Hi there!Thank you so much for creating this. I’ve been searching for a way to use custom Shepard in LE1 and LE2. Before this, I could only do it in LE3 using the Character Appearance Menu mod to get the models I wanted. Now with this framework I can finally do it.
But maybe because I used translation tools and I’m a beginner, I’m not sure if my understanding of how this framework works is correct... I checked the video tutorials and documentation. Is the entire process like this?: First, import the base head mesh into Blender, tweak it to your liking, then export the modified custom head mesh, and finally follow the steps in ME3TweaksModManager to replace the details — is that the correct process?Also, I wanted to ask: Since this framework is incompatible with the Character Appearance Menu mod, does this mean I should uninstall or disable that mod before proceeding with these steps?
Sorry for all the questions T-T..... I really apologize if this is bothering you!
Yes, that is the correct process. You will need to import the custom head mesh into the files, and use the morphs provided. I recommend removing AMM if you are going to install this mod. I dont know of a way to make it compatible.
Both the files and the guide have been an absolute game changer. I love seeing my custom Shepards going into LE3 and just... looking the SAME. Thank you so much for putting this together. <3
1. Does this work for ME1 Broshep? I"ve done the custom mesh replacement before with Maleshep, but in ME1 I had to manually replace every level file and it was a huge pain. Does this mod mean that that effort is not needed anymore? 2. Can you change the positioning of the bones? I ask because my character sculpt has a slightly asymmetrical face and would require one of the eyes to be lower than the other.
yes, it will work fine with me1 broshep. use the custom shepard, not default, and the headmorph provided which you can edit with the correct colors and eyebrows, facial hair, ect. i have not done that personally. i would think you can just move the eyeball down and sculpt the eye around it and not have to move the bones, but again i have not tried this. good luck!
Hey again, If I wanted my custom shepard to also come with a new hair mesh, how should I approach that? Do I have the head mesh and hair mesh be a single model and just have different materials for each?
Depends on the hair you are putting in. Don't put the hair on the head mesh, it will take way more work and probably cause a lot of problems haha
Is the hair new and never ported to ME games before? If it's from another file that has been uploaded to the MELE nexus you can just install that mod, and copy the hair mesh address (will be in description of mod) to the head morph data in the save editor. It's the top line in the head morph tab.
If it's completely new, you will need to follow a guide for converting hair meshes to ME. Here is one, and another in video format. You will still need to put the hair mesh address in the save editor once your mod is made.
I am ending up with an extra bone somehow. I know that convert to .fbx can add an additional bone (though I was under the impression newer versions do not do this), but even when converted to .psk, its still there. Blender, however, claims there is only 42 bones. I cannot for the LIFE of me figure out where it is coming from! I am not particularly experienced with 3d modeling so there may be something completely obvious I am overlooking. If anyone has any insight I would appreciate it!
EDIT: Disregard. It was an issue with the parenting.
Hi, I have a question if you don’t mind. I’m trying to use a custom teeth mesh for shepard but using it on the custom head causes exploded vertices because the headmorph doesn’t like the number of vertices changing. Could this framework be a way around that? Can you add or delete vertices in the mesh white using it?
are you making an entire custom head mesh or just trying to customize the teeth and using the bioware cc for the rest of the face? this framework should be fine with a different # of vertices but must be used in tandem with the specific headmorph file provided which removes all vertex data and so renders the bioware cc mostly useless. i've only experimented with subdividing parts of the face, not adding new components though.
Thanks for the answer and explaining for me. I see what you mean. Ideally I wanted to still use the CC because I’m not very good sculpting meshes, but it’s an option I can come back to if I want to tackle it in the future. Thanks for your time.
Hi there! First off, this framework (and the incredibly helpful tutorial) is amazing and exactly what I've been looking for! I've been wanting to create a custom FemShep for a really long time but I'd never quite understood how to go about it until this framework, so thank you so much! I just finished a playthrough of LE2 and started a playthrough of LE3 and my Shep has never looked better ?
Surprisingly, the game giving me the most trouble is LE1, and I was hoping you could help me. I followed your tutorial and installed the "No Addns" version, and the actual mesh seems fine, but for some reason, she has permanent eyebrows and lipstick I can't seem to get rid of. It's a little hard to see, but here's a pic of what I mean. Her actual eyebrows are part of her facial complexion, but it looks like she has the norm of vanilla eyebrows on top of that, despite her HED_Brow being "BIOG_HMF_HED_PROMorph_R.Base.HMF_HED_PROCustom_Blank_Norm" in TSE. I restored my game to vanilla and installed just this mod by itself, and I still ran into this issue. Interestingly, if I try to create a new character using the in-game cc with this mod installed, the brows appear to? be "locked", where no matter which brow option I choose, they don't change, except for the first option which is the same texture but with no Normal. The lipstick doesn't seem to be an issue in the cc, but I also can't figure out how to get it off my Shep.
