Mass Effect 3 Hair textures won't apply

[ElysiumFic]

Hmm this is weird. Watching the debug window as I install a bunch of textures and I'm seeing a lot of (Error: Export object has wrong class or name,) Usually this is after it's saved to a lot of the PCCs it's supposed to save to.

 

Oh well. Not going to worry about it for now. If it turns out I start the game and everyone is a mutant weird thing then I'll worry.

 

ETA: Okay, so since my paragon shep should definitely not have glowing red eyes after installing skin/eye textures, Imma go out on a limb and consider this a problem.

Edited February 19, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[me3deager]

Yeah, I have to admit, it's just a long process. I don't know how many times I went through the process for texture installation but it was dozens before I got what I wanted. And I didn't even mess with anything but the hair mods from ELE which, I think, just change the mesh, not the texture, therefore making them much easier to use.

 

Modding ME3 is difficult, and ME2 is even harder. ME1...we have texplorer and that's about it. Great work on MEUITM for sure. So you may have to keep working at it and decide what you think is worth it. Personally, I went with some of the ELE hair mods and the Ashley legacy mod and that's it for .mod files. Then I rotate in various other "DLC mods." For textures, I use two from FreddyAG/Smarteck, Miranda and Liara, but other went with these for ME2 and ME3.

 

http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/me2-hr-textures-mod-fixed-tpf-t772.html

 

http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/me3-new-compilation-of-hr-tex-mod-fixed-tpf-t610.html

 

EDIT: Granted, the ALOT textures are even more and should also work just fine as well. I think since I had something working I stuck with it.

[ElysiumFic]

I guess that's probably part of my problem. I want to use the ALOT textures, but only because I'm sort of obsessive and have to have it once I know it's there.

 

I don't actually pay close enough attention to all the scenery and detail to really require them. I should get rid of them and stick with things like HD mods for complexions and clothing.

 

That problem in my last post, with getting the error? I seem to be getting that with most things I install now. I didn't notice it happening until I was in the process of installing the ALOT textures for Shepard and the squad, which is when my computer froze and I had to manually reboot. After that, maybe 1/3-1/2 of textures I tried to install actually were installed. The rest got that error. :/ So I'm reverting to a backup I made after I'd applied the bulk of the ALOT textures and seeing if it will go better. Might end up having to revert to my post-scan backup.

 

If I have to do that, I'm saying f*#@ it and going with the bare minimum of mods I need to make the game what I want it to be. Forget the HD textures for most things.

[ElysiumFic]

*sigh* After having spent all day at this and having to roll it back again (thankfully not all the way to it's unscanned state) and having spent a week getting to this point, the idea of being able to save most of what I want to do as a DLC is very appealing. Please share your process with me? I'm looking for tutorials now but haven't found any yet. The ones I'm looking at all seem to be "you already know how to make DLC so now let's make them better" type things.

[me3deager]

You could actually do this right now, if you're already using a "DLC mod." BackOff, JAM, MEHEM, etc. If you're using any of those, here's what you do.

 

1. Install the .mod files that you absolutely want for the trilogy run. Start with just one hair mod for Shep you can live with.

 

2. As long as you have a DLC mod installed, place those files which changed, into the DLC mod of your choice.

 

3. Run AutoTOC on that DLC mod folder to get your new pcc files to be recognized

 

4. Start a treescan

 

5. Install textures you need for the hair mod and any other textures you want

 

6. I typically find I have to AutoTOC all DLCs, both mods and official, and the main game as well (although I think I do a TOCBinUpdater but it shouldn't really matter)

 

The problem with this plan is, you'll need to do another treescan, which can be slow depending on your machine. But this is how you can use existing DLC mods to your advantage. Once you get the hang of it, and once you verify which hair model your custom .mod hair models are replacing, then you can start getting tricky with using the modded hair files for the one part of the game, then switching to another, etc. You may also find that the hair mods are each affecting different hairstyles so you can install some or all of them in one shot and then use gibbed to switch it up.

 

That's the general idea. It's still kind of a pain and I used to use only texmod for a long time which just character textures and call it good. It wasn't until the past 10 months or so I finally took the texplorer, tpf/dds tools plunge.

[ElysiumFic]

Oooh nifty!

