Questions about Roach's body textures

[Neyjour]

Thank you for the compliment on this texture. The url for my mods has changed, due to some reorganizing of my gallery folders. They're now located here: The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt MODS

 

And thanks very much for the pics from your testing. That's really useful, but also incredibly puzzling... I'm at a loss about what's going on with the mane. Why is there just one texture for the bottom half? Is there supposed to be another one (that's missing from the uncooked files), or is this one supposed to cover all of it, but it's not being applied correctly the the mesh for some reason...?

 

If I'm remembering correctly, there's 3 of those files for the tail. All identical, except for the level of transparency. Re-colouring all 3 might give better results (a stronger colour). Another thing to try would be to not only re-colour the others, but to also duplicate the layers several times to make them more solid, again to give a stronger colour. Or... it might just end up as an ugly, weird-looking mess. Heh. :P

 

I saw a post from one of the Devs a couple days ago (on the official forums), and it looks like modders can kiss the REDkit goodbye. However, they've said they'll be updating the MODkit, so hopefully that will fix a lot of the problems so many of us have been experiencing. I'm really not sure what to do... Wait until the MODkit gets updated (no telling how long that will take, or if it'll even fix the problems for the things I want to do), or just keep trying to jury-rig the mane/tail with incomplete files and broken tools...

[Feradiera]

There is one file for texture/detail and one for "normals" (they add to the 3D-ness without extra polygons in the model itself) and another that I haven't figured out the function of, though it might be for alpha/transparency or specularity data. They are represented by the letters in the file names by d, n, and a respectively. There isn't one with an a for the t_01_hd__dark_d01 , but adding more layers to "reinforce" the color on the detail file does work a little. Still, it ends up looking like the one in the photo :[

Also, I've noticed when uncooking my game again and adding "pause" at the end of my uncook .bat file text, that I can look through it afterwards and noticed lots of corrupted meshes that didn't uncook properly. I think this might be the reason behind why I can't export the files for corpse_horse_mane and tail without getting a crash log report and no export.
Here's the part of the report that mentions the crash while exporting:


[2015.09.12 18:41:34][Error][Exception] Red Engine Crash Log
--------------------------------------
Build: 3.0.BUILD_VERSION_FULL P4CL: CL_INTERNAL Stream: STREAM_NAME P4_SHELF [
Compiled Aug 5 2015 ]

Crash reason: EXCEPTION_BREAKPOINT (2147483651)

Crashed Thread:

Thread ID: 7536

callstack:
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x1f0bad6 - <Unknown File>(0)
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x1ed2dd8 - <Unknown File>(0)
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x29c43 - <Unknown File>(0)
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x2321bb - <Unknown File>(0)
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x22032d - <Unknown File>(0)
Scaleform::GFx::System::Init() + 0x1f614f4 - <Unknown File>(0)
BaseThreadInitThunk() + 0xd - <Unknown File>(0)
RtlUserThreadStart() + 0x1d - <Unknown File>(0)

Debug Information
================================================================


I can only hope the update will fix this stuff. *sigh* :|

Edited September 13, 2015 by Feradiera

[Feradiera]

Ok, I was able to get non-corrupted files from a friend and was then able to export to fbx and xml. The problem now is, how do I export it to preserve the changes to the xml?

[Feradiera]

I don't know if you were able to get to this far yet, so if you're still having trouble exporting the meshes, try downloading these to the right folder and then exporting. you might have had corrupted meshes like I did:

mane http://www3.zippyshare.com/v/cIv0rifI/file.html

tail http://www3.zippyshare.com/v/12Aw6K1W/file.html

then export as normal.

 

What I noticed was that it does in fact generate the fbx and xml files, as well as a folder named corpse_horse_mane.fbm which contains hair_animal_long_01_n01.tga and hair_medium_01_d01.tga assuming tga is the default format for exported image files. So assuming that changing the color of the tga files does nothing, and editing the variance and specular color values (looks like CMYK, not RGB) in the xml is the only way to go, how do I then make sure the xml is part of the importing process back to w2mesh?
I tried using the ModKit GUI to import it back but it seems to have the same effect... which is nothing. No change in color. (I'm next to a herd of horses in game, so I should be able to see if any have changed, except for dead horse props, I guess)

 

 

...Is anyone else following this thread? has everyone given up on these crappy tools already? :[

Edited September 13, 2015 by Feradiera

[rivianbleidd]

I think you are on the right track, the fbx/xml path is the only one that is kind of working in this case, I had dismissed this method because it doesn’t work well for Geralt (alphas get messed up), it probably has to do with his hair being constructed out of so many meshes, while horses only one.

 

Did some tests with the horse mane and was able to produce some changes, although they are hard to predict, alphas appear to be intact.

[Feradiera]

Ah! Can you share how you were able to manage that? I haven't had any success editing the xml files :[

[rivianbleidd]

Sure, in this case I exported “h_02_hd__simple”, “h_03_hd__simple”.w2mesh, from \characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\, from the xml you get, play around primarily with the specular and variance values. When packing the mod remember to always have the xml and fbx together in the appropriate folder structure, the xml does not need to be directly considered when packing, just make sure it is in the same folder as its fbx file.

Edited September 15, 2015 by rivianbleidd

[Feradiera]

Aah! thank you so much! I'm starting to see hair re-colors all over the place now. The code has been cracked! And I've been editing the wrong files it seems. I have to try this... I'm excited!


