Basic model editing tutorial for PC version

[tekken57]

With upcoming release of Xrey 1.5, I thought I'd post a tutorial on the process for those who want to start practicing using 3ds max to edit.

Basic controls for the program:

- Double click an object in the grid to display a preview
- Click the viewport to control the object. Zoom in and out using the mouse scroll button.
- Hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse to rotate the object.
- Some objects render off the screen for some reason so zoom out to view these.
- Some faces don't render correct in the preview viewport, not sure why as yet. You can still edit these objects as the program does not interfere with the faces.

Basic tutorial on how to do model edits

I am assuming that you already know how to extract your yobj file from the pac, have 3dsm 2011 installed and have brienj's import plugin.If you don't have brienj's import plugin, you will need to obtain it from Xentax.

The program also loads a texture as long as it is named color in the same directory of the yobj. The color texture can be in png, jpg or bmp formats in that order of preference. If there is no color texture the mesh will load without one.

1. If you uncompressed the yobj file using the x-packer, it will be named 0000.zlib.uncompressed. Rename this to 0000.yobj. Your hair yobj file is the 2715 file.

 

Import your yobj into 3dsm using the import menu item.

 

 

When the object has finished loading, select editable mesh on your right menu and select vertex under this option. Your object will now display all the vertices.




2. Select a few vertices and move them. Do something simple for your first try, just to understand the process. Make sure you do not delete or add any new veritices. The number of vertices must remain the same.




3. Select all the vertices for that object by pressing ctrl+a. Take a note of the number of vertices under the selection menu on the right you will need to know this number later on. In this example the number of vertices is 570. Also take a note of the name at the top, in this case the name of the object is 0_27.



4. With the object still selected, select Export - Export selected from the main menu. Make sure you have selected "Export selected" as the import wont work otherwise.

Give your object any name you want, the name of object after the "_" corresponds to the object number in X-rey. In this case the object is called "0_27" in 3ds max, hence the name in X-Rey will be Object27.

For the export options, make sure you set all the options as follows:



Please double check these options as the object will import incorrectly or wont import at all if these are incorrect. Note that the precision value for the pc version is 12. This is different from the xbox 360 and ps3 models which has a precision value of 6.

 

Click the export button when you are sure and the object will be exported to obj format. Double check the number of vertices is correct on the status box which appears after the import. In this case the number of vertices on the export status box is still 570 so it's correct.

5. Option your yobj in X-rey using the "Yobj new format" option. Look in the grid for object 27 and confirm that it has the same number of vertices. In this case 570 vertices.



Double click the object to preview it. In this case Hogan's belt is off the screen so I needed to zoom out with the mouse wheel to see it.

6. Click the import button and select the object you want to import. In this example, belt_570.obj. If you have done everything correctly, the object will be imported and the viewport will display the new edited object.



7. Inject your edited yobj back into your pach file using the compress and inject function in x-packer. Then inject pach into pac as normal

That's it, the edited yobj should load in game displaying your changes.

Please note that the face object is rigged to a number of bones. This means that very minor edits on the face should be ok, but major edits will cause corruption on the face. Test your edits out as you making them to avoid spending a lot of time only to have corrupted objects in game.

Edited May 5, 2015 by tekken57

[tekken57]

X-Rey with pc support will be released soon. The tutorial is basically the same as the xbox 360 tutorial, with a few minor changes.

[OverTheEdge]

Please note that the face object is rigged to a number of bones. This means that very minor edits on the face should be ok, but major edits will cause corruption on the face. Test your edits out as you making them to avoid spending a lot of time only to have corrupted objects in game.

 

Yeah, just to expand on this for everyone, I had the privilege to start testing things out with the latest X-Rey since yesterday. If you've loaded up any of the game's models in 3Ds Max over the past week that the PC version has been out, one thing you'll instantly notice is the severe increase in the number of bones.

 

In the past, with the models from the 360/PS3 versions, the number of bones was significantly lower and, as far as the head went, only the eyes and mouth had heavy groupings of them. Now, if you edited the model, and the eyes or mouth moved too far away from their respective bones, it would throw off the rigging and they would animate incorrectly. This is the same case with the PC models, only now that the number of bones has increased to the number it has, it means that not only will that happen with the eyes and mouth but with all sections of the head as well, and currently only allows for very little modifications to the model's face to be made before it starts animating incorrectly in-game.

[bugsyboy]

Wow that suck !!! That minor editing on the face just kill it for me.

[tekken57]

Did a test on the editing of the hair and it's not as strict as the editing of the face. Was able to make Booker's hair longer without any issues in game:

 

[Rewon]

Great tutorial! Thank you Tekken!

[Elliot]

Another super tutorial. Itching to get started once I'm home.

[Keshire]

Tekken, how much of a difference is there between the OBJ and YOBJ formats? Are you pulling bones and animations too?

[OverTheEdge]

Tekken, how much of a difference is there between the OBJ and YOBJ formats? Are you pulling bones and animations too?

 

A YOBJ file is a collection of obj files and their skeleton.

[Keshire]

 

Tekken, how much of a difference is there between the OBJ and YOBJ formats? Are you pulling bones and animations too?

 

A YOBJ file is a collection of obj files and their skeleton.