 

I will play with this. Thank you!

 

Using gibbed to switch things up was actually something I was thinking of playing with, having one mod installed on CustomCute and another installed on ProJessica.

 

God, life would be so much easier if Ash's hair had the same number of bones as these meshes, because she's dead in my game so no one is using her hair--ugh, that sounded a little grave-robbery and creepy, but you get what I mean. I could use the .upk to change her mesh and apply the texture there and then make the appropriate alteration in Gibbed.

 

Okay, let me stretch my understanding of the process here, pose a few hypotheticals, and you can tell me if I'm completely misunderstanding how things work.

 

Hypothetical #1--Is it possible to plug the already-meshed BIOG_HMF_HIR_PRO.pcc into the basegame CookedPCConsole folder, apply the texture to it, then swap it out for vanilla (not over-writing it, of course) and drop the modded .pcc into the DLC folder and run the AutoTOC? That would prevent having to run the treescan again, right?

 

(Alternatively, if running the treescan was necessary, could I use something like this process to circumvent having to scan the whole darn shebang? I'm assuming if scanning is necessary, it's to build the .tfc file, right?)

 

Hypothetical #2--If I wanted to, say, have four hair mods like I showed you above, two on CustomCute and two on ProJessica, I could mod CustomCute and ProJessica on the same .pcc file, then make two copies of the DLC, one with each version of the file.

 

I'm very interested in the possibilities this presents for doing these hair mods without bodysnatching anyone else's hair, whether permanently via texture edits to the basegame or temporarily via DLC. What would really rock is if one could figure out how to give the casual outfits closet a "choose helmet" option where the selection is a whole array of these hairstyles.

 

If I can figure out how to put just a hair mod in a DLC, I might make DLCs of all these other hair mods floating around (giving the appropriate credit to the authors, of course) and post them here on Nexus to save other souls the issues I've had.

 

What does a DLC require besides the changed files in the CookedPCConsole folder and a TOC.bin? Is it possible to scavenge those elements out of another DLC mod and tweak them?

 

(LOL I tend to jump in with both feet and try to figure out the most elaborate way of doing things--I would never have waited ten months if I knew there was a different way. Of course, this means I spend 5X more time figuring out the learning curve for elaborately modding the game than I do actually playing the game.)

Edited February 20, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[me3deager]

#1 should work. If the files with the hair meshes are already in the pcc file(s) when you did your scan, simply put them back in the main game folder, use the tpf/dds tools, install, then move those pcc files to the DLC mod. At that point the DLC mod pccs file will override anything in the main game folder with the same name so you don't need to touch the main game files of the same name at that point.

 

Don't worry about the custom DLC textures. That's for modders making a finished product to share with others. Another note would be this (if I'm understanding texplorer correctly.) When you run texplorer, you're allowing me3explorer to index where all the textures are and hashes and such. This also unpacks the DLCs so, well, I'm not sure why it's done but it makes life a lot easier for modders at the very least. Anyway, the tfc file gets created only when you install textures. So, you getting things set the way you want, installing the textures, and then moving the pcc files you changed into the DLC mod folder, should be fine because the game will see the pcc file call for a CusTexture0.tfc (or whatever) and start looking for it wherever it can find it. I'm pretty sure that's how the texture would work.

 

What I don't know is if you can install textures, and then have the exact same hair mesh get replaced in the same vanilla pcc file, have it create a CusTexture1.tfc file, and then leave both CusTexture files in the main game and swap the pcc files when you want. In theory, yes, it could work, but I've never tried it. It's really theory on my part.

 

As for the what does a DLC file need, that's answered here, in more detail than you may want. But the general idea is, PCConsoleTOC.bin file is present in root, and in CookedPCConsole folder is a default.sfar, *_INT.tlk (or whatever language the mod is for,) mount.dlc, and a Default.bin file.

http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/adding-dlc-t1330.html

 

Posting a DLC mod could be nice IF the hairs use enough different base hairs. So, if a bunch of the ones you want to use are swapping out the pony tail...crap, that sucks. The other thing I can't figure out is, why the hair meshes are causing so much trouble. I speculate it has to do with the nature of .mod files and that tool to install those has always been changing a bit it seems, which has meant meaning to match up the rev of me3explorer with the version that made the .mod file. If I could figure out the root problem for people then maybe there could be a solution. It seems like girlsplaygames and ottemis have good tutorials on how to do this yet many people struggle with it. I think we even had a modder rage quit because his .mod files weren't working AND the DLC mod method isn't ideal for meshes for Shepard related items since there are so many options out there and yet only so many meshes to replace. I think you had asked about how meshes work; right now, you replace an existing mesh in the game for the character and that's it; you can't nerf from another player.

