Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Editing GR2 meshes finally possible

I'm mostly doing some minor mesh tweaks, but since when I re-import the mesh the normals are not being recalculated, it means I will have to edit the _NM.dds in order to fix the wrong directions. No biggie really, just thought it would be a nice feature to have, and I will have to edit some textures I wasnt planning on, but I can live with that =)

I would however suggest another feature that might be easy to implement, a batch convert for GR2/DAE just like you have done with the LSB/LSF/LSX tab. That would be truly awesome and save loads of time.

Anyway, thanks again for your fabulous tool!

I checked the normals before and after exporting, and they seem to match.
I think I know what the issue is though; can you check if this version has the same issue?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/gr2/gr-test.zip

yes it has the same issue and I tested all possible combinations of changing the axis direction on all 3 channels (positive and negative) so I'm assuming that maybe that version swaps axis (which would mean that I would have to swap RGB channels?)

The current public version, still works better since I know exactly what channel to change direction (Green). With this one I always have normal issues no matter what. I would say that if you changed the way axis/directions are being used, you're in the right track though =)

Cheers!

Hrm, that is unexpected.
Well the problem is, that the normals are just fine. The preview of the original and exported GR2 is a nearly 1:1 match:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/gr2/orig_export_comp.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/gr2/orig_export_tangents.png

I suspect the screwups are because tangents are calculated differently (the only difference between the new version I sent you and the original is that I changed the direction of the binormal). These are not exported however, so they must be recalculated when converting to GR2.

Which model are you trying to modify btw?

Oh darn, it worked!! the results I was seeing was because of an option I had when exporting the Collada! When I continued working and saw I was having the same results, thats when I realized something else was wrong! You're a Genius! =D

Thank you so much! Will save me some time and I wont need to re-do all the normal maps!

Which export option are you talking about? I also noticed I had to start flipping the green channel in my normal maps.

Edit: Started poking around and tried leaving 'Apply transformation basis to Y-up' unticked in the GR2 converter. That worked!

I'm almost sure I tried that with the previous app version and it didnt worked for me, in fact, that option seems to have no effect what so ever. The new version Norbyte uploaded though, did the trick.

Another option that doesnt seem to do anything (at least not when importing to GR2) is the mirror option. I've tried with that option both enabled and disabled and I still get the meshes in game mirrored on the X axis.

But... I'm having some real hard time when exporting/importing some armors:

1. Some armors, if I just export to DAE and immediatly to GR2 (not even editing/exporting in any 3D app) don't show up in the game. One example is PL_M_ARM_Leather_B_Torso_A.GR2

2. Some armors that have 2 parts/objects, if edited (for example, delete a vertex) when exported doesnt work either. PL_M_ARM_Leather_A_Torso_A.GR2 is an example for this.

Two things may happen:

A) Armor doesn't show up at all, character is naked.
B) As far as I can see, armors that have 2 parts, have a proper order, so the materials/uvs are assigned correctly. If I export with the wrong order, the armor shows up, but the materials swapped. If the order is the correct one, same thing happens as described in A).

Really puzzled... I've even tried to in some cases compare the DAEs text, to see what differences there were between the DAE produced by blender and the one by Norbyte's app, and edit the blender one so it "matches" the one exported by Norbyte's app.

If your 3D editor already exports DAE files with an up vector of (0,1,0) then the Y-up conversion won't do anything.


I'm not aware of any mirror option, at least not in the exporter :O



I'll look into it.


Can you attach a modified and an original DAE for this?

Nope its Blender, the exporter doesnt have that feature, however I've read that rotating the objects 90º on X is the same, and thats what I've been working with. FYI, I just tested exporting the same DAE to GR2 using the option "Apply Basis Transformation to Y-Up" both checked and unchecked, and I see no apparent difference between them, the meshes are properly placed (unless this option only affects normals???)


Then I misinterpreted what "Recalculate inverse world transforms" do. Either way, again as the previous mentioned option, I see no difference from either using it or not. I assumed it had to do with some mirroring, because on Blender I have all meshes (and armature) mirrored on the X axis.





