Documentation
If you are familiar with MichaelDarkAngel's ARchive_neXt, then you should be familiar with the usage of Blacksmith.
If you are not, this documentation will provide all the foreknowledge you need. There are some components of the program that you should become familiar with.
Sure, this documentation is lengthy, but it is certainly comprehensive. Wait, it has pictures! :)
You probably stumbled across Blacksmith on Xentax or on GitHub. Either way, welcome!
Blacksmith is a tool for Windows that views, extracts, and converts 3D models, textures, and sounds from three particular games. These are the games that Blacksmith supports:
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
- Assassin's Creed: Origins
- Steep
The tool is under active development and features do not work perfectly (you may run into an issue or incompatibility). That is alright. Contact me (details here) if this happens.
| Table of Contents |
|---|
| Left Panel |
| Right Panel |
| Saving and Converting |
| Settings |
| Find |
| Soundpack Browser |
| Resource Identifiers Viewer |
| Icon Glossary |
| FAQ |
The left panel is the file tree/file browser. There will be the three games listed. Each root-level entry corresponds to a specific game. Contents of folders and forge files will display here, similar to the Windows Explorer.
If you click the + icon, the contents of the game's directory will be appear. You have expanded that entry. Every entry has this icon. If you click the - icon, you will have collapsed that entry.
There are two types of entries that can be expanded: folders and forge.
Each entry has an icon. The icon glossary is detailed here.
If while browsing you come across these icons, Blacksmith can preview and convert them as of Version 1.7:
| Icon | Type | Respective Viewer |
|---|---|---|
 |
Mesh (3D Model) |
3D & Text Viewers |
 |
Texture Map (Texture) |
Image Viewer |
 |
Texture Set |
Text Viewer |
If you click on Mesh, Texture Map, or Texture Set, Blacksmith will extract, interpret, and display the data in the respective viewer. Do not fret if Blacksmith does not show anything or yields an error. Report the error to me on Discord (tag me please).
A context menu is a menu that appears after you right-click an element. Guess what? The same occurs in Blacksmith.
The context menu in the Left Panel provides you with several actions. The presented actions depend on the entry you right-clicked - primarily its type.
These actions are always present regardless of the entry's type.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Copy Name to Clipboard | No explanation needed |
| Show File in Explorer | A Windows Explorer window will appear with the file selected in the Temporary File Path. If the file has not been extracted, Windows Explorer will display the Temporary File Path with no file selected. |
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Create filelist | Creates a filelist and saves it to a file |
| Extract All | Extracts all this forge file's entries as raw (compressed, uncombined) data |
This menu will show if you right-clicked an entry that is not a Model or Texture Map.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Save Raw Data As | Saves the raw (compressed, uncombined) data of this entry |
| Save Decompressed Data As | Saves the decompressed (combined) data of this entry |
| Show Resource Identifiers Viewer | Read here for more details |
These two are grouped because they contain the same action.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Save As | Read here for more details |
- It is common that
Texture Mapsmake references toMipmaps(meaning that the image data is held in another entry). Blacksmith acknowledges this and works in either situation. - Model scaling is an issue. Blacksmith attempts to fit the model into the 3D Viewer. It also tries to scale the model significantly when exporting to
obj. If the model does not fit in the viewport of your preferred 3D suite, do not complain to me. Rescale it.
The three Viewers live here: 3D, Image, and Text.
The 3D Viewer is where Meshes (3D models) are displayed.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Controls Help | Displays a list of controls |
| Camera | Displays the camera's coordinates (position and rotation) |
| Reset Camera | Resets the camera and 3D model |
| Vertices | Displays the total number of vertices |
| Faces | Displays the total number of faces/triangles |
| Meshes | Displays the number of meshes |
Controls are found by clicking on "Controls Help" on the toolbar. To rotate the model, left-click and drag left and right within the 3D Viewer. Your cursor will be bound within the 3D Viewer as long as you hold the left mouse button.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | Displays the dimensions of the image |
| Zoom Level | Adjusts the zoom level |
| Toggle Alpha/Transparency | Toggles the background between the transparency grid and black (effective on textures with an alpha channel) |
If you could not guess what Text Viewer does, it displays text.
One of Blacksmith's purposes is to save and convert supported files (Meshes and Texture Maps). It can also export sounds (go here for information). Here are which formats Blacksmith can save and convert.
| Type | Formats |
|---|---|
Mesh (3D model) |
obj |
pck (Soundpack) |
ogg |
Texture Map (Texture) |
dds, jpeg, png, tga, tiff
|
I strongly suggest that you read (if you have not already) read the Context Menu section. It details every option in the context menu.
