renders Replacing Renders Without X-PacKer: 2K17 Edition

[Perfectplex]

If this method works for you can you please post a quick message just to say "hey it worked for me" or something as I have two people who are having problems getting it to work but nobody saying if it worked for them.

 

NO YOU CAN'T ADD RENDERS, ONLY REPLACE!!!

 

OK so this was a popular thread last time which spawned the wonderful and much simpler to use Render Injector option in @TheVisitorX 's Custom Character Tools.

I know he is already working on adding that to a new tool but for now I thought I'd just make this thread to put people on for a bit and to get the ball rolling.

What you will need, as last year

paint dot net http://www.getpaint.net/download.html (free)

A hex editor (I use hexedit, also free) http://www.hexedit.com/

and the header and footer files http://www.filedropper.com/singlerenderfile or mirror site http://www67.zippyshare.com/v/tuCChEGl/file.html

 

OK let's crack on with it.

First you need your image, I aren't going into fancy filters and messing about, we just want to get on with it.

Lets do everyones favourite AJ Styles.

I like to use WWE.com's superstar roster images as they are a good size and already masked png files.

http://www.wwe.com/superstars/aj-styles

Right click and download his image.

 

Now open that image in paint.net and do Image > Canvas Size and choose these settings taking note of the anchor position.

 

This will leave a white border across the top just use the magic wand tool and delete that.

Now choose Image > Resize and adjust to 1024 x 1024

This will now stretch the image outwards and be a good sized image to use.

 

Now do File > Save As...

Choose DirectDraw Surface (DDS) (*.dds)

 

Now choose these settings.

 

Hit OK and you will now have a lovely type B .dds file of the phenomenal one.

 

Right click the image and open it with your hex editor.

Unzip the SingleRenderFile "header" and "footer" files, these wont have any extensions, this is normal.

Open both those with the hex editor too.

So now you have the dds file, header and footer all open in your hex editor.

 

Now Ctrl+A to select all the hex code of the AJ Styles.dds and copy it.

Go to the header tab and scroll to the very bottom and making sure you are AFTER the last byte of the hex paste the dds hex at the bottom.

Now head to the footer tab and copy all that hex code and go back to the header tab and paste that at the very bottom.

So now you have

header

dds

footer

In that order in your hex editor.

 

Now you need to go to line 800.

and this is where you will need to change the ID to the correct ID code.

 

Now head to my ID list thread and we are changing the type b render so scroll down to the type b list and find AJ Styles.

Here it is

So now just change the bytes in hex editor to match this.

Make sure you are overwriting NOT inserting, you will know if you did because the FF FF FF FF will be on the beginning of line 810.

Now hit File > Save As...

Call it something you will recognise, I called it "AJ Stlyes.pac" for this example but it is best to call it something like "AJ Styles B.pac" so you know which version of the render you have.

 

Head to pac\menu\assets\wwe17_singleread\texture\ssface\typeb

BACK UP FILES YOU ALTER/REPLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I suggest moving the ltag_typeb.pac file completely out of the way (or pop it in a zip file) so that you can see your new file in action.

and place your new AJStyles.pac render file in that folder.

Now if you don't already know for any mods to work you need to replace your chunk_cache.bin file, so if you haven't already back it up and delete it.

Now create a notepad and rename it to chunk_cache.bin (ensuring it doesn't have .txt on the end) and that is your new empty cache file so the game doesn't crash with mods.

 

Start your game, head to the character select screen, and you SHOULD (assuming you did everything right) see your new render in action.

Now enjoy doing the other bajillion renders one by one, or just wait for Custom Character Tools which will make this process much easier.

 

 

For Type C just choose Image > Resize and change it to 512 x 512 and save it as your type C dds file.

 

For Type A you will need to stretch it vertically a bit.

Open up your Type B file and choose Image > Canvas Size and just change it to 1024 x 1324. (there is likely an exact number rather than 1324 but it looks good enough).

This will stretch the image but it is now the wrong size.

Choose Image > Canvas Size and reset it as 1024 x 1024 which will crop off the top but leave the stretched vertically image intact.

Now just save this as your Type A dds file.

 

Type A = Loading Screen (1024x1024)

Type B = Character Select (1024x1024)

Type C = Smaller Image for other menu things (512x512)

 

Quick tip, for paint dot net the reason it leaves white borders when you resize the canvas is because it fills the new areas with the secondary (background) colour.

Simply change the alpha value of the background colour to 0 before resizing and when you resize the canvas the area will be transparent.

Or indeed if something you are working on requires a resized canvas to have a set colour you can also set it as that before resizing canvas.

 

Quick Guide (tl,dr; version)

• Always using anchor on the bottom middle
• Use Magic Wand tool to quicly select and delete white borders left after resize if needed.

 

1. Open 1000x707 image from wwe.com/superstars
2. Resize Image changing the height to 800 (maintain aspect ratio)
3. change canvas size to 1024x1024
4. save as type B
5. resize image to 512x512
6. save as type C
7. ctrl+z (undo) back to normal size
8. resize image height to 1275 (don't maintain aspect ratio)
9. resize image height 1024 (maintain aspect ratio)
10. resize canvas to 1024x1024
11. save as type A

Edited March 28, 2017 by Perfectplex

[No One]

nice going with the renders, but can we do it how it is normally like in the game? im just wondering

[Perfectplex]

1 minute ago, Levon_BITW said:

nice going with the renders, but can we do it how it is normally like in the game? im just wondering

what do you mean?

