Help needed - Blade & Soul NA/EU costume modding

[Lucif]

here is a youtube video i've found.
there is a BNS TOOL in the description, and it contains almost all of the armor(and the number of upk) and their model previews,
might be helpful .

PS: on the first use, close all the warns and set the gamepath to the right one.

There's not a whole armor / jewelry that is in the game. There's a limited list. More convenient to use this tool - https://yadi.sk/d/Ok4AQlKOoMqRq (hope, link work) - it shows the entire structure of any upk file

 

[c6222848]

I watched a little of it but since I'm at work, I'll finish it up tonight. I did notice that he is repointing to other packages by hex editing the upk file. I was already planning on allowing edits to the properties and name tables. That can be hard, though, because if you change the size of either of those it will require the whole file to need to be re-built. And that get scary fast.

my point is actually the bns tool that mentioned in the description XDD. the video self is good but your work is even better.
but i did't expect that the link will automatically transformed into a video.
they have made a kind of database which contains the previews and file names of the clothes, and you mentioned about that it will be easier if you know which file contains dds, so i thought that it would help

 

[c6222848]

There's not a whole armor / jewelry that is in the game. There's a limited list. More convenient to use this tool - Programm.rar (hope, link work) - it shows the entire structure of any upk file

i'll try , thanks

 

[stricq]

my point is actually the bns tool that mentioned in the description XDD. the video self is good but your work is even better.
but i did't expect that the link will automatically transformed into a video.
they have made a kind of database which contains the previews and file names of the clothes, and you mentioned about that it will be easier if you know which file contains dds, so i thought that it would help

Got it. My program will be able to search for textures but you won't know what they are until you look at them. Having a database of what stuff is would help speed things up. I can do that, too.

 

[c6222848]

Got it. My program will be able to search for textures but you won't know what they are until you look at them. Having a database of what stuff is would help speed things up. I can do that, too.

Well, i did't mean that you have to make one.
i was just suggesting some useful applications in modding. you have already done much

 

[Abrzi]

I'm very excited to see how this program works out, It's exactly what I've been looking for since BnS opened on NA and EU! :D

 

[PrincessNicky]

stricq we need your program more than ever <3
I don't know how Naduron is getting uMod 2 r49 to work, it certainly won't run on my PC with Win10.
As I'm writing this, I have uMod 2 r51 loaded and running with my character in game wearing one of my modded costumes.
I'm able to fight and do everything normally, and after 20 mins it hasn't crashed.
Until now I hadn't even tried the r51 version, but it certainly appears to be able to load and run modded costume files.
However, it's not all good news.
I've been able to capture textures with it, but the saved referencing is garbage, for example Client_W1024_H512_F21_T_0XFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.dds
Even a noob like me can tell that's not going to work out when you re-inject it back in the game, but I tried a little mod on it and did it anyways, and got a very messed up game view as a result (though amazingly it didn't crash).
So yeah, with rather a lot of fiddling, it might indeed be possible for me to make mods swapping between two versions of uMod, and people may be able to use them with uMod 2 r51, but it's far from ideal.

 

[PrincessNicky]

Ok, so actually it's not even as good as I said above.
I wanted to test to see if people who want to use my mods can do it using uMod 2 v51, since this version appears stable with the game.
Firstly I ran a test with uMod 2 v53, loading up four of my mods which I could successfully view on my characters in the character selection screen (but not play in game since v53 crashes when I enter).
Then I ran uMod 2 v51 and loaded up the exact same four mods. But sadly only one of them was visible. The other three made no change to the original costumes, despite being successfully loaded.
It made no difference if I just loaded one costume mod and then viewed it, or if I loaded several mods, only one out of those four actually appeared in game.
So it looks like it was just pure luck that the first costume mod I tried happened to work. Three others that have been captured and worked on in exactly the same way, fail to do anything when loaded through uMod 2 v51.
As it stands, this isn't going to be a viable method for showing mods in game.
So please please please stricq, carry on your awesome work on your program and let me try it as soon as you're confident I'll be able to re-pack my mods into the game <3

 

[stricq]

Work continues: GitHub - stricq/UPKManager: Blade and Soul UPK File Manager

 

[PrincessNicky]

Work continues: GitHub - stricq/UPKManager: Blade and Soul UPK File Manager

Once again I have no idea what all that stuff is I can see in your link, but it certainly shows you've been really busy working on this project. I can't thank you enough for sticking at it, and can't wait to have a working program to use <3