I'm stumped as to what I'm doing wrong, although I could be missing something obvious lol. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! :)
did you use the headmorph in the files? if you did it should be the no addns version. if you do not have the specific headmorph it will have these issues. it also needs to be the ME1 specific headmorph.
hed_brow is actually specific to male heads, they use hed_addn for facial hair and hed_brow for eyebrows. for female characters, the brow goes on head_addn. you should not have anything in the hed_brow field. you can clear it or remove it entirely in TSE. make sure hed_addn is also cleared or removed. if you want normal/bump for the eyebrows it must be on the base face texture.
makeup is in both vector and scalar parameters in TSE. set the scalar for lip tint to 0 and it should fix this.
features are locked in the CC because all settings for the CC have been removed in the pccs if this makes sense.
Ah, awesome! That fixed it! Thank you very much for the help, I was using the headmorph from the files but I think I added a new head_addn by accident. And I didn't know about hed_brow being male specific, makes sense since nothing I changed there seemed to have any effect haha. Sorry to bother you, thank you for the help! And again, thank you SO MUCH for this mod, it is incredibly awesome!
I wasn't sure where to ask questions so I thought I would ask here.
I have been following the modding guide you created with creating a custom head mesh for shepard as a mod. I've managed to create the mesh successfully and export it as a .psk file from blender.
However I have come across an issue with getting the file into Unreal Development Kit. Whenever I try to import this file, UDK freezes and then crashes. As a troubleshoot, I imported the original mesh .psk (before it had been imported into blender) into UDK and the file imported successfully. I then tried putting the same file through blender - exporting it - only for UDK to start crashing again.
The problem appears to be with blender not the mesh, and I'm not sure how I can work around this. I first used version 3.0, and when that didn't work I tried the version that was used in the guide: 2.93. I then tried the latest version: 3.3. The same issue occurs with all versions. I haven't edited any of the bones either and the materials match the order they need to be in for LE1 and LE2.
I have checked the github LegendaryExplorer wiki, and the guide's troubleshooting section for solutions but couldn't find any. I checked munchyfly's videos on youtube to see if I had missed out any steps, and I also tried using the nightly version of LegendaryExplorer. Unfortunately, UDK still crashes.
I am using the .psk import and export addons that were provided by the guide so I'm unsure as to what I can do next.
If you need any more information, just let me know.
hi, in my experience, this happens when there is an issue with the weights/skeleton or the UV map/materials. also, i do not recommend switching between 2.x blender and 3.x blender as i've read the weights do not play nice if you go between them. i recommend investigating the materials first as it's easier to fix. open the materials tab on the right side, select a material and click select under the materials list. do this for all 4 materials and press H to hide everything. if there is anything left over, it needs to be assigned a material. try to figure out where it came from and assign it to that material. if you are missing a material you will have to add one. the end of the guide (streaked hair) covers adding materials or read about it here. if it's the scalp or face you will have to reference an unmodified head to see where the materials should be. if thre are no materials issues go to the UV tab up top, turn on selection sync, and box select everything on the UV side of the screen (left). press H to hide. if there is anything left on the right side of the screen it will need to be unwrapped. you will have to adjust these to fit into the rest of the UV properly. if both of these look fine go to modifiers on your mesh and checking to see if there is an armature modifier for the skeleton. if there isn't, add one and try exporting again. if there was an armature modifier already, i would import a fresh head from the same game(s) your custom head is from, select your custom head mesh and then select the new head (both selected) and press CTRL+J. you will have to delete the new head mesh in edit mode and delete the extraneous materials in object mode. if this doesn't work there are probably weights issues. check in weight paint to see if all the vertex groups have some weights. if there aren't weights anywhere follow the guide's converting between games section but use a head from the same game yours came from. if you are using the newest version of the guide ignore doing it section by section and change the source/destination layers select to "by name". if there are some weights go section by section (newest version of guide has info on this) for what you need. i dont recommend cleaning it up initially, just get some weights, export it, try importing it to UDK editor, and if it doesn't crash then you can polish up the weights. if none of this works i'm out of my depth. i don't have a ton of experience with blender, these are just solutions that have fixed the crashing when i've gotten it working on various projects. it's never happened when working on a face so that might have a unique issue. good luck! sorry for the wall of text.
Thanks for the quick response. The more detail, the better.
Sorry for my late reply; I have been following your tips and trying to narrow down the causes for the crash.
