How-To: Reskin an Ewok with BViewer and BCompiler
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:04 am
In anticipation of the release of BCompiler, I have decided to put together a quick tutorial on how to reskin or texture an object or model in game. In order to follow along with this tutorial you will need a copy of BViewer, BCompiler, and a hex editor, like UltraEdit.
Import and export the ewok2 textures:
In this tutorial, I will show how you would go about replacing an ewok texture, specifically the information in the ewok2 texture. The following is a picture of my steps in BViewer.
Step 1: I first navigated my open path to the Star Wars directory, and then to the SIDE\ folder.
Step 2: I then selected and double clicked on ewk.lvl to import it, as the ewok texture data is stored in this lvl.
Step 3: After the file imports, a list of textures within that file will be displayed in this box. I will edit ewok2 texture, so I will double click on that item.
Step 4: After BViewer is done formating and saving the .dds data, you should see output similar to this, with exported files displayed here.
Edit the file:
You can figure this out! No, but really, edit the .dds file to whatever art you want, but keep the size and the format the same. If the texture consisted of multiple formats, you will need to edit both(in the same way) as each is displayed on different hardware.
Convert the DDS back to Battlefront:
Now that the new art is done, you can import the file into BCompiler and it will automatically be converted back into Battlefront format. The following is general picture of BCompiler.
Step 1: Navigate the open directory to the location of your edited .dds files. Select the edited files, one at a time, and double click them to export the formated file. For both files a like named .lvl file will be created and placed in the same location as the selected dds.
Editing the Game Files:
Here is where the process starts to get messy. It is not hard, but takes some practice. I strongly urge you to head over to Rileys reference site at this point and study the structure of a texture chunk. Knowledge of this is essential if you want to select the correct sections. If you think you got it, read on.
Because we are editing the ewok2 textures, which are located in ewk.lvl, we will open this up in our Hex editor. We will also open up the first BCompiler generated lvl file. Note the size in bytes of the generated file, and go back to ewk.lvl. The following is a visual guide of how to replace a file with RGB(R5G6B5) format. The same process must be used to replace all texture files.
Step 1: First I will determine the size in bytes of ewok2_RGB.lvl file(format information generated by BCompiler) to get an idea of what I will need to paste over. This is one possible pitfall, this size may not be the same as the destination, if its bigger only copy the right size, if its smaller don't paste over the target as much.
Step 2: If the size is correct(check byte size charts) select and copy the bytes of the file.
Step 1: Now go into ewk.lvl and search for the texture file name, in this case ewok2.
Step 1: Next, you will need to find the correct format to edit. Do a search for the FMT_ marker. In most cases, the DXT1 format will be before R5G6B5 formats, so as I am searching for the RGB version, I will search for the second occurance within the ewok2 chunk.
Step 1: Next I will move to the first LVL_ marker, which should be just a few bytes after the FMT_. I will then begin selecting, including the LVL_, down the file the rest of the texture format.
Step 1: After going all the way the length of the format, which should be right around the same amount of bytes as the size from the BCompiler exported lvl, I will make sure I have selected the right area. One tip to select everything well is to select the start and then to hold shift as you click on the later bytes. After you have selected the correct area, which can be aided by a new marker at the end of the selection(another FMT_, TEX_, etc.), paste the copied BCompiler output over the origonal. If you have replaced the correct amount the file size will not change. It is unknown if a different file size will work, but to be safe, try to keep it all the same. Save everything and try loading it up.
Remember to make back ups of all the files you edit. If you have any questions about this, or if any part is unclear, be sure let us know, so we can try and fill in the blanks.
Import and export the ewok2 textures:
In this tutorial, I will show how you would go about replacing an ewok texture, specifically the information in the ewok2 texture. The following is a picture of my steps in BViewer.
Step 1: I first navigated my open path to the Star Wars directory, and then to the SIDE\ folder.
Step 2: I then selected and double clicked on ewk.lvl to import it, as the ewok texture data is stored in this lvl.
Step 3: After the file imports, a list of textures within that file will be displayed in this box. I will edit ewok2 texture, so I will double click on that item.
Step 4: After BViewer is done formating and saving the .dds data, you should see output similar to this, with exported files displayed here.
Edit the file:
You can figure this out! No, but really, edit the .dds file to whatever art you want, but keep the size and the format the same. If the texture consisted of multiple formats, you will need to edit both(in the same way) as each is displayed on different hardware.
Convert the DDS back to Battlefront:
Now that the new art is done, you can import the file into BCompiler and it will automatically be converted back into Battlefront format. The following is general picture of BCompiler.
Step 1: Navigate the open directory to the location of your edited .dds files. Select the edited files, one at a time, and double click them to export the formated file. For both files a like named .lvl file will be created and placed in the same location as the selected dds.
Editing the Game Files:
Here is where the process starts to get messy. It is not hard, but takes some practice. I strongly urge you to head over to Rileys reference site at this point and study the structure of a texture chunk. Knowledge of this is essential if you want to select the correct sections. If you think you got it, read on.
Because we are editing the ewok2 textures, which are located in ewk.lvl, we will open this up in our Hex editor. We will also open up the first BCompiler generated lvl file. Note the size in bytes of the generated file, and go back to ewk.lvl. The following is a visual guide of how to replace a file with RGB(R5G6B5) format. The same process must be used to replace all texture files.
Step 1: First I will determine the size in bytes of ewok2_RGB.lvl file(format information generated by BCompiler) to get an idea of what I will need to paste over. This is one possible pitfall, this size may not be the same as the destination, if its bigger only copy the right size, if its smaller don't paste over the target as much.
Step 2: If the size is correct(check byte size charts) select and copy the bytes of the file.
Step 1: Now go into ewk.lvl and search for the texture file name, in this case ewok2.
Step 1: Next, you will need to find the correct format to edit. Do a search for the FMT_ marker. In most cases, the DXT1 format will be before R5G6B5 formats, so as I am searching for the RGB version, I will search for the second occurance within the ewok2 chunk.
Step 1: Next I will move to the first LVL_ marker, which should be just a few bytes after the FMT_. I will then begin selecting, including the LVL_, down the file the rest of the texture format.
Step 1: After going all the way the length of the format, which should be right around the same amount of bytes as the size from the BCompiler exported lvl, I will make sure I have selected the right area. One tip to select everything well is to select the start and then to hold shift as you click on the later bytes. After you have selected the correct area, which can be aided by a new marker at the end of the selection(another FMT_, TEX_, etc.), paste the copied BCompiler output over the origonal. If you have replaced the correct amount the file size will not change. It is unknown if a different file size will work, but to be safe, try to keep it all the same. Save everything and try loading it up.
Remember to make back ups of all the files you edit. If you have any questions about this, or if any part is unclear, be sure let us know, so we can try and fill in the blanks.