 

[Lucif]

Work continues: GitHub - stricq/UPKManager: Blade and Soul UPK File Manager

Thank you! Can't wait to test ur programm. I looked up your code on the site, but in programs of other people's difficult to navigate. And Visual studio do not want to work on my computer. T^T

 

[stricq]

I now have the full scan of all 20,000+ UPK files running and the File Listing shows which files have textures. I will add some controls above the listing for filtering out the files that don't have textures. The check boxes are for saving all the textures in the selected files. I also plan to add another column to show what types of textures are in the file (hair, outfits, weapons, scenery, etc.) Once this is all done I will release that and work on rebuilding a UPK with new textures. Suggestions are welcome.

 

[c6222848]

I now have the full scan of all 20,000+ UPK files running and the File Listing shows which files have textures. I will add some controls above the listing for filtering out the files that don't have textures. The check boxes are for saving all the textures in the selected files. I also plan to add another column to show what types of textures are in the file (hair, outfits, weapons, scenery, etc.) Once this is all done I will release that and work on rebuilding a UPK with new textures. Suggestions are welcome.

Wow, very exciting. can't wait till the release

 

[PrincessNicky]

I now have the full scan of all 20,000+ UPK files running and the File Listing shows which files have textures. I will add some controls above the listing for filtering out the files that don't have textures. The check boxes are for saving all the textures in the selected files. I also plan to add another column to show what types of textures are in the file (hair, outfits, weapons, scenery, etc.) Once this is all done I will release that and work on rebuilding a UPK with new textures. Suggestions are welcome.

Your work continues to amaze me as you edge closer to giving us the program we've been longing for <3
I don't think further suggestions are needed at this point, more important is some hands-on time with it to see how it's all working so far.
As far as the repacking goes, as far as I know anything we mod needs to go back where it came from. I've heard more than once that the game throws a fit if the new upk file is a different size to the old one, so I'm not sure if that can be accounted for in the repacking process.

 

[stricq]

As far as the repacking goes, as far as I know anything we mod needs to go back where it came from. I've heard more than once that the game throws a fit if the new upk file is a different size to the old one, so I'm not sure if that can be accounted for in the repacking process.

It's not the file size itself that is the problem. There are many things inside the UPK file that point to other places in the file and if the size changes those pointers will then point to the wrong things and the game will puke on it. It's not impossible and I don't think it is as hard as some are saying. Just repacking a file with different textures should be easy. Changing the meshes becomes much more difficult and there are some files that it would be just crazy to attempt to modify. But just textures, I do believe that is doable.

 

[PrincessNicky]

It's not the file size itself that is the problem. There are many things inside the UPK file that point to other places in the file and if the size changes those pointers will then point to the wrong things and the game will puke on it. It's not impossible and I don't think it is as hard as some are saying. Just repacking a file with different textures should be easy. Changing the meshes becomes much more difficult and there are some files that it would be just crazy to attempt to modify. But just textures, I do believe that is doable.

I'm not in a super big hurry to start messing with the body meshes, although it would certainly be awesome if we could fill in some of the holes that they deliberately rip out.... sure I understand about removing parts of the body mesh that are intended to be fully covered by the costume to save resources, but we can tell that some parts are simply ripped out so you're limited in what can be modded.
For me, the big deal is to be able to repack costume mods into the game so they are visible without having an external program like uMod actively re-injecting textures into the game.

 

[Lucif]

I've heard more than once that the game throws a fit if the new upk file is a different size to the old one, so I'm not sure if that can be accounted for in the repacking process.

Nope, you're wrong. If you throw the changed files in a separate folder in the root of the game - then there is no problem.
If when you start the game appear of error - simply click OK.
At least, I have never had problems with this)

sorry for my english =\

 

[stricq]

Nope, you're wrong. If you throw the changed files in a separate folder in the root of the game - then there is no problem.
If when you start the game appear of error - simply click OK.
At least, I have never had problems with this)

My program will put the repackaged files in the "mod" folder. If you replace the actual UPK file, the repair process will wipe out the changed file.

 

[Lucif]

My program will put the repackaged files in the "mod" folder. If you replace the actual UPK file, the repair process will wipe out the changed file.

It's wonderful! You read my mind)

 

[pandabutt]

i look forward to seeing this program when its ready