Edit: Ugh, I'm about to tear out my hair. I feel like I've tried everything, but I'm not seeing any results whatsoever in-game. I even tried adding the cook line into the batch file as shown in waltteri151's "Different Hair Colors for Ciri"... I have the proper folder layout... the fbx and xml files are in the same folder...

 

This is my batch file right now:

 

 

but when I run it, it says it can't cook the xml file. Someone else said importing wasn't necessary for xml, that I could just pack and create the metadata.store and it should work.

 

Here's the full report when running the batch file above:

 

It's gotta be some stupid noob mistake. I'm a noob, this is my first published mod and I've never used batch files before this. This is driving me nuts, lol.

 

More info: my "Uncook" folder contains characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model ...this should be correct, right? Inside that are 4 files, 2 xml and 2 fbx with their original names.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Feradiera

[Neyjour]

rivianbleidd, thanks so much! I had pretty much given up on this, but now I'm excited too! I half-expected to get errors again with the mesh exporting, but I just attempted it, and it worked (praise the Gods!). :tongue:

 

Going to start fiddling with the colour values now and see what kind of results I get. *fingers crossed* :smile:

 

 

EDIT:

Well, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I see no changes at all...

 

I exported (w2mesh > fbx/xml), changed the VarianceColor to white and SpecularColor to red, imported (fbx > w2mesh), Cooked and Packed, dropped my new mod into the Mods folder, and... I'm seeing the default brown mane/tail.

 

I'll post all my steps in detail (along with what I've got in my .bat files) later... when my blood pressure is back to normal. Right now I don't even want to think about anything to do with mods. This whole modding experience (my very first ever) has been utterly miserable so far.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Neyjour

[Neyjour]

Okay, here's my steps:

 

 

 

1) EXPORT

export.bat for: h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh

1. cd /d H:\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64
2. call wcc_lite export -depot=H:\Witcher3Modding\Uncooked\ -file=characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh -out=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Raw\h_02_hd__simple.fbx

export.bat for: h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh

1. cd /d H:\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64
2. call wcc_lite export -depot=H:\Witcher3Modding\Uncooked\ -file=characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh -out=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Raw\h_03_hd__simple.fbx

Running these generates 4 files in my Raw folder:

h_02_hd__simple.fbx
h_02_hd__simple.xml
h_03_hd__simple.fbx
h_03_hd__simple.xml


2) EDIT .XML COLOUR VALUES

I used/edited these values for both h_02_hd__simple.xml and h_03_hd__simple.xml

0 / 0 / 0 / 0 = white
0 / 100 / 30 / 61 = red-ish burgundy

16. <param name="VarianceColor" type="Color" value="0; 0; 0; 0" />
18. <param name="SpecularColor" type="Color" value="0; 100; 30; 61" />
35. <param name="VarianceColor" type="Color" value="0; 0; 0; 0" />
37. <param name="SpecularColor" type="Color" value="0; 100; 30; 61" />


3) IMPORT

import.bat for: h_02_hd__simple.fbx

1. cd /d H:\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64
2. call wcc_lite import -depot=H:\Witcher3Modding\Uncooked\ -file=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Raw\h_02_hd__simple.fbx -out=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Uncooked\characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh

import.bat for: h_03_hd__simple.fbx

1. cd /d H:\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64
2. call wcc_lite import -depot=H:\Witcher3Modding\Uncooked\ -file=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Raw\h_03_hd__simple.fbx -out=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Uncooked\characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh

Running these generates an Uncooked folder with this directory path/files:

H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Uncooked\characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\ >
h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh
h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh


4) COOK AND PACK

cook_and_pack.bat

(exactly the same as the one I use for textures, except I deleted the line for creating a texture.cache file)

1. cd /d H:\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64
2. call wcc_lite cook -platform=pc -mod=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Uncooked -basedir=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Uncooked -outdir=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Cooked
3. call wcc_lite pack -dir=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Cooked -outdir=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Packed\modNeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\content\
4. call wcc_lite metadatastore -path=H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Packed\modNeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\content\

Running this generates 2 folders with these directory paths/files:

Cooked

H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Cooked\ >
cook.db

H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Cooked\characters\models\animals\horse\draft\model\ >
h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh
h_02_hd__simple.w2mesh.1.buffer
h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh
h_03_hd__simple.w2mesh.1.buffer

Packed

H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Packed\modNeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\content\ >
blob0.bundle
buffers0.bundle
metadata.store


5) Copy/paste the modNeyjourRoachManeTailWhite folder (from the Packed folder) into my game's Mods folder.


Afterwards, I was clicking through everything and noticed that 2 other folders had (at some point) been generated in my Raw folder. So now my Raw folder looks like this:

H:\Witcher3Modding\Mods\NeyjourRoachManeTailWhite\Raw\ >
folder: h_02_hd__simple.fbm (inside: hair_animal_long_01_n01.tga, hair_medium_01_d01.tga)
folder: h_03_hd__simple.fbm (inside: hair_animal_long_01_n01.tga, hair_medium_01_d01.tga)
h_02_hd__simple.fbx
h_02_hd__simple.xml

h_03_hd__simple.fbx
h_03_hd__simple.xml

Edited September 15, 2015 by Neyjour