I tried to recreate the issue, now everything is working... *rolleyes*

But I'm sure I didnt do anything wrong before because, I still happened to had the DAE open in the text editor, when I tried earlier and that same DAE didnt work. This DAE was causing the character to be naked (not even loading the body texture). I have tried this same DAE, and now its fine, so its not the DAE.

I know what I'm doing btw, its not the first game I ever modded or something lol, so the only possible explanation for these bizarre behaviours, is that I'm mostly running your app under Wine. Still find it bizarre though, that sometimes is able to work and sometimes not. However, I do know for example, that one day I was running it on Parallels, and was able to import a LSV, while trying it on Wine, I wasn't.

I also had to delete the CONFIG file you had in the zip, because it was preventing your app from recognizing the .NET installation, and was not able to run. As soon as I deleted, everything worked fine (or at least it seems lol)

If I get a GR2 that is getting me the same issue again, I'll make sure to post it here, maybe then you can shed some light about it.

More specifically, if the DAE you're importing has "<up_axis />" then it won't do anything.
If it has "<up_axis>Z_UP</up_axis>" or "<up_axis>X_UP</up_axis>", then it is converted to Y-up.
It is not specific to normals, it affects all properties of the model.


IWT recalc is usually not necessary as the converter uses the IWT that is baked into the DAE when exporting. Sometimes this information may not be correct, in which case a recalculation is needed. But it is more of a debug option than something you'd actually need to use.
Inverse world transform is also known as inverse bind shape matrix / bind pose.


Please post the original DAE and corrupted GR2 file too, as apparently there is a specific configuration that causes this issue.

I've updated the dropbox version with the latest changes.
Changelog for v1.4.1 - v1.4.4:
- Fixed boolean parsing in LSX files
- Added pretty printing support for LSX files
- Fixed LSF/LSB resource handling confusion
- Add support for D:OS EE story files
- Add support for more (21) GR2 vertex formats
- Fix crash when the loaded GR2 file only contains a skeleton
- Fix occasionally incorrect transformation when loading skinned GR2 meshes
- Save GR2/DAE exporter info properly
- Fix tangent/binormal calculation
- Allow specifying a custom vertex format for GR2 meshes
- Allow manual rebuild of normals/tangents even if they were available in the source file
- Add normal/tangent/UV export selection
- Fix: Obey export options for Collada exports


AFAIK you can run it properly under Mono without the need for Wine.

Thanks for keeping this up Norbyte

Add support for D:OS EE story files


Can we compile goals into the story now? Opened up the new version (though it seems like the dropbox version is only 1.4.3?) and tried the story tool. Nice to be able to extract the story.div.osi file into the individual goals, but we already have all the goals available. Is there a way to do the reverse? Also, don't quite understand the database editor. I load the story and there's this list of database entries, but doesn't seem to be any way to edit them or anything. Just these things like 0 (CHARACTER) 1 (INTEGER) when I select something, but not sure the purpose of that.

@Vector

What sort of models are you working on? Improving or changing existing gear or creating new models (is that possible?)

Mono doesnt work so good... crashes a lot (specially when copy/pasting the text, which I do a lot for import/export, I just change the extension from DAE to GR2)

and as expected, here you go:

PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Torso_B
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3b9gkv019c53xb/PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Torso_B.zip?dl=0

I basically deleted everything on the mesh and left just the bag on the thigh. In game, character appears naked. I'm using the exact export settings I'm always using really baffles me why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't... I'm also gonna do 2-3 more exports next, and I'm sure I'll be able to at least do so for some bracers. Bracers/Boots so far havent given me any trouble.

I also suspect that the issue here might be that maybe the mesh is there, but somehow is not using the correct maps, so it fails to encounter a proper Alphas, so defaults to a full black alpha (which will ofc render it invisible). Although unsure if that would explain the nakedness, kinda hard to tell since the game engine uses tons of alphas to hide stuff/tint/whatever...

EDIT:
Just tested the new version, problem still occurs (although there was about a 1kb difference on the file size xD)

EDIT 2:
I was unaware that Mono was a standalone thing aswell, I was referring to Mono as the Mono for Wine, but I'm DLing Mono now and will give it a run, thanks for the tip! =)

Its just minor edits and tweaks, no big deal, for my personal use, but anything is possible ofc... even if you want, you can import assets from other games, however that will potentially bring copyright issues.