[ElysiumFic]

Hmm okay. I will play and let you know how it works out. :)

 

Thanks so much. While I don't have the skillset to actually make this stuff happen, I always love figuring it out enough to get myself into trouble. :D

[ElysiumFic]

LOL Of course, rather than carrying on trying to mod my game I instead sidetracked myself trying to figure out how to make DLC. Yes, I do crack myself up. I don't need to do this but I'm just curious enough to want to try to see if I CAN.

 

Anyway, most of what is on that tutorial you linked makes sense to me, except for the TLK stuff. Which I see from the comments you struggled with yourself at first. I can use the ME3ModManager's Mount.dlc creator to make the mount.dlc file, but in order to do that I need to have the tlk ID which it appears means I need the TLK. Okay, great, there's a tool for that and it's pretty easy to monkey-see/monkey-do with the tlk from other people's mods. YAY! I'm using the Liara Casual Wear (DLC_CON_LIAC) mod because it's nice and tiny.

 

Except...I'm a little fuzzy on how to find the unique number for the ID.

 

Once I get that figured out, assuming I haven't catastrophically screwed anything up, things are going to get FUN!

Edited February 20, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[ElysiumFic]

Okay, so I succeeded in adding custom armors and clothes to a DLC the way you described. Didn't work for hair. The mesh came through but the texture didn't. Might try again in the near future but it was a good first step.

 

Then for shits and giggles I spent the rest of the night trying to use this tutorial to make a PCC with custom hair meshes and textures in it that don't cannibalize other meshes/textures.

 

It was pretty easy and straightforward until I got to Step 5. All I had to do was clone both the mesh and the texture I needed (In other words, do Step 2 twice, once for the mesh and once for the texture.)

 

In theory, if I could get it to work, it would mean all anyone wanting to do to change their hair is tweak the savegame file. But around just before Step 5 is where my understanding of how to do things fell apart. Up until then, it was astonishingly easy.

 

Basically, trying to use one of the disheveled hairs I was trying to get to work originally in this thread:

 

1) I cloned the HMF_HIR_PROCustom_Cute_MDL mesh and named it HMF_HIR_PROCustom_Frizzy_MDL (because I like naming consistency.)

 

2) I cloned the HMF_HIR_PROShort_Diff texture (which is what the tpf replaces when you run it through TPF/DSS tools) and named it HMF_HIR_Frizzy_Diff

 

3) I went into Meshplorer and used the upk from the resource files to apply the proper mesh to HMF_HIR_PROCustom_Frizzy_MDL

 

4) I went into texplorer and used the dds to try to apply the textures.

 

That's where I ran into my first problem. I got an error saying the texture I was using was in DDS_DXT5 when it needed to be in DXT1. Not sure what the proper process for converting that is; will have to research it some but I haven't had a chance to look it up yet. I tried converting it with Image Engine but that was just a stab in the dark and I'm sure it was the wrong thing to do.

 

But the possibilities with this are lots of fun. The ability to have multiple hairstyles on a pcc and swap them out by just tweaking the savegame file. In my case, if it had worked, the changes would have been BIOG_HMF_HIR_PRO.HMF_HIR_PROCustom_Frizzy_MDL for the hair mesh and BIOG_HMF_HIR_PRO.HMF_HIR_Frizzy_Diff in the texture parameters for Hair_Diff and Hair_Mask.

 

I just don't have quite a firm enough grasp of the process to pull it off, especially since I can't code beyond some very basic xml, my understanding of how to work with all things hex-related is limited to what I can easily mimic reading a tutorial, and I can't edit images. But it's been fun playing with it and hopefully once my brain has had a day or two to process everything I've worked on teaching myself tonight, I'll make some connections or grasp some concepts I'm missing right now.

 

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to play with the file I made, I'll be happy to share it.