Guide: How to swap armors in TERA (4 Viewers)

[sprinkles]

Only sad part about this is that you have to apply the edit so many times :( For each starter race gear.

 

[infinity496]

Got it working too, thank you! Smart idea, i'd never would have thought of this.

I got one question however, and that is although it's working, it seems the texture mapping is off. (on the lingerie model, it's partly non reflective for instance)
That probably means you have to swap out the diffuse, bump maps etcetera too, right?

Do you have a screenshot highlighting this?

I had a similar question last night when I looked at a screenshot I took of the Aman in their "underwear". The diffuse map is definitely there, but the bumpmap seemed to be missing. I blamed it on the lighting at the time (prologue), but I had planned to look at it again when I have more time in different lighting conditions.


From what I "know", each mesh has 1 or more materials applied to it. The mesh knows the name of each material and seems to find them regardless of where they are. Each material is made up of textures (diffuse/bump/specular/etc.), and again they know where to find the textures as long you don't change the names. That's why only the meshes need to be renamed within the package.

But I'll have to check it out further myself. (Of course, you can also test things out.)

 

[Showie]

I have been working to try and mix armors for a few hours and I was wondering if this was possible at all? (For example I'm trying to get bikini with stockings) I've tried changing everything I can think of and I can only get stockings or bikini and this leaves the rest of the body (so legs with bikini on and torso with stockings on) invisible.

 

[Kazume]

Here's the screenshot i've made, on which it's best seen... although in game of course it's better to see that most part of the skin is reflective, just not under the seams (marked with the arrow) to the tip of the hands and feet, where the skin is not-reflective.
So must be the specular map indeed, which is perhaps inside the LOD file, tied to the mesh? I'm not sure how this archive is setup, so just making a guess.

I have experimented with swapping some other files, but to no result. It just ends in error if you do that.

 

[sprinkles]

Noticed how some races have a shined look to them on certain classes, haven't changed them all but high elf on heavy armor have this look.

 

[infinity496]

View attachment 549

Here's the screenshot i've made, on which it's best seen... although in game of course it's better to see that most part of the skin is reflective, just not under the seams (marked with the arrow) to the tip of the hands and feet, where the skin is not-reflective.
So must be the specular map indeed, which is perhaps inside the LOD file, tied to the mesh? I'm not sure how this archive is setup, so just making a guess.

I have experimented with swapping some other files, but to no result. It just ends in error if you do that.

Ah...that issue. It's noticeable even when viewing the original underwear models in a viewer, such as umodel. Unfortunately, the underwear models don't seem to have received the polish that the other armors have. You can of course wear gloves/boots with the underwear to hide the seam. Other armor classes have a better division line for boots/gloves, but even if you look at some of my images of the human female (mage), you can see a seam at her wrist.

 

[Kazume]

Ah...that issue. It's noticeable even when viewing the original underwear models in a viewer, such as umodel. Unfortunately, the underwear models don't seem to have received the polish that the other armors have. You can of course wear gloves/boots with the underwear to hide the seam. Other armor classes have a better division line for boots/gloves, but even if you look at some of my images of the human female (mage), you can see a seam at her wrist.

I have managed to fix the shininess problem by swapping one additional file, so it will get the right specular mapping:
Highelf_R0_Body_Spec <-> Highelf_R00_Body_Spec

As you can see:


There is still a seam on the wrist front, but not really noticable unless you zoom in.
Indeed due to the fact that the underwear model has lesser detail compared to the armor models.

 

[trumpdog]

One thing i noticed and im gonna take a guess at this. Some of the armors/robes have their own bone_skel, im guessing if the armor your replacing doesnt have a bone_skel and the one your using as the template does...you will have non animated parts of the armor.
I tried to use r13_body_skel (cat suit) and replace r09_body_skel and was met with the sleeves and tail not being animated.
The cat suit has a bone_skel and the other does not. Not sure if there is a way around it or not.

 

[infinity496]

I was working on that today as well. Unfortunately, all I've managed so far is to get the animated parts of the armor anchored to right places (i.e. pair it with the correct bone skeleton). They move, but only as if the additional armor parts were completely stiff. This was for both cases where both armors had their own _Bone_Skel as well as where one did not.