So, the materials, weights and UV all seem to be fine. The skeleton has a modifier as well.
However, I thought I would try importing and exporting a random static mesh through blender to see if that would work in UDK. It worked. So to check if the same would work with the headmesh, I deleted the skeleton, and went to import it into UDK. This also worked.
There are 42 bones in the exported headmesh (I checked the launch log of UDK after it crashed).
Though one thing I noticed in blender is next to the 'God' bone layer, it lists 41 bones. The God bone layer is under 'HMF_HEAD_PROCustom_MDL.ad'. It might not effect anything but I thought I would list it in case it is important. Above this layer is 'Bone Groups' which is numbered as 2. This is all under a 'Pose' layer.
I'm not sure if my settings are correct for the armature modifier. I tried creating a new armature modifier (and deleting the old one) and this didn't work.
I've checked that the modifier is for the skeleton and not the mesh. The ' Vertex Group' box is empty and the only ticked option is 'Bind To: Vertex Groups'. Not sure if these are correct as the original head is also imported with the same layout.
I did import the original headmesh (unmodified, directly from the game) but unfortunately, this head is broken or bugged as soon as it is imported (or exported) into blender. After the unmodified file goes through blender and imported into UDK, the program crashes. So unfortunately, merging of the original and edited mesh didn't work to fix the skeleton.
Is there anything you see here that you would be able to help with?
if those didn't fix the issue i'm not sure where to go. if the untouched head mesh is breaking after importing/exporting to blender i'm not sure what could be causing this. people on the mass effect modding discord server might have more solutions. sorry i couldn't be more help :(
Hi there! I had the same problem, where every .psk I exported from Blender 2.93 would crash UDK. I was able to get it to work by using Blender 2.8 to export to the mesh .psk and using that instead, so I think it might be an issue with blender 2.93+. Exporting from 2.8 might help you :)
Unfortunately this doesn't work either. I can't export the unmodified headmesh out of blender at all. I get this error message when I try to export the file:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\exporter.py", line 220, in execute psk = build_psk(context, options) File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in build_psk active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)] File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in <listcomp> active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)] File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in <lambda> active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)] AttributeError: 'ArmatureModifier' object has no attribute 'is_active' location: <unknown location>:-1
seems like it's unhappy about something with the armature. you could try applying the armature modifier on the mesh. are you using 2.80? i used 2.83 for a long time with no issues exporting.
I've tried both 2.80 and 2.83 with no luck. I haven't been able to apply the armature modifier to the mesh as I tried to see if I could select the mesh in 2.83 but it only gives me the option to select the skeleton.
I've moved to 2.93 and found something interesting: I clicked 'apply modifier and remove from stack' for the armature modifier on the skeleton and now the headmesh can be imported into UDK. However I get the warning that the skeleton has no vertex influences. The bone count is only at 1, so it would not be possible to replace the original headmesh with this one.
So something is going on with the armature modifier specifically. Could it be the vertex groups? There is nothing selected in that box; however that could mean that I would have to make a modifier for each vertex (sneer, eye_blink_left etc). Also, I'm not sure as to how to add an armature modifier to the headmesh itself as when I create the modifier, like version 2.83, 2.93 only allows me to select the skeleton.
https://github.com/ME3Tweaks/LegendaryExplorer/wiki/How-to-get-your-meshes-setup-for-import-into-a-PCC try following this guide and export as fbx as well? for the no vertex influences, check to see if you have weights again, if you do, check if the vertex groups are actually assigned in edit mode.
I've gotten the mesh into UDK and have managed to replace the mesh in mesh explorer. However, I can't get the edited mesh onto my character. I'm confused on the save editor section with getting the .ron headmesh (provided by the downloaded Morphs folder) to be the edited headmesh.
I've followed the tutorial (and used munchyfly's video as a reference) for package editor, but haven't edited textures until I'm sure the mesh is working. How do I get the .ron morph to be the custom headmesh?
I unticked 'enable headmorph' in the save editor but that doesn't work. I'm unsure how to link the .ron file with the new mesh.
28 comments
But maybe because I used translation tools and I’m a beginner, I’m not sure if my understanding of how this framework works is correct... I checked the video tutorials and documentation. Is the entire process like this?:
First, import the base head mesh into Blender, tweak it to your liking, then export the modified custom head mesh, and finally follow the steps in ME3TweaksModManager to replace the details — is that the correct process?Also, I wanted to ask: Since this framework is incompatible with the Character Appearance Menu mod, does this mean I should uninstall or disable that mod before proceeding with these steps?
Sorry for all the questions T-T..... I really apologize if this is bothering you!