[I CAN I WILL]

you bet bro so awesome

gonna make a tutorial video this year too

 

[BeleeDat]

Thank you lots for this & for all your time and effort, very useful

Edited February 21, 2017 by BeleeDat

[No One]

1 hour ago, Perfectplex said:

what do you mean?

like this

[Perfectplex]

If you mean you want to use renders of the in game characters then you can use any image, but you will just have to work out a way to get a render of the character model to use, this is a thread about replacing the image files.

Once you have an image you want to use just convert it to dds using the guide.

You could use screen grab (F12 by default on steam) to take a snapshot then use a paint program to cut out the image you want to use.

[Curb Stomp City]

8 minutes ago, Perfectplex said:

If you mean you want to use renders of the in game characters then you can use any image, but you will just have to work out a way to get a render of the character model to use, this is a thread about replacing the image files.

Once you have an image you want to use just convert it to dds using the guide.

You could use screen grab (F12 by default on steam) to take a snapshot then use a paint program to cut out the image you want to use.

Could there be a way of extracting from a CAW?

[I CAN I WILL]

id's?

[Perfectplex]

 

4 minutes ago, Curb Stomp City said:

Could there be a way of extracting from a CAW?

I will look into this and address it in another thread and link it in the first post, if the game saves a render file snapshot then yes it should be possible by extracting the image from the save file. I make no promises.

For now you could just get a good in game shot of your CAW and press F12 to take a screenshot then use a paint programme to snip out around the image of your character and resize it then convert it to dds to use.

2 minutes ago, I CAN I WILL said:

id's?

In the link to my other thread.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Perfectplex

[I CAN I WILL]

1 minute ago, Perfectplex said:

I will look into this and address it in another thread and link it in the first post, if the game saves a render file snapshot then yes it should be possible by extracting the image from the save file. I make no promises.

For now you could just get a good in game shot of your CAW and press F12 to take a screenshot then use a paint programme to snip out around the image of your character and resize it then convert it to dds to use.

I will look into this and address it in another thread and link it in the first post, if the game saves a render file snapshot then yes it should be possible by extracting the image from the save file. I make no promises.

For now you could just get a good in game shot of your CAW and press F12 to take a screenshot then use a paint programme to snip out around the image of your character and resize it then convert it to dds to use.

In the link to my other thread.

ok found it

[Perfectplex]

Slightly modified my guide and added Type A and Type C instructions.

[I CAN I WILL]

Game Crashed

[4 Life]

3 hours ago, Levon_BITW said:

like this

I'll update my 2K16 guide later for making them the right sizes, things are a little different this year but I figured it all out like a week ago.

[Perfectplex]

27 minutes ago, I CAN I WILL said:

Game Crashed

did you do the cache fix?

10 minutes ago, 4 Life said:

I'll update my 2K16 guide later for making them the right sizes, things are a little different this year but I figured it all out like a week ago.

Yeah I didn't really worry about the exact scaling, I just wanted to get the basic method down.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Perfectplex

[4 Life]

12 minutes ago, Perfectplex said:

Yeah I didn't really worry about the exact scaling, I just wanted to get the basic method down.

Yeah it's an injecting tutorial not a creation tutorial so totally understandable! So glad you and Visitor are managing to put your minds to figure this stuff out and eventually get that tool working again, invaluable stuff.

[I CAN I WILL]

43 minutes ago, Perfectplex said:

did you do the cache fix?

Yeah I didn't really worry about the exact scaling, I just wanted to get the basic method down.

yes

[Perfectplex]

which character did you replace? I will test it to check everything is OK. Did the game crash when you got into the character select screen?

[I CAN I WILL]

3 minutes ago, Perfectplex said:

which character did you replace? I will test it to check everything is OK. Did the game crash when you got into the character select screen?

yes it stopped working on aj styles

[Perfectplex]

I already replaced AJ and it worked with no problems, did you make sure you added the header AND the footer because on one I made I forgot the footer part and it crashed.

[I CAN I WILL]

Just now, Perfectplex said:

I already replaced AJ and it worked with no problems, did you make sure you added the header AND the footer because on one I made I forgot the footer part and it crashed.

first icopy all the hex from dds.then i paste it at the very bottom.then i pasted footer at the very bottom

[Perfectplex]

Hmm that's odd, want to send me the file so I can take a look at it? if so pop it to me in a PM.

[I CAN I WILL]

5 minutes ago, Perfectplex said:

Hmm that's odd, want to send me the file so I can take a look at it? if so pop it to me in a PM.

http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/zIlnQzcM/file.html
 

[Perfectplex]

Yeah crashing for me too, it seemed fine just looking at it, it extracted with xpacker fine, ID was correct, header and footer was there.

I did notice you had used what appears to be an A type though (stretched vertically) but that wouldn't have caused the problem anyway.

 

Anyway I reopened the image in paint and resaved it, readded the header and footer and it works fine, maybe you had the settings incorrect in paint dot net when you saved?

https://expirebox.com/download/24f12b0a80e45e00f834785faf3f671d.html

[4 Life]

Crashing for me too unfortunately. The render isn't showing up at all on the selection screen and then of course when I try and start a match the game crashes. Just used the same settings in paint.net that I've used for other renders I've put into the game via X-Packer and the same ones you've suggested above.

I'm also guessing you guys know the procedure for nulling out the values in the ltag file for @TheVisitorXto be able to get this working as a program? Pretty sure I saw him speaking about this already

Edited February 21, 2017 by 4 Life