location for PhysicsAsset and Skeleton and AEW used a dummy for all of them which was in a different folder. I imported the dummy in UE and then linked the PhysicsAsset and Skeleton to dummy's and then it worked perfectly.

But unfortunately for the other two games, the PhysicsAssets and Skeletons are in the same folder and when I import the .fbx file they are already generated and linked automatically by UE (next to Skeletal Mesh) and it's not like you can link them to any other models or something and when I assign the Chunk ID to the Skeletal Mesh I expect it to work but it doesn't. it either crashes or gets t-posed. am I doing something wrong? should I assign PhysicsAsset and Skeleton manually somehow someway?

==================================================
The Solutions that I Tried to Fix the T-Pose Issue
==================================================
I also tried to Chunk ID the generated PhysicsAsset and Skeleton files as well just to see what happens with them included in the mod and to my surprise the animations worked but the mesh, on the other hand, was totally messed up (Alone in the Dark, on the other hand, wouldn't crash anymore with Physics and Skeleton included but the mesh had the exact same issue).

 

I needed to know which one of the two assets was needed for the animations and it was none other than the Skeleton. meaning that the Skeletal Mesh cannot find the Skeleton but why? isn't the Skeletal Mesh already linked to PhysicsAsset and Skeleton once you import the .fbx file? 

What exactly am I missing here ? I've been working on this for over two weeks and tried many many trial and errors but I kept failing. any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Edited Monday at 12:26 AM by Raccooncity1998