The armors that don't have their own _Bone_Skel use a generic one (e.g. Highelf_F_R*_Bone_Skel, where * = A, B or C, for high elf female robes).

I haven't found a way yet to get the swapped mesh to animate appropriately with the correct bone skeleton.


Edit:
It looks like the attachment animations come from the <race>_<gender>_Att<skeleton code>_ANI GPK files. These contain animations for that number for ALL armor classes, so switch one for another would alter every other armor class that uses the same bone skeleton id.

Edit2:
Got it working! :D


The same principles apply as with the other swapping, but it's really messy because so many things are coming from the same place (and the swapping involves 2 different animation files).


@Kazume
I'm not sure that it really makes a difference. At least when viewing the mesh within umodel, it pulled the same specular map, no matter what I called it. Also, your second picture is of the castanic robe underwear. Its leg seam is much higher (as almost all the robe legs are stockings).

 

[suxxorz777]

WOOT! Got it to work! I love you guys *sniff*. Special thanks to Inifinity496 and Obmit! I greatly appreciate it!...:D

 

[trumpdog]

So in other words..its not worth the trouble.Guess ill just stick with the simple lol

---------- Post added 05-16-2012 at 12:04 AM ---------- Previous post was 05-15-2012 at 07:45 PM ----------

2/3 of the armors cant be used with this method><
Havent had any trouble with the heavy so far. most of the robes and leather armors cant be used.

 

[eyenight]

Based on what BLOODYJOKER and lulu said on Nadurons thread, I think it will be better to change the 0 with 01 instead of 00. It's the 1st craftable armor, you can use it as template on high level armor without removing your armor to see it.

 

[infinity496]

I'd rather swap the high level armor with the underwear (when I get to that point) than swap some plain looking armor and alter my nice high level armor's appearance to look like I'm low level. ;)

 

[eyenight]

I'd rather swap the high level armor with the underwear (when I get to that point) than swap some plain looking armor and alter my nice high level armor's appearance to look like I'm low level. ;)

Ahahaha.. That's nice too. But my crafting level is still low, maybe later when I can craft higher armor I'll change it like that too. :D

Ummm.. Do you know how the dye works in this game? I've tried to dye my bikini armor but the color didn't change.

 

[infinity496]

I've not personally tried to dye anything yet, but from what I've heard:

1. Dyeing only works on armors that support it.
2. kTERA OB files (and likely all versions of underwear) don't support dyeing.

 

[Debura]

So, after discovering this post and downloading a hex editor, after about 3 hours of messing around with armor and weapon files - BEHOLD! A cheesy but effective method to obtain "Spectral" weapon!

 

[lightspeed]

Sweet guide. Got it to work with little effort.
One thing though. Is there a list of the armors and corresponding IDs?
Or should I just play the guessing game?
Edit: Silly me. Google is my friend. Found this:
http://tera-online.cc/gallery/human-fh/

 

[lulu]

Sweet guide. Got it to work with little effort.
One thing though. Is there a list of the armors and corresponding IDs?
Or should I just play the guessing game?
Edit: Silly me. Google is my friend. Found this:
Heavy Armor Sets » Human: Female » » » » TERA-Online

with this UE Viewer | Gildor's Homepage you can open and see the GPK files.
it shows also shows the type and names ( Object: )

http://i.imgur.com/uT1E3.png

press H for keys

 

[Tricks]

Would it be far safer to find some templates, and overwrite a template with an armor that normally isn't sold at the template vendor (like was done with the Castanic Bikini recently)? Less chance of crashes because no actual armors (that NPCs might also be wearing) are altered, just copying the stats of an armor and overwriting a template? Is there a known method to distinguish between a template identifier vs a regular armor identifier?

 

[Kasihel]

Would it be far safer to find some templates, and overwrite a template with an armor that normally isn't sold at the template vendor (like was done with the Castanic Bikini recently)? Less chance of crashes because no actual armors (that NPCs might also be wearing) are altered, just copying the stats of an armor and overwriting a template? Is there a known method to distinguish between a template identifier vs a regular armor identifier?

All templates are actual armors. They share the same models. Also all crafted armor can be used as templates.