How to: Import custom models to Cold Steel IV
Very important note: I was unable to complete this process, which seems kinda ridiculous. Why would I bother writing a guide for something I am unable to do? Because nobody else will, that's it. I sure hope the guide will provide at least some direction about how to make it work (as someone else already made it work once); This guide theoretically works (or at least doesn't say anything incorrect, and the tools used have been tested) but it is very likely that you will encounter issues and have questions and I will unfortunately not be able to provide answers as I didn't successfully complete the process myself.
Anyway.
This page is here to guide you in the process of adding custom models to Cold Steel IV. It is currently one of the most complex operations in modding as it involves several steps, and is still at a somewhat early stage.
The guide will hopefully lead you to insert Van Arkride from Kuro no Kiseki to CSIV.
The current process includes the following steps in chronological order:
- Obtaining the model to import (Van Arkride) as a FBX file
- Importing it in Maya 2015/2016/2017/2018
- Applying shaders to Van's materials in Maya (including his shadow shader)
- Exporting Van to .dae using the ColladaMaya plugin
- Importing Van in CSIV using CSIVAssetImportTool to obtain a .dae.phyre file
- Updating the shader names in it
The goal will be having Van T-posing in game. However we will stop here due to the complexity of the process. Normally you would need to add the animations using scripting (I recommend using Ouroboros' ED84 decompiler to edit and decompile a character file copied from an existing character. You would also need to add new entries to TBLs for a new character, etc.)
Also note that due to multiple crashes with Maya and me unable to complete it, I can't provide more explanations that what is on this guide. You are free to contribute if you make any new finding or have anything new to bring to this process though, but I won't be able to help you further than this guide since I don't have all the answers myself nor am I sufficiently familiar with the process to help, in fact.
The best advice I can give after several issues and wasted time and frustration about file paths, is that you should work in a single folder, for example called "WorkFolder", consisting of a "shaders" folder, where you will also put ED9AssetExporter, but also the CSIVAssetImportTool.
The pictures in this guide might not reflect that, because while writing this guide I was not fully aware of all the constraints. But at least the text should be up to date.
Also note that a WorkFolder example with all the necessary tools is available here
You will also find a reference document that can help you pinpoint the most often used shaders in CSIV, inside a txt called Chr.Shaders.txt
To extract Van's model from Kuro no Kiseki game files, we will be using KuroTools mdl exe.
First we search for Van's model file which is called chr0000.mdl. We will also grab his run (chr0000_mot_run.mdl) and idle (chr0000_mot_wait.mdl) animations. All the mdls are located in "THE LEGEND OF HEROES KURO NO KISEKI\c\asset\common\model".
Then we will put all the files inside a folder near ED9AssetExporter.exe:
And the folder (called "model", above) content:
All that is left is drag and drop the folder containing van mdl and his animations onto ED9AssetExporter.exe.
The tool outputs a FBX file. However, it does not have any texture. It is because textures are separate from the mdl file,
since they are located in "\THE LEGEND OF HEROES KURO NO KISEKI\c\asset\dx11\image".
To know which texture you need to use, you will have to run the tool and take note of what the tool is outputting on the console;
those are the missing textures:
Get them all from c\asset\dx11\image and place them in the same directory than ED9AssetConverter:
At the time of writing this guide, we didn't find a better tool than Maya 2015 to 2018, as Blender dae export doesn't seem to work well when injected in CSIV (supposedly, the skeleton doesn't seem compatible).
That's why we will be using Maya 2018 from here.
Once Maya is launched, import chr0000.fbx into the scene:
You can ignore the possible warnings that show up. The result should look like this:
When enabling the texture, nothing really shows up. It is because Van's shadow is a mesh itself and is covering him.
You can hide that mesh by selecting the kage one and CTRL + H.
Note: if any texture looks wrong, you might want to convert them to DDS BC1.
Right now, we don't really care, as the only thing we will be doing is applying a shader to each material.
Something that might get important later, is that some of the Kuro character models have too many bones to import correctly in Cold Steel. There is a hardcoded limit of bones per model that you need to respect, otherwise some bones will be removed without the associated weights being remapped, leading to animation issues. The only solution we found was to manually remove a few "non important" bones, and remap the vertexes they affected to another bone, close to the one being removed.
Shaders are by far the most complex part of the process, so read carefully this section.
I will list what we know about shaders right now and explain briefly the process before getting into details:
- Shader files are the .fx files you can find when unpacking pkg files.
- In their original form, they are source files written in HLSL language. In CS1 .fx.phyre files, you can find the source code in HLSL directly at the bottom of the files. From CS2 they are all compiled into binary form (called direct3D shader bytecode, read http://timjones.io/blog/archive/2015/09/02/parsing-direct3d-shader-bytecode). The DXBC magic word can help identify the bytecode sections in a .fx file. Note that it is possible to decompile them into HLSL again using some tools like this one https://github.com/etnlGD/HLSLDecompiler. Also note that there is a project to reimplement the shader into unity (https://github.com/PMONickpop123/ED8Shader)
- Those files contain a set of shader parameters, switches, and functions. We do not know what the source code of those functions is but we can extract the value of the shader parameters after compilation (The values are present in the .dae.phyre).