1. Does this work for ME1 Broshep? I"ve done the custom mesh replacement before with Maleshep, but in ME1 I had to manually replace every level file and it was a huge pain. Does this mod mean that that effort is not needed anymore?
2. Can you change the positioning of the bones? I ask because my character sculpt has a slightly asymmetrical face and would require one of the eyes to be lower than the other.
Thanks.
i have not done that personally. i would think you can just move the eyeball down and sculpt the eye around it and not have to move the bones, but again i have not tried this. good luck!
Is the hair new and never ported to ME games before? If it's from another file that has been uploaded to the MELE nexus you can just install that mod, and copy the hair mesh address (will be in description of mod) to the head morph data in the save editor. It's the top line in the head morph tab.
If it's completely new, you will need to follow a guide for converting hair meshes to ME. Here is one, and another in video format. You will still need to put the hair mesh address in the save editor once your mod is made.
EDIT: Disregard. It was an issue with the parenting.
Surprisingly, the game giving me the most trouble is LE1, and I was hoping you could help me. I followed your tutorial and installed the "No Addns" version, and the actual mesh seems fine, but for some reason, she has permanent eyebrows and lipstick I can't seem to get rid of. It's a little hard to see, but here's a pic of what I mean. Her actual eyebrows are part of her facial complexion, but it looks like she has the norm of vanilla eyebrows on top of that, despite her HED_Brow being "BIOG_HMF_HED_PROMorph_R.Base.HMF_HED_PROCustom_Blank_Norm" in TSE. I restored my game to vanilla and installed just this mod by itself, and I still ran into this issue. Interestingly, if I try to create a new character using the in-game cc with this mod installed, the brows appear to? be "locked", where no matter which brow option I choose, they don't change, except for the first option which is the same texture but with no Normal. The lipstick doesn't seem to be an issue in the cc, but I also can't figure out how to get it off my Shep.
I'm stumped as to what I'm doing wrong, although I could be missing something obvious lol. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! :)
sorry for the late reply
did you use the headmorph in the files? if you did it should be the no addns version. if you do not have the specific headmorph it will have
these issues. it also needs to be the ME1 specific headmorph.
hed_brow is actually specific to male heads, they use hed_addn for facial hair and hed_brow for eyebrows. for female characters, the brow goes on head_addn. you should not have anything in the hed_brow field. you can clear it or remove it entirely in TSE. make sure hed_addn is also cleared or removed. if you want normal/bump for the eyebrows it must be on the base face texture.
makeup is in both vector and scalar parameters in TSE. set the scalar for lip tint to 0 and it should fix this.
features are locked in the CC because all settings for the CC have been removed in the pccs if this makes sense.
I wasn't sure where to ask questions so I thought I would ask here.
I have been following the modding guide you created with creating a custom head mesh for shepard as a mod. I've managed to create the mesh successfully and export it as a .psk file from blender.
However I have come across an issue with getting the file into Unreal Development Kit. Whenever I try to import this file, UDK freezes and then crashes.
As a troubleshoot, I imported the original mesh .psk (before it had been imported into blender) into UDK and the file imported successfully. I then tried putting the same file through blender - exporting it - only for UDK to start crashing again.
The problem appears to be with blender not the mesh, and I'm not sure how I can work around this. I first used version 3.0, and when that didn't work I tried the version that was used in the guide: 2.93. I then tried the latest version: 3.3. The same issue occurs with all versions. I haven't edited any of the bones either and the materials match the order they need to be in for LE1 and LE2.
I have checked the github LegendaryExplorer wiki, and the guide's troubleshooting section for solutions but couldn't find any. I checked munchyfly's videos on youtube to see if I had missed out any steps, and I also tried using the nightly version of LegendaryExplorer. Unfortunately, UDK still crashes.
I am using the .psk import and export addons that were provided by the guide so I'm unsure as to what I can do next.
If you need any more information, just let me know.
Thank you :)
in my experience, this happens when there is an issue with the weights/skeleton or the UV map/materials. also, i do not recommend switching between 2.x blender and 3.x blender as i've read the weights do not play nice if you go between them.
i recommend investigating the materials first as it's easier to fix. open the materials tab on the right side, select a material and click select under the materials list. do this for all 4 materials and press H to hide everything. if there is anything left over, it needs to be assigned a material. try to figure out where it came from and assign it to that material. if you are missing a material you will have to add one. the end of the guide (streaked hair) covers adding materials or read about it here. if it's the scalp or face you will have to reference an unmodified head to see where the materials should be.
