Find my current face morph?

[WarKittyKat]

I apologize if this has been posted already (I'm sure it has) but I can't find it in the search. I'm trying to modify a current face, but I don't want to create a completely new morph. I spent a fair bit of time messing with the facial structure in the beginning and I don't want to lose all that - I just want to give my character a haircut and a tattoo. So I want to see if there's a way to get an existing morph out of a savegame that I can edit.

 

Bonus points if I can get existing morphs for NPC's, too - I'd sort of like to give Alistar a new hairstyle as well, he looks like he used too much hairgel right now!

[Thandal]

Unfortunately, no. There's no way to extract your current facemorph to an editable format. It is technically possible to hand-edit fields in the saved-game ".das" file using the Toolset which might achieve specific changes you'd like to see, but you'd have to know the particular field names and the values of the replacement attributes.

Without becoming intimately involved with the data structure of the ".das" (and I've been there, it's not pretty!) the only thing you can do is to recreate it as best you can with a new character, make the changes, (hairstyle, tats, etc.) play that character long enough to make a named save, then extract that NEW face from the saved-game file and replace your current character's with the extracted one.

I use "DA Face Replacer" to accomplish this, but there are others. (And if you have the Toolset and know how, you can do it manually.)

The longer answer is: The Character Creator ("CC") is a stripped-down edition of the facemorph capabilities of the Toolset. It doesn't have all the resources or mechanisms, and relies on a set of "morph preset" (".mop") files as the starting point for a new character, and a collection of various attributes (texture and mesh resources) which are mapped to the "Character Generator Morph Configuration" file, (the infamous "chargenmorphcfg.xml") and selected via the sliders.

The end of the CC process is the ".mor" file the game uses to display your final character. That ".mor" file does not include critical information about how the look was accomplished, so it can't be modified by the CC that created it. (My guess is that it's missing the data about which ".mop" was used, but that's just a guess...)

The same things apply to the NPC facemorphs. All the ones you see out there were created by other players using either the Toolset, or the CC, then uploaded as mods for others to use (e.g. "hf_genf_leli.mor" as a new look for Leliana.) There are, however, hundreds of available facemorphs for any and all NPCs. Just search the Dragon Age Nexus for "Morrigan", or "Alistair", or whichever one you want.

NOTE 1: The Toolset's native facemorph file format is ".mrh", and includes all the data about its construction. From there, one can export either a ".mop" to be used in the CC, or a ".mor" for an NPC (or the Warden, following the Replacer process.)

NOTE 2: For DA2, BioWare decided to allow the game to keep the full facemorph data set within the saves, so that one can modify the look of one's Hawke on-the-fly. The conceit is the "Mirror of Transformation", which is just a way to put the CC back into the game mid-stream.

NOTE 3: "Dragon Age Redesigned" is the most comprehensive set of new faces for almost all the NPCS (including all the Companions) that anyone has made. There are an incredible number of files in that collection. There is some flexibility as to which ones to use, and individual selection of the Companion morphs. But be warned! It is extremely complex and requires careful attention to the installation instructions.

[setiweb]

*IF* you only wish to make minor changes, such as what you could do via the Editor and a .MOR then yes you can. Using the editor you can export the .MOR from the saved game and make limited changes (make-up, hair, eyes, etc...)

 

Without my resources here I can't directly check but from one of my DA2 mods, "Open a saved game within the Editor. 0 --> 16002 --> 16208 --> 16950 SAVEGAME PLAYER MORPH.". Right click and choose Export. That will be your MOR file. After the changes repeat the process but this time choose Import.

[Thandal]

*IF* you only wish to make minor changes, such as what you could do via the Editor and a .MOR then yes you can. Using the editor you can export the .MOR from the saved game and make limited changes (make-up, hair, eyes, etc...)

 

Without my resources here I can't directly check but from one of my DA2 mods, "Open a saved game within the Editor. 0 --> 16002 --> 16208 --> 16950 SAVEGAME PLAYER MORPH.". Right click and choose Export. That will be your MOR file. After the changes repeat the process but this time choose Import.

 

 

Yeah, that's what I meant by:

 

... It is technically possible to hand-edit fields in the saved-game ".das" file using the Toolset which might achieve specific changes you'd like to see, but you'd have to know the particular field names and the values of the replacement attributes.

 

[but it requires] becoming intimately involved with the data structure of the ".das" (and I've been there, it's not pretty!)

 

 

;D

[setiweb]

I must be the only modder who's never used the toolset.