[Guide] Player Armor Model Swap

[DeltaType90]

Okay so it seems there is a bit confusing regarding the how-to when it comes to swapping out the appearances / models of the player's armor parts and or full armor suits, so I though I would make a quick guide for those of you who are having a hard time figuring it out and actually it is a lot easier to do these kinds of swaps than you might think :smile:

 

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First of, you need the following tool to access and extract the resources that needs to be modified:

"MEAExplorerWV" https://github.com/zeroKilo/MEAExplorerWV

- The only parts you really need for this type of work is found in the folder called "MEAExplorerWV/Release" and "AnselSDK64/Release" so if it all looks a little overwhelming, just download those files and ignore the rest until you get more familiar with the tool and want to try out your hand at some of the other stuff :wink:

 

For the actual editing I personally use the following Hex Editor:

"HxD" https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

 

Also I will highly recommend getting the following tool and use it before you start modding:

"MEA Recovery Tool" http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectandromeda/mods/122/?

 

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Okay here we go :smile:

 

 

PART 1. - Extracting the resources.

 

- First part is about how to extract the resources you need to edit, if you have already learned this elsewhere you can just skip the first part and move on to part 2 :wink:

 

1. Start by running the MEAExplorerWV.EXE, if this is the first time you run the program you will be asked to link the tool to the game's .EXE, you should only ever need to do this once, from then on the tool should remember it and load the resources as soon as you run it :smile:

 

2. Next go through the branches of the "TOC" and find the entry called "mastersharedbundle":

 

- It can take a sec or two for the tool to load the data into the field on the right, so wait until hex data in it changes before moving on to the next part.

 

3. Now right-click on the entry and select "Load into VFS...":

 

- Once again give the tool a chance to process the data before moving on.

 

4. Next scroll down to where it says "VFS" and go through the branch called "ROOT" till you find where it says "gear":

 

- This section of the branch holds all the resources for the armors and it is from here we must extract the files we want to work with.

 

For the sake of this guide, lets say we want to use the N7 chest armor on our character, we are playing a biotic so we like the stats, but we really want to have the look of the high ranking Initiative chest model :wink:

 

5. So the first thing we do is locate the chest piece that we want to change, which is the N7 and seeing as we have already unlocked the highest rank in-game, there is no need to change all of them so we just focus on finding the rank 10 entry, so start by clicking on the "chest" entry and scroll down the list of chest armors until you find the right entry, in this case it will be the one called "gear_chest_n7_10.ebx":

 

 

6. Now right-click this entry and select "export data...":

 

 

7. Next we do the same thing with the Initiative chest armor, which in this case is called "gear_chest_andromeda_10.ebx".

 

Done!, you have now extracted the files you need, but don't close the MEAExplorerWV tool yet, we will need it again to import the modified file in a bit :wink:

Edited June 1, 2017 by DeltaType90

[DeltaType90]

PART 2. - Swapping the armor model.

 

In this part we will use the hex editor mentioned in the first post, to change which model is actually used by the game when you equip the N7 rank 10 chest armor and we do this like so:

 

1. Start by going to the folder that you extracted the two resources to and open the file called "gear_chest_andromeda_10.ebx.bin" with the HxD tool:

 

 

2. Now in the HxD tool go to the offset 00000040 and click in front of the first ID number adjacent to the offset number, in this instance the ID number would be 11:

 

 

3. Now highlight / select all the ID numbers from offset 00000040 as well as 00000050 by either click+dragging the mouse cursor over the numbers or by holding down Shift and hitting the right arrow key till all IDs have been selected, end result should look like this:

 

 

4. Next make a copy (Ctrl+C) of the IDs, open up a simple text / notepad document and paste (Ctrl+i) in the copied IDs for safe keeping.

 

5. Now return to the folder with the extracted .EBX files and this time open up the file called "gear_chest_n7_10.ebx.bin".

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/f13a/0exhs299vx8dda0zg.jpg?size_id=6

 

6. Next repeat step 2 and 3 giving you this result:

 

 

7. Now go to the text document and copy the list of IDs you got from the "gear_chest_andromeda_10.ebx.bin" and paste them into the HxD window, thereby replacing the existing lines of IDs, but make sure you get all the numbers or it will not work, the end result will look like this:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/f926/p32r6aa2ou77c88zg.jpg?size_id=7

 

- You will now notice that the ID numbers have turned red to indicate they have been modified.

 

8. All you need to do now is save the changes and you can do this by simply hitting "Ctrl+S", you can now close the HxD tool.

 

Done!, you have now modified the .EBX and can move on to part 3 where I will tell you how to import the changes back into the game :wink:

Edited June 8, 2017 by DeltaType90

[DeltaType90]

Part 3. - Importing the modified files to your game.

- Now that we are done modifying the .EBX we need to add it to your game and this is how you do it:

1. Switch back to the MEAExplorerWV tool window, once again find the entry of the N7 chest armor, right-click it and this time select "import data...":

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/5f48/qks3j4hhexh4uzpzg.jpg?size_id=8

- I'm not 100% sure you actually need to right click the entry you want to replace, but I do it for good measures anyway (if anyone can confirm or debunk this please let me know :wink: )

 

2. Now locate and load your edited "gear_chest_n7_10.ebx.bin", give the tool a couple of seconds to complete its work and you should get a pop-up saying the import has been completed.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ffba/6lpw311zq50hhedzg.jpg?size_id=8

 

Done!, you are now really done, you can close MEAExplorerWV tool and start up your game and enjoy your new armor :wink:

 

 

Notes:

 

Okay just a couple of notes:

 

BUG!