- The switches disable or enable certain parts of the source file shader that are then not compiled into bytecode, which means that for a single source shader, it will exist multiple variants depending on which switches were selected. When compiled based on the switches, the binary content is different depending on which switches were selected, and a checksum is calculated based on that binary content, which leads to variants of the ed8_chr.fx file being called "ed8_chr.fx#HEXADECIMALSEQUENCE"; those files came from the same .fx source files but different switches and parameters were selected.
- The switches from our ed8_chr.fx file will be selected through Maya, and written as selected inside the exported .dae.
Finally, note that since we do not want to write any source code in HLSL, our goal is only to use already compiled shader files from the original game, eventually tuning the parameter values (we won't write any function or code in HLSL).
This means our ed8_chr.fx file doesn't contain any code. Even if it the same set of parameters was used than an original Cold Steel shader inside Maya, since our fx file doesn't contain any function, the binary content after compilation will be shorter and different, thus a different checksum will be calculated. That will lead to a different filename for the resulting .fx.phyre file called "ed8_chr.fx#HEXADECIMALSEQUENCE2", which will be etched into the .dae.phyre file; this filename will need to be updated to refer to the original Cold Steel shader file that contain the functions implemented by the CS devs, functions that we want but couldn't write and compile ourselves.
In this guide, I will first explain how to parameterize a shader the whole way in Maya copying the parameter values of the original shader manually, then explain how to use the "presets" (or custom switches) that were added to simplify the process a bit. This is for the sake of understanding what is going on.
The very first step is to select existing shaders from original Cold Steel IV models. For this we will use the reference document that we provide that lists the usual shaders that are used for each part of the body. Note that if a shader is not listed here (for example, one not used in character models), you can still use it but it will require going through the "manual parameter setting method".
Anyway, let's start with the shadow shader.
The shader used for shadow is "ed8_chr.fx#7D5B6AA14716CB4C48A6EB8A4185E522.phyre", which is available in a lot of characters' PKGs.
(Example here, it is taken from a Rean DLC pkg)\
So first, we need to open the .dae.phyre which is using this shadow shader with the PhyreDummyShaderCreator.
To do that, just drag and drop the .dae.phyre onto the PhyreDummyShaderCreator executable.
It will produce a list of fx files, one for each shader variant used by the .dae.phyre. The one we will open with notepad is the shadow one, #7D5.
It gives us the shader parameter for the shadow. Those are the ones we will copy in Maya for the ed8_chr.fx file applied to the shadow material.
Note that we know #7D5 is used for the shadow because the DummyShaderCreator produces a txt file called materials.txt which links each material to its shader:
"shadow_collada" (the las one) gives you #7D5.
We provide a generic ed8_chr.fx dummy shader without any code in it, only parameters, as explained in the shader intro section. Well, technically the current version has some code in there but we don't care about it (some leftover stuff), we only need the switches.
The trick is that we will be using existing shaders from Cold Steel IV that were already compiled by the developers. In Maya, we are just using empty shaders to set the parameters in the output dae.
So in order to do that, move the COLLADA.mll file corresponding to your Maya version get it here to the Maya/bin/plug-ins folder. You also should switch
the rendering engine to DirectX11 (Windows > Preferences):
Then restart Maya.
Once Maya is restarted, you need to open the plugins manager (Windows > Preferences > Plug-in manager), find COLLADA and tick the Loaded box.
Now you will be able to import .fx files and set the parameters for each material.
Before doing anything more, make sure that your ed8_chr.fx file is put inside the shaders folder inside your work folder.
In Hypershade (Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade), select the chr_shadow material.
On the right (The attribute editor), instead of "Lambert", select colladadx11Shader1.
And then below, select the provided ed8_chr.fx.
Here is the hard part. Once the fx is selected, a few sections appears.
Note that the name of the material changed to a generic collada shader one. In order to keep track of all materials, I recommend renaming the material back to its original name:
The following process is time consuming but allows you more control over the switches. I don't recommend using it but recommend reading it to understand a bit more how shaders work.
You will first open the Material Switches one, and proceed to select every switches (every parameter name, if you want) that is present
in the dummy shader file we created for the shadow previously (and opened in notepad).
When you reach the "sampler" part after BloomIntensity, instead of activating all Samplers, just tick the "Activate Samplers" box, which will take care of all of them. Finally, the last one you want to tick is the Texture2D (the last line of the dummy fx file), DiffuseMapSampler.
Once this is done, close this section and open the Material Parameters > Uniform section. You will get something like this:
We will now port all the values obtained from the dummy fx file:
Including the chr_shadow_conv.dds texture that will be used for the Texture2D parameter called DiffuseMapSampler. You will find this texture in any character PKG after conversion from .dds.phyre to .dds. However, you must first put the chr_shadow_conv.dds inside the folder where you store all the other textures; if you follow this guide, that would be ED9AssetConverter. Once you did that, select chr_shadow_conv from that folder.
For the half4 parameters, they use a color + a ".w" component".
You set the color in RGB value which will deal with the first 3 values and you set the .w to the fourth one.
