Modifying .egt and .egm files

[jamochawoke]

Hey how do I go about opening and modifying .egt and .egm files?

 

I downloaded the head06 resource and have been making my own races for a while but two things always bugged me.

 

1) The texture mapping for the .egt file is kind of messed up. In some cases it simply doesn't wrap the mesh right (particularly the sliders for the eyebrows and eyeliner) and in other cases it retains the ugly Vanilla colors (like green lips). I'd like to go in and correct this, but don't know how. I've seen the alternative .egt file here on the Nexus but all that does is obliterate all slider colors leaving the face with just the base texture and the player can't do any editing.

 

2) Some of the morphs in the .egm file are really strange (one of the syllable mouth motions makes the lips contort into this bizarre U shape that is really unnatural) and of course everyone knows about the bizarre grin face animations. I can do animations and modelling fairly easily on my own... but I need to know how to open and edit the .egm file.

 

Someone mentioned that they are created by facegen software and that I'd need to at least use a free copy to edit them with an Oblivion plugin. But I don't know how to go about that and haven't found any more information than that one forum post just mentioning it.

[DrakeTheDragon]

This should help.

Don't be confused by the name. The tools you'll need are included and the guide by TK is going far beyond "eye morphs".

 

With Scanti's tools you can extract the graphics files from inside the EGT and/or replace them with others and extract/insert/replace morphs from/into EGM and TRI files to/from OBJ files.

 

Be aware that for EGM and TRI files it is one whole head mesh (OBJ) per morph, the base mesh with the morph applied to its fullest, and when you import them into modeling apps it is paramount the vertex count and order isn't even remotely touched, or they'll be useless to you as they won't fit into the EGM/TRI file afterwards anymore later. Morph offsets are calculated from the difference between the neutral base mesh's vertices and the morphed mesh's vertices, and this can't work when one or more sets of them don't have identical vertex indices anymore. Don't use any fancy scripted modification tools from your modeling app or anything else complex which could likely alter the vertex order either. If I remember right, even alterations to the UV map can change the vertex order and render the OBJ useless beyond repair already.

 

When not wanting to pay for the licensed Singular Immersion FaceGen Modeler tools, this is a very touchy business.

[jamochawoke]

Well that should help with .egm's I guess. All I wanted to do was remodel some of the goofy faces included with head06 (and honestly some of them are really nearing the bottom of the uncanny valley!).

 

But for .egt's? Any idea on how to change those texture files?

 

Also, I am not opposed to buying FaceGen... I just don't know how or what to do anything regarding making/opening/modifying these files.

[DrakeTheDragon]

But for .egt's? Any idea on how to change those texture files?

 

That would be the purpose of Scanti's command line tool EGTpacker, which is also included, like I mentioned.

From the readme: "It unpacks the textures from an egt file into 50 seperate tga files and allows you to repack them once you've finished editing them."

How exactly the individual TGA images are overlayed or blended for the final results I don't know, but chances aren't small TK and Scanti do very well.

 

The stuff I linked above is an invaluable resource and a profound guide how to do all of it at the same time. It covers the basics and all possible tasks likewise and, again, it goes far beyond just eye morphs in all departments.

[jamochawoke]

Thanks buddy! You've always been an amazing help and source of knowledge!

[DrakeTheDragon]

Always glad I could help.

 

I may have only knowledge to share, but this I'm sharing with a passion! :happy:

Edited June 5, 2012 by DrakeTheDragon