 

 

Gotcha. And the vert limitation? Is that a game problem, or lack of knowledge about the file format?

[tekken57]

@statusm the hair moves as normal.

 

@keshire, I don't import bones as the wavefront object does not support bones. You can extract bones from one yobj and inject into another using X-Rey. I don't understand the data within the bones, if you have any expertise on this please take a look.

 

The vert limits is due to hard coded offsets within the model. Whenever I change any of these, the game does not load the model, hence the vert limits.

[Keshire]

@statusm the hair moves as normal.

 

@keshire, I don't import bones as the wavefront object does not support bones. You can extract bones from one yobj and inject into another using X-Rey. I don't understand the data within the bones, if you have any expertise on this please take a look.

 

The vert limits is due to hard coded offsets within the model. Whenever I change any of these, the game does not load the model, hence the vert limits.

 

Model and animation formats are my specialty (and I can't imagine it'd be any worse than what Lionhead has done in the past with Fable). So it's definitely on my list of things to look at. But I don't think anyone else has the full specs for all the archives documented and accessible. So I'm going after those first.

[OverTheEdge]

 

@statusm the hair moves as normal.

 

@keshire, I don't import bones as the wavefront object does not support bones. You can extract bones from one yobj and inject into another using X-Rey. I don't understand the data within the bones, if you have any expertise on this please take a look.

 

The vert limits is due to hard coded offsets within the model. Whenever I change any of these, the game does not load the model, hence the vert limits.

 

Model and animation formats are my specialty (and I can't imagine it'd be any worse than what Lionhead has done in the past with Fable). So it's definitely on my list of things to look at. But I don't think anyone else has the full specs for all the archives documented and accessible. So I'm going after those first.

 

 

Awesome to hear, man. Despite a lot of the negativity that's been circulating around this place as of late, it is always really cool to see new members who are interested in taking the time to learn this stuff--even better when they're eager to look into new areas where we may not have a lot of info.

[Keshire]

 

 

@statusm the hair moves as normal.

 

@keshire, I don't import bones as the wavefront object does not support bones. You can extract bones from one yobj and inject into another using X-Rey. I don't understand the data within the bones, if you have any expertise on this please take a look.

 

The vert limits is due to hard coded offsets within the model. Whenever I change any of these, the game does not load the model, hence the vert limits.

 

Model and animation formats are my specialty (and I can't imagine it'd be any worse than what Lionhead has done in the past with Fable). So it's definitely on my list of things to look at. But I don't think anyone else has the full specs for all the archives documented and accessible. So I'm going after those first.

 

 

Awesome to hear, man. Despite a lot of the negativity that's been circulating around this place as of late, it is always really cool to see new members who are interested in taking the time to learn this stuff--even better when they're eager to look into new areas where we may not have a lot of info.

 

 

I've had a lot of experience over the years cracking proprietary file formats.

[Lorne Osbourne]

Good

 

Edited March 31, 2016 by Lorne Osbourne

[wtferrell]

Very nice find Bannockburn. Very big time savings not having to exit out of the game.

[michl]

Can anyone recommend an editor other than 3dmax, everytime i try and download it, it fails after 1gb.  I have have tried a couple of others but they fail to display the model.

[Smacktalks]

Does it have to be 3DSMax 2011? or does brienj's plugin work with 2013, etc?

[OverTheEdge]

Does it have to be 3DSMax 2011? or does brienj's plugin work with 2013, etc?

 

I forget which ones it was, but, yeah, it'd only work for specific versions. I have 2010's, for example, and it works on there.

[bugsyboy]

@statusm the hair moves as normal.

@keshire, I don't import bones as the wavefront object does not support bones. You can extract bones from one yobj and inject into another using X-Rey. I don't understand the data within the bones, if you have any expertise on this please take a look.

The vert limits is due to hard coded offsets within the model. Whenever I change any of these, the game does not load the model, hence the vert limits.

Model and animation formats are my specialty (and I can't imagine it'd be any worse than what Lionhead has done in the past with Fable). So it's definitely on my list of things to look at. But I don't think anyone else has the full specs for all the archives documented and accessible. So I'm going after those first.

Awesome to hear, man. Despite a lot of the negativity that's been circulating around this place as of late, it is always really cool to see new members who are interested in taking the time to learn this stuff--even better when they're eager to look into new areas where we may not have a lot of info.

True , looking foward to see what happen with the models format as all im waiting for is to be able to mod the pc models completely before i make the jump

[bugsyboy]

Does it have to be 3DSMax 2011? or does brienj's plugin work with 2013, etc?

I forget which ones it was, but, yeah, it'd only work for specific versions. I have 2010's, for example, and it works on there.

2011 and lower

[Smacktalks]

Does it have to be 3DSMax 2011? or does brienj's plugin work with 2013, etc?

I forget which ones it was, but, yeah, it'd only work for specific versions. I have 2010's, for example, and it works on there.

2011 and lower

Thanks

[Elliot]

Where can we get 3DS Max 2011 from?

[GarrowGlitch]

cool, i went to Xentax, donated, and now i can't get the plugin. great -_-

[Twistedmisery666™]

in autodesk3ds max 2011 when i try to load up the 0000.yobj it keeps giving me a not responding error ?