Anything is possible really =)

Well, there are two problems I could see:
1) The original GR2 file had two sub-meshes, PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Torso_B and PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Belt_B. In the export, the PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Torso_B mesh is not present at all, which may be an issue.
2) Lots of vertices were removed from PL_M_ARM_Cloth_A_Belt_B to the point where the mesh only has one influencing bone, with an uniform weight of 255. For some reason, Granny considers such meshes to be rigid, instead of skinned (probably an optimization), which again might cause the composition to fail. Adding a dummy weight of 0.0001 to one of the other bones can fix this one.

EDIT: There is a possible workaround for 2), available here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/gr2/skin-test.zip

Actually I was starting to consider it was a weights issue, because I was just comparing vertex groups and noticed some of the meshes had the bone chain and some didnt. I did tried to add those "dummy" vertex groups, but didnt added any weights (the problem persisted anyway)

I'm aware of the missing object/mesh situation thing. but I've tried to add just a simple face to fake the missing object, and got the same problem. Ofc I also didnt add any weights to it, so I had the same problem.

I'll test the new version, and now that I understand that it might be indeed a lack of weights, I'll try to re-add the placeholder mesh to replace the belt, and see how it works.

PS-Tried Mono, crashes quite easily, and unfortunately I can't browse anything outside my home folder, so I'll keep using wine instead.

EDIT:
Just one reminder Norbyte, I had situations, just for the purpose of testing where I would import the GR2 directly from the original assets to DAE, and then procceed to import that same DAE back to GR2 and had the same issue, no armor, naked character. I can also say with 100% I tested that with an armor with two parts (the infamous belt part ofc). Like I said, I never had problems with bracers or boots. Its mainly armors that have 2 parts, and its not always because the mesh was deleted.

EDIT 2:
The 0.000001 fixed the issue, and I just did a plane with 4 vertex to act as placeholder for the belt scaled to 0.0 and also weighted it to the Pelvis bone.

And a suggestion if possible Nordbyte. Because you cant really set the export order for the objects (there is a Sort by Object name option but thats it), but as far as I can verify the order is relevant for keeping the correct textures applied, would it be possible to be able to change the order in the mesh list? That would be great, if not to complicated =)

Anyway, thank you again for your priceless help, you're awesome!

@Vector: You seem to be quite experienced in modelling. I have started to explore how do create my own models and add them to the game via Resource Manager. Works fine so far! A further step would be adding animations. It should be possible, too, right? It would be great to have a Resource Manager Guide (models, animations, textures, effects etc.) and a Modelling/Animating Guide which contains information about what full functional character and armor/weapon assets consist of (e. g. how to make characters equip armor to the right parts of their body) and what to take care of during modelling and animating. Do you think you or someone else here on the forum could write a few Guides for all modders who aren't familiar with these things (like me)? I would really like to see new characters, weapons, armors, effects and more in the upcoming mods, after the Editor for EE is released!

Curious. Haven't encountered that problem yet


I've added a fix to auto-assign the same bones that were used in the original mesh if they aren't in the bone binding list if the "Conform to original GR2" option is checked.


Models are now automatically sorted to use the same order as the original model uses if the "Conform to original GR2" option is checked.

Hopefully fixed but still beta version: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/gr2/skin-test.zip

About story stuff:
Since you'd need the EE editor to properly support EE anyway, I've decided not to reimplement the full story compiler stuff as it'd mostly be a waste of time, and very hard to do/test.
What you have now is the (WIP) ability to edit databases / story variables in existing files. This is mostly useful for simple stuff like the 4 players mod or editing the story DB-s of save game files (since it uses the same file format). It can be also useful for stuff like checking the contents of your databases while developing mods.

I was thinking about adding something on top of the original story language to make it worthwhile, like some simpler syntax to do "A and (B or C)", database name/signature typo detection (which can be mighty annoying to debug/detect otherwise) which currently requires duplicating all of the rules.
Its currently undecided as I'd need a lot of free time to do this, which I don't have atm.