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TheRaiderInside — Modding with Mass Effect Specific Models (Blender)
Published: 2013-07-19 21:51:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 6192; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 113
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Description
A tutorial for swapping heads/bodies with Mass Effect models!
Enjoy!The part about using the original armatures, it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't! In this case it doesn't!
And for some weird reason the image is a little blurry. 
I have no idea what happened, it doesn't even show up that way in Gimp OR a photo viewer! Click download on the right side to get rid of it though!
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Comments: 23
I finally got into trying out blender but I have a problem.
I did everything according to your turtorial but it doesn't show up on the "Add Model(s)..." in xps for some reason.
I don't know much about xps/xnalara but doesn't the "Generic_Item.mesh.ascii" need a "Generic_Item.mesh" to work? I don't know if that's true but I've gotten that impression for some reason but if so where/how do I get the .mesh file?
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Just go to Modify and load the .acsii.
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Thanks, my first attempt wasn't the most successful but now I got that right too. Thanks again for the great tutorial!
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I love Blender. So fast and (comparably) easy. While Blender is great for mesh modding and animation outside the game, it is sadly useless for producing mesh mods intended to go into the game. All the necessary export formats to do game mods: fbx, psk are borked and the developers of these export scripts are no longer working them. Psk is particularly bad: the mesh and skeleton are totally screwed up upon export. Weights are lost or screwed up, normals can be off, and UV maps get totally screwed up (blended together in some cases).
I started out using Blender to do mesh mods for the game but quickly learned it cannot be done because of the export flaws. I had to learn 3ds Max which does flawless psk and fbx exporting. Psk in particular is key for getting any mesh mod into the game. You export psk from 3ds, import it into UDK and then save it at a upk (UDK standard format). The upk can then be imported into the game as a working skeletal mesh using ME3explorer.
I have wanted to do some animations with ME3 characters and since there's no need to put them into the game I can use Blender to do it. Blender is MUCH faster than 3ds, much less of a system resource hog (CPU, memory), and quite easy and responsive. If only the developers would fix their export scripts...
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How do I change the bone Number? One model I'm working on asked me to change the bone number from 415 to 372
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You simply open the mesh.ascii with Notepad and at the very top you'll see a number, it should say your number, 415. Change it to 372 and you're done!
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How do I change the bone Number? One model I'm working on asked me to change the bone number from 415 to 372
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Great looking turtorial but it would be useful with an actual working link for the .ascii importing/exporting, the one you posted below doesn't work anymore.
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I updated it in my journal guide, thank you for noticing.
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hear hear! i imported kaidan into blender... and i edited a bit his neck because i wanted to combine the head to a naked male body.. when i export him, it says there have been 6 warnings and in xps all his bones are much more higher than the mesh... what i must do now...?
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You need to combine the armature. I'll make a tutorial on it in the next few days... it'll fix the prob right up!
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Also what version of blender/scripts are you using? I can import .mesh.ascii, but not export...
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I'm not sure what version of Blender you're using but you'd need Blender 2.49b.
You will need the scripts for importing/exporting .ascii's: www.sendspace.com/file/91gmjm
C:\Users\"YourName"\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts is where you'll place the two scripts.
Python 2.62 is required to run them so DL it here:
www.python.org/download/releas…
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Thank you for the links!
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This is basically the only way to head-swap heads that are made from morphs, right? Since trying to mod headmorphs in XPS doesn't seem to work.
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It works only for ME mods? I wish to attach ME head to body from other game, that could work?
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THIS method only works with ME mods. BUT there's another way you can attach a ME head to a non-ME body. You first import the body into Blender and deselect all. You select the armature and go to edit mode with removing ALL head/neck bones. You can do this by hitting the "B" key twice to do a "Border select", then use the tool on the bones you need to delete. Next you can go back to object mode and hide all mesh parts and the armature. Import the head next, doing the same thing in edit mode but with all the body bones. When you're done, go back to object mode and select both armatures and use "Ctrl+J" to join them both. After you do that you need to go to edit mode, selecting all head bones (one by one) and reparent ALL of them to the bone closet to head neck lower. Then you're finished! Export your model in a new folder as "Generic_Item.mesh.ascii" (when you do this don't select "Multiple Files").
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