[This is post is part of a series of tutorials.]
< Back | Table of Contents | Next >
Topic 0: Set Up - How to Prepare
In order to do anything, you'll need a copy of Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2 for the PC installed on your computer. You don't need to have a computer powerful enough to run the game. (I don't!) You just need a computer powerful enough to run 3ds Max, or whatever 3D software you're choosing to use.*
*Somewhat Important Note: If you are using a modeling tool other than 3ds Max, these tutorials may not really be the most helpful, as Max is the only tool I use for this. If I find information on Blender or anything else, I'll be sure to post links! At the moment though, I have no knowledge of how importing models or anything else with these programs works.
So, for these tutorials, I'm going to explain everything as basic as I can. I don't want to assume you know something that you really don't. I'd super hate for anyone to be confused, so I'm keeping things as basic as possible, just in case there's something you may not know. I want to make sure everyone learns!
Okay, okay, now onto the preparation, so you have the game. That means you have all the assets that are in the game. How cool is that? It's pretty darn cool, I daresay.
Where the heck ARE these assets? What are they? What is a computer?!
Okay, I'm not going to answer that last one, but I will explain the first two.
The assets you'll be working with are located in CookedPC in the game folder.
To find the game folder...
- Hit up My Computer with a friendly click-click.
- Then, fly right into your Local Disk (C:).
- Hop on down to Program Files. (If you have a 64-bit computer, you'll see two very similar Program Files. The one we're looking for is the one called Program Files (x86). Choose that one.) Windows might try to scare you by telling you you'll end the universe if you touch these files, but we know what we're doing. Oh yes we do. Just tell it to have some faith in you.
- Scrolls down and find the Mass Effect folder, head right in! No need to knock.
- In both Mass Effect 1 and 2, there is a folder called BioGame, go in there.
- Then, you'll see...MORE folders. What we want is CookedPC. That's where the treasure lies. Inside of this folder is where all the models are. The file setup for the Mass Effect 1 CookedPC is different for the file setup for the Mass Effect 2 CookedPC, but it's nothing to be too worried about, I promise.
Here's my super special recommendation, make a copy of the CookedPC folder. That way, in case something goes terribly wrong for some strange, unexpected reason, you'll still have your original. I have mine on my desktop, but that occasionally causes issues for some people when using the extraction tool. A good alternative is to simply make a folder right in your Local Disk (C:). Maybe call it something like ME2Assets or something fancy wonderful like that. Then, go into the folder and paste/place the copy of CookedPC right in there. It's a big folder, so it'll take a little while. (Of course, it'll take up some memory too, so be aware of that.)
As far as WHAT the assets are, well, inside of the CookedPC folder, there are lots of .pcc files (and in the case of Mass Effect 1, .upk's). These are little (and sometimes not so little) packages that have inside of them the animations, models, and textures that you'll be working with. These need to be extracted with a tool, but I'll talk more about that later.
So, now that you've got your files set up and you know what all this business is about...
You, my friend, are ready.
Are you ready?
If you are, click next.
If not, I don't know. Stare at this page more? YouTube? Whatever gets you PUMPED!
< Back | Table of Contents | Next >
No comments:
Post a Comment