However, usually they all have the same set of values, so the default values should do, and you shouldn't have to fill them.
You should finally obtain something like this:
where file1 is chr_shadow_conv.dds.
OK, that's one material done, now do all the others!...Except we will now use predefined set of parameters to speed it up a bit.\
We will now redo the shadow shader. Start by selecting the collada fx shader like in the previous step. However, when selecting the switches, you now only have to select one switch, which is "ed8_chr.fx#7D5B6A":
This will automatically apply generic values for the shadow shaders and add the correct parameters. You can tune them later if you realize values don't work well in game, but usually they do work.
However, you still have to retrieve the original texture for the shadow like in the previous step, assigning the texture to the DiffuseMapSampler parameter.
Once this material is done, you will need to repeat the same process for each material of the model. We provide a reference document called Chr Shaders that contains the names of the usual shaders used for the characters, with Skin and Unskinned versions. This will help you select the correct switch to apply for each material (Select the Skinned one when available in the switch materials panel).
Now that the shader(s) have been taken care of, we will export the model to dae, which is the format used by the game.
A very important step is to gather all your texture file
To do this, go to File > Export All, create a new folder where we will extract the model, and set the export parameters like this:
The "Files of type" field must be set to COLLADA exporter (not DAE_FBX export)
Also, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for you to export the .dae to the same folder where all your textures were located. If you used ED9AssetConverter to extract the model, then you need to export the dae to the folder containing ED9AssetConverter.exe, where all textures and fbx are located.
This is because the path of each texture in the dae is relative to the export location, but also because of an annoying constraint of the CS4 importer tool that requires all textures to be in the same folder than the model.
When the file has finished exporting, you can open the .dae with notepad and check if all DDS files have their path in the same folder than the dae, like this:
And the same should go for the .fx file:
Now we will use the CSIVAssetImportTool to produce the .dae.phyre and dds.phyre to later be packaged into a pkg. So if you respected my advice back at the beginning, Van's dae and all of his textures should be next to CSIVAssetImportTool.exe.
Remember that we have a shaders folder in it.
This folder is where you will put the ed8_chr.fx file.
The folder should look like this (after getting rid of ED9AssetConverter, the fbx, and the model folder):
Now, just drag and drop van.dae onto Process.bat.
It will create a D3D11 folder containing the textures as .dds.phyre and the model as .dae.phyre. It also contains a folder called shaders with
5 shaders, one is the shadow one and the other fours come from the default shader (the body one).
In the following section, you will see "dummy_..." .fx files; if you followed the guide and replaced the shaders for each material, you don't have those. So don't pay attention to those especially, you just need to know how to update the shader paths in the dae.phyre.
Right now, the content is almost ready to be packaged, except that we now need to replace the shaders with actual ones from Cold Steel IV. Normally you should have saved somewhere the original shadow .fx.phyre file, as well as the others .fx.phyre from CSIV that you will use for the materials. We now need to update all references to the shaders inside the .dae.phyre with the references to the original shaders we will be using, and this can only be done in a hex editor.
So open van.dae.phyre in a hex editor, and look for ".fx". You will find a section in the file where all the shaders reference are stored.
Every shader is separate from the other by a 00 byte. We absolutely need to make sure the file size doesn't change, so all the bytes you will remove needs to be replaced with 0 at the end of the path of each shader to ensure that. Example here with the first path:
We removed "dummy_" and the whole hash code at the end of the path, added zeros at the end of the path to ensure the file size remains unchanged.
This annoying process is necessary as the phyre file has a lot of pointers and we don't want to make them address the wrong thing.
If you went through the process of creating a shader for all materials, it can be a bit difficult to link them to their original shaders as the hash code changed. The only way we currently have is to open van.dae.phyre with the PhyreDummyShaderCreator.\
It will generate a list of fx files with their parameters, that you can link to the original fx files you copied in the first place by looking at the content of the .fx files. If the parameters are the same in the same order, then both files are compatible, and you can replace the new path with the name of the original shader.
For example, for the shadow shader, here is what we obtain by opening van.dae.phyre with the PhyreDummyShaderCreator:
By comparing the original shader #7D5 used for the shadow with the new shader used for the shadow, we can see that both fx file have the same content:
meaning that they are compatible. Thus we will replace the name of the new shadow shader #F60 with the name of the old shadow shader #7D5:
As it is a tedious process, you can also use the materials_list.txt generated on van.dae.phyre to link the new fx file with the old fx file from the original CS IV model.
Now that all files are prepared, we need to pack them into a pkg. This involves creating a new folder called C_CHR000 (we will replace Rean), and writing a new asset_D3D11.xml.
So first, create the folder, and put all the dae.phyre and dds.phyre, as well as a asset_D3D11.xml extracted from a random character PKG from CS4 (doesn't matter who).
You also need to get the original shaders, the one for the shadow (which will be in the pkg you first unpacked, and is named #7D5) and all the others (that you can find in various other pkgs).
The final content of the folder should look like this (more shaders are expected though):
Finally, we need to change the xml file so that it matches our new pkg content, then repack the PKG, and try it in game. Hopefully it works.