Tools overview

The tools we are going to use are fairly easy to handle: all have graphic user interfaces, and we offer step by step examples of their usage. The most complex ones, that is, the generalist 3D apps where the models are assembled and rendered, certainly are more intimidating, but luckily there are literally thousands of videotutorials available on YouTube, from introductory to covering very specialized matters, and, anyway, only a narrow subset of their capabilities are required to obtain nice results. We even have Player and Non-Player Character auto-assembling add-ons for the most typical one (Blender).

Asset extraction and conversion tools

For the first approach we described in the previous section (finding the relevant objects through Jedipedia or TorCommunity's tools), we'll need:

• Slicers GUI for extracting the game's assets and/or converting them (required, mostly):

  Slicers GUI is a new unified tool that intends to replace the rest of the extracting and processing tools mentioned there, such as EasyMYP (extracting), Noesis (viewing and converting), a previous Locator Python script (processing PC/NPC data to locate their assets), etc. It follows the spirit of PugTools, a far older all-in-one tool, and intends to achieve almost feature-parity up to where it's practical.

  As we go implementing the intended features we'll update this wiki to indicate how to use them and what other tools can be deprecated.

  It can be downloaded and installed following these instructions.

• EasyMYP for extracting the game's assets (no longer required but still usable):

  This specific EasyMYP, sometimes called "TorMYP", is the SWTOR-aware version of the popular game files reader and extractor. It is able to read the .tor asset files stored in the game folders and lets us extract a specific file, sets of files, or just everything in one go. One of the difficulties many of us met when trying to learn how to do this was finding this precise version of EasyMYP, because all variants use the same name.

  Its role is assumed by the Slicers GUI tool, nowadays.

  EasyMYP can be downloaded from this GitHub's repositories here or as part of an EasyMYP/NodeViewer/Noesis pack hosted by RealymanLP here.

• Hash File for Slicers GUI and EasyMYP to work with (required):

  A hash file is a text file holding a list that associates the game assets' IDs (reference numbers) with human-readable filenames (for example, "head_human_bmn_caucasian_a02.gr2"). Both Slicers GUI and EasyMYP come with one already (probably a very old one in the case of EasyMYP), but a benefit of keeping an eye on Xentax' forums, this GitHub, or the Discord server, is being notified of posts linking new hash files out of a game update or an incoming one being tested in SWTOR's Public Test Server. Without dataminers such as RealymanLP analyzing the game to find those associations, this whole approach wouldn't be viable.

  RealymanLP hosts up-to-date hash files here. From the files shown there, the one we are interested in is "hashes_filename.zip".

• Noesis for viewing and converting the assets (not recommended for the latter):

  This is a viewer and converter of a whole lot of games' specific asset file formats, be them 2D, 3D, 3D animation, audio, etc. It's able to show SWTOR's game objects (.gr2) and textures (.dds) in a 3D window and export them to more typical formats (such as .obj and .png), one by one or in batches. In certain cases, it can group both an object and its associated textures (converted to more standard types) for us.

  Sadly, its SWTOR plugin haven't been maintained for years, and has a few problems: object conversion destroys the mesh's normals, requiring recalculation in the destination 3D app; multiple materials objects are exported as multi-object files; and it fails to open certain object files, making batch-conversions painful (one needs some kind of macro utility to auto-click the alert dialog button away to let it proceed).

  If we are Blender or 3DS Max users