if thre are no materials issues go to the UV tab up top, turn on selection sync, and box select everything on the UV side of the screen (left). press H to hide. if there is anything left on the right side of the screen it will need to be unwrapped. you will have to adjust these to fit into the rest of the UV properly.
if both of these look fine go to modifiers on your mesh and checking to see if there is an armature modifier for the skeleton. if there isn't, add one and try exporting again.
if there was an armature modifier already, i would import a fresh head from the same game(s) your custom head is from, select your custom head mesh and then select the new head (both selected) and press CTRL+J. you will have to delete the new head mesh in edit mode and delete the extraneous materials in object mode.
if this doesn't work there are probably weights issues. check in weight paint to see if all the vertex groups have some weights. if there aren't weights anywhere follow the guide's converting between games section but use a head from the same game yours came from. if you are using the newest version of the guide ignore doing it section by section and change the source/destination layers select to "by name". if there are some weights go section by section (newest version of guide has info on this) for what you need. i dont recommend cleaning it up initially, just get some weights, export it, try importing it to UDK editor, and if it doesn't crash then you can polish up the weights.
if none of this works i'm out of my depth. i don't have a ton of experience with blender, these are just solutions that have fixed the crashing when i've gotten it working on various projects. it's never happened when working on a face so that might have a unique issue.
good luck! sorry for the wall of text.
Sorry for my late reply; I have been following your tips and trying to narrow down the causes for the crash.
So, the materials, weights and UV all seem to be fine. The skeleton has a modifier as well.
However, I thought I would try importing and exporting a random static mesh through blender to see if that would work in UDK. It worked. So to check if the same would work with the headmesh, I deleted the skeleton, and went to import it into UDK. This also worked.
There are 42 bones in the exported headmesh (I checked the launch log of UDK after it crashed).
Though one thing I noticed in blender is next to the 'God' bone layer, it lists 41 bones. The God bone layer is under 'HMF_HEAD_PROCustom_MDL.ad'. It might not effect anything but I thought I would list it in case it is important. Above this layer is 'Bone Groups' which is numbered as 2. This is all under a 'Pose' layer.
I'm not sure if my settings are correct for the armature modifier. I tried creating a new armature modifier (and deleting the old one) and this didn't work.
I've checked that the modifier is for the skeleton and not the mesh. The ' Vertex Group' box is empty and the only ticked option is 'Bind To: Vertex Groups'. Not sure if these are correct as the original head is also imported with the same layout.
I did import the original headmesh (unmodified, directly from the game) but unfortunately, this head is broken or bugged as soon as it is imported (or exported) into blender. After the unmodified file goes through blender and imported into UDK, the program crashes. So unfortunately, merging of the original and edited mesh didn't work to fix the skeleton.
Is there anything you see here that you would be able to help with?
Unfortunately this doesn't work either. I can't export the unmodified headmesh out of blender at all. I get this error message when I try to export the file:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\exporter.py", line 220, in execute
psk = build_psk(context, options)
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in build_psk
active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)]
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in <listcomp>
active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)]
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons\io_scene_psk_psa\psk\builder.py", line 143, in <lambda>
active_armature_modifiers = [x for x in filter(lambda x: x.type == 'ARMATURE' and x.is_active, input_mesh_object.modifiers)]
AttributeError: 'ArmatureModifier' object has no attribute 'is_active'
location: <unknown location>:-1
I wish you good luck though!
I've moved to 2.93 and found something interesting: I clicked 'apply modifier and remove from stack' for the armature modifier on the skeleton and now the headmesh can be imported into UDK. However I get the warning that the skeleton has no vertex influences. The bone count is only at 1, so it would not be possible to replace the original headmesh with this one.
So something is going on with the armature modifier specifically. Could it be the vertex groups? There is nothing selected in that box; however that could mean that I would have to make a modifier for each vertex (sneer, eye_blink_left etc). Also, I'm not sure as to how to add an armature modifier to the headmesh itself as when I create the modifier, like version 2.83, 2.93 only allows me to select the skeleton.
Thank you both for all your help :)
try following this guide and export as fbx as well?
for the no vertex influences, check to see if you have weights again, if you do, check if the vertex groups are actually assigned in edit mode.
I've gotten the mesh into UDK and have managed to replace the mesh in mesh explorer. However, I can't get the edited mesh onto my character. I'm confused on the save editor section with getting the .ron headmesh (provided by the downloaded Morphs folder) to be the edited headmesh.
I've followed the tutorial (and used munchyfly's video as a reference) for package editor, but haven't edited textures until I'm sure the mesh is working. How do I get the .ron morph to be the custom headmesh?
I unticked 'enable headmorph' in the save editor but that doesn't work. I'm unsure how to link the .ron file with the new mesh.