- Right-click an expanded entry. If the entry is collapsed, it has not been read and extracted.
- Select an option. If needed, go to the Context Menu section for details of each action.
The presented options will change based on which entry type you selected (Mesh or Texture Map).
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Assassin's Creed: Odyssey | The path to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey |
| Assassin's Creed: Origins | The path to Assassin's Creed: Origins |
| Steep | The path to Steep |
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Temporary File Path | The path where Blacksmith reads and writes to (DO NOT SET THIS TO A GAME PATH) |
| Delete Temporary Files upon Closing | If enabled, Blacksmith will delete all files in the Temporary File Path upon exiting |
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Render Mode | How 3D geometry will be visualized - solid, wireframe, points (point cloud) |
| Point Size | Effective only if Render Mode is set to "Points" Adjusts the size of points |
| Mouse Sensitivity | Adjusts the responsiveness (or speed) of left-click dragging within the 3D Viewer |
| Background Color | Sets the background color of the 3D Viewer |
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Filelist Separator | Changes the character to separate values in a filelist |
| Hide Popups | Hides popup messages of a certain type - success, failure, success & failure, none |
| Automatically fix normal maps | Fixes normal maps upon saving/converting |
| Remember Last Find Query | If enabled, the last used Find query will be saved |
Blacksmith has a comprehensive Find feature, helpful when browsing in tens of thousands of entries.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Forge to search in | An active list of expanded forge files is kept here. Select a forge file to search within its entries. |
| Query | Your search query. The dropdown tells Blacksmith how to search. The dropdown has "case-sensitive" and "case-insensitive" variants of each entry: "Partial/Whole" (supports partial or whole names), "Regex" (Regular Expression), and "Wildcard". |
| Filter By | A list of certain types (such as LOD Selector, Mesh, and Texture Set) to filter. A query is unneeded in order for this option to work.
|
Click the Find item from the top menu.
Blacksmith has support for viewing the contents of a pck (soundpack) file. pck files are not located in forge files, rather in the sounddata folder (found on the root of each game).
- Open the sounddata folder from any game.
- Locate a
pckfile. - Click on it. The Soundpack Browser will appear and load all entries from the soundpack.
Click an entry and click Extract Selected.
Hold either Shift key, click multiple entries, and click Extract Selected.
This is a tool that lists all located Resource Identifiers in an expanded (extracted) entry. It works with all entries, regardless of type.
This list will update as new versions add or remove icons. These are current as of Version 1.7. Only select Resource Identifiers will have icons.
These icons come from the Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Image Library and are used throughout Blacksmith.
| Icon | Type |
|---|---|
 |
Animation |
 |
Build Table |
 |
Cell Data Block |
 |
Entity |
 |
Entity Builder |
 |
Entity Group |
 |
Local Cube Map |
 |
Localization Package |
 |
LOD Selector |
 |
Material |
 |
Material Template, Compiled Material Template |
|
Mesh (3D Model) |
 |
Mesh Shape |
 |
Mesh Shape Triangle Material Data |
 |
Mipmap |
 |
Object Pack |
 |
Procedural Entity |
 |
Soundpack |
 |
Terrain Node Data |
|
Texture Map (Texture) |
|
Texture Set |
 |
Theatre Cinematic/Theater Cinematic |
 |
Universe |
 |
Water Mesh |
 |
World |
There was quite a lot of information presented above. You can always refer to this page by selecting More > Documentation from the top menu. Not every aspect of Blacksmith was mentioned here. If that happened, this documentation would drone on even more.
So I will leave that up to you to discover the other features. Contact me (preferably on Discord, tag me if you do) if you have questions or errors/issues.
Thanks for reading!
The knowledge of each of these types is not essential to the usage of Blacksmith, but it helps. forge is an archive file (conceptually similar to a zip, rar, or tar file), but can only be read by the games and Blacksmith. Mesh is a 3D model. Texture Map is a file that provides information about a texture and image data. Texture Sets are lists of texture references.
There is no need since Blacksmith works with one, two, or three games. I DO NOT CONDONE PIRACY. Purchase games on Steam, Humble Bundle, or on the Uplay/Ubisoft store.
At least for me, 4.6. It also depends on the OpenGL version listed on your graphic card's specifications.
Blacksmith is under heavy active development. Things are prone to go wrong. Contact me about any problem. I respond within a few hours.