First off you need to be aware that if you make swaps that replace full body armors (found in the gear branch under the entry "full") you will often encounter a bug and this can happen no matter if the full body swap is made to have the appearance of a "casual" outfit or if it is an actual armor, the bug can result in one or all three of the following:

 

1. Returning to the Tempest (or any other transition from open world to safe area) while wearing a swapped full body armor, will make Ryder appear as if wearing the under-armor, no matter which casual outfit you had originally chosen for this type of areas.

 

If on the Tempest you can undo this by going to your wardrobe, switch to another casual outfit, exit the wardrobe, reenter the wardrobe and change back to the outfit you really want to wear, but you will have to repeat this every time you return, if you are the patient type, you can just do like I do and RP it, saying well my Ryder has just returned and have not yet changed back to his/her casual clothes :D

 

2. Transitioning from the Tempest to an open-world zone while wearing a swapped full body armor will cause Ryder to appear as if only wearing the under-armor, has also happened to some people if they have logged out of the game while wearing the swapped armor.

 

To undo the bug simply go to a Forward Station and do the same thing as with the wardrobe and the casual outfit.

 

3. Loading a savegame where your character was wearing the swapped full body armor can take up to several minutes, one person actually waited for a whole 10 minutes (don't think I would have been able to be that patient myself :tongue: ), but the time can differ depending on your PC.

 

The best way to handle this issue is to simply wait until you reach a Forward Station before making your final save and closing your game, this way you can swap to a different armor before you save and logout :smile:

 

UI DISPLAY!

People need to be aware that in UIs such as the loadout and RnC the appearance of armor parts will still look like the default models, it is only on in the wardrobe, loadout character preview and open world that the appearance of the armors have changed, only exception to this seems to be for full body armors, changes to this type of armor will be reflected in all instances, no matter if it is preview, worldspace or UI.

 

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Well that's it, hope this will prove helpful to people, have fun and happy modding to all :thumbsup:

Edited June 1, 2017 by DeltaType90

[xionanthropos]

Thanks brother now i can play and enjoy the game whilst not looking like a calamari or a squid!(Angaran armor rank X)

[DeltaType90]

Thanks brother now i can play and enjoy the game whilst not looking like a calamari or a squid!(Angaran armor rank X)

Hehe yea I was not so fond of that look either, I get where they were going with it, trying to keep it as Angaran looking as possible and they did succeed, but it just wasn't my taste either, personally I turned it into the Pathfinder armor in my game, felt it had a rather suiting look for an engineer / tech character, a little bulky and with some nice attachments like grenades and pouches :happy:

Edited June 1, 2017 by DeltaType90

[Porcelyn]

So how would I make this into a mod?

[DeltaType90]

So how would I make this into a mod?

 

Well with the new Frosty tool there is probably a more direct way of doing model swaps, but I'm not sure, because I am still not able to use it :confused:

 

But if you want to make a mod using this method here, then:

 

 

Part 1. - Make edit into a mod.

 

1. After you have done all of the above you then instead of the "Part 3" step 1 when you click on "import data..." you click on "Plugins..." and then from the dropdown menu select "SHA1 Export/Import":

 

 

2. Now in the little pop-up window select "Make Mod Job":

 

 

3. Then in the new window, once again locate your edited .EBX load it:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/f13a/0exhs299vx8dda0zg.jpg?size_id=6

 

4. Wait for the tool to load it (which should only take a sec or so), then click ok and close the little pop-up window:

- if your entire mod consists of more than one .EBX repeat the above steps for each of them before moving on to the next step!

 

 

5. Next click on where it says "Mod Manager" to open the mod manager window:

 

 

6. In the "Mod Manager" window click on where it says "Mods" and then from the dropdown menu select "Save List", then you simply save the mod with whatever name you want it to have and your done :wink:

 

 

Now if you then want to use it with the "Frosty Mod Manager" you will then need to turn your .meamod into a .fbmod and you do that like this:

 

Part 2. - MEAMOD to FBMOD

 

1. Start up your "FrostyEditor.exe" tool, then in the top left corner click on where it says "File" and from the dropdown menu select "Import MEAMOD":

 

 

2. Browse through your folders and located the .meamod you want to turn into an .fbmod and load it into your Frosty Editor.

 

3. Give the Frosty tool a couple of seconds to load the data, you will be able to tell when it is done by looking at the "Log" part of the tool's UI:

 

 

4. Once the tool is done loading the data, once again click on "File" and from the dropdown menu this time select "Export to Mod":

 

 

5. Now in the new pop-up window you simply add the needed info and hit save:

 

 

Done!

Edited June 8, 2017 by DeltaType90

[DAGirly]

This is awesome! Thank you so much for posting this!

[strifeseh]

Thank you very much for this! I originally used a different writeup for modding to learn to swap armor models (in my case, I made a swap with the heleus armor and applied it to both the hoodie and blasto tank casual sets [as individual mods of course] so I could use either to access the underarmor) and was hoping there was a way to swap them to frosty, this will help immensely (and is a much cleaner writeup than the one I used.

[LegendDarkness97]

Is it possible to use this for non armor model swaps?