Exporting SWTOR models to Battlefront II

By Sicario

Importing the SWTOR model

Extract and import your SWTOR model into Blender using our Player Character/NPC Import Guides.

• Uncheck the Character Assembler tool's options to load and bind a SWTOR skeleton before importing, as we won't be using that skeleton.
• Your model is going to come in correctly positioned but separated into parts (head, hair, torso, legs, etc.). Join them by highlighting all of them and pressing ctrl-j.

Then, follow Zenger’s tutorial videos (Video 2-3).

• https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqQjTqj1k4zTo8Hy6dlaD1lPFS6s59Xep&si=pPN4NHVuniqRKvXJ

  Important takes from his videos:

  1. Rig swtor model to happy stick skeleton.
  2. Rig swtor model with happy stick skeleton to BF2 human_walrus skeleton.
  3. Weight painting and transferring the model to the skeleton for smooth in-game animations.
  4. After rigging to human_walrus (BF2 REFERENCE) skeleton, rig the model to a test animation to see if it is rigged properly.

After you’re done rigging your swtor character to the bf2 reference skeleton, export your rigged model as .fbx with these settings:

• TANGENT SPACING
• Scaling: 0.01

Then, do what's in this video:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6kCn7RlKtU&t=7s

• Import BF2 mesh with a 1.00 scale, but increase it to 10.00 after it’s imported.

• Important takes from this video:

  1. Import your SWTOR character’s .fbx into a new blender project with the mesh reference of the BF2 Character that you want to replace.
  2. Match the pose and scale the swtor model to the BF2 reference model
  3. Un-parent your swtor model from its skeleton
  4. Weight transfer between the BF2 reference model and the SWTOR model
  5. Weight paint if necessary
  6. To make LODs, copy and paste the weight transferred SWTOR MODEL 5 times and rename it as the BF2 reference model, changing the number after the name consecutively from 0-5.
  7. Armature deform the 6 SWTOR models to the BF2 reference model’s skeleton
  8. Export it as an FBX, scaled 0.001, and with tangent spacing
  9. Then import the exported SWTOR .fbx file over the mesh you want to replace

• If you rigged your character properly:

  • your rigged swtor character should already be in the pose of your preferred model’s pose. So, all you have to do is move the model to make sure the limbs match, and you should be good.

• Summarized steps are in the comments section.

• Tips:

  • If the mesh of the hero you’re trying to replace is wonky with your swtor model, use anakin’s or keep the human walrus skeleton. But, export it as 0.01 scaling and import it into a new project and make LODs for it.

Then, if Frosty Editor does not launch your BF2, export your mod and apply it to BF2 with Frosty Mod Manager.

RESOURCES:
https://github.com/CadeEvs/FrostyToolsuite/releases

TIPS:

• If you’re replacing Anakin's model for example, it's good to know that his whole model consists of his head, his body, his sleeves, his skirt, and his skirt flaps. These parts are all separated into their own meshes. If you’re just going to replace his body and you dont want his head, sleeves, skirt, or flaps to be visible, go into each one of their object blueprints, click the “object” drop down, and uncheck the “enable” box. This disables that certain mesh from rendering in-game.
• If imported mesh has a bunch of triangles in the frosty preview, just triangulate the mesh.
• When the model is rigged to bf2 skeleton and has a back pack, make sure it is only rigged to the spine2 bone and nothing else.

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Importing SWTOR textures:

Your model is going to have several materials. So, to import into BF2, you will need to bake all the textures into a single one. These videos will teach you how to do so:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7FedDW2AI&t=32s

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsO1eozb1Qk
    Good supplementary video.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVPaGRaOxoU&t=121s
    3:25-5:00 for UV unwrapping tutorial
    When you press “u” when unwrapping, make sure your cursor is in the window with your 3d model and not your uv map.

After baking, you need to delete all materials: go into shading and make a node for an image texture. Apply the new baked texture on the model.

Texturing for BF2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw6EHPBdCJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXFjAfCXPE&t=45s

When importing BF2 model into Frosty Editor, rename your model's uv map IN BLENDER to "UVChannel0" for it to show up properly in frosty and in game.

if you want to remaster your model’s texture, watch video #4 of this tutorial series:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl2YN94ddyo&list=PLqQjTqj1k4zTo8Hy6dlaD1lPFS6s59Xep&index=2&t=84s

Use this to generate normal maps for texture without having to use the program needed above.

• https://github.com/Theverat/NormalmapGenerator/releases

Make sure the main texture (CS) opacity is at -30% opacity so that it doesn't appear dark under the normal map.

• For NM (Normal map), again use https://github.com/Theverat/NormalmapGenerator/releases and generate a normal map for your baked/atlased texture.
  This should be ~30% opacity as well
• W maps, replace it with a 32x32 black square.
• For the AOSL, replace it with the baked/atlased texture.
• MSR should be replaced by a transparent 2048x2048 png to get rid of any metallic effects.
• RRSAO, should be replaced by a transparent 2048x2048 png to get rid of any metallic effects.

Lightsaber colour editing (purple)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gj5seoWruQ

If nothing is working, check these out:

• texturing for bf2.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw6EHPBdCJw
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXFjAfCXPE&t=45s

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Importing sound

• https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/
• Make sure the sound file is a .wav with 16bit pcm or and mp3 file with 320kbps 48000 hz
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evsM7xK77AQ&t=305s
    0:00 - 1:03 is useful
• Export new file and import it into frosty editor. *Make sure the file folder has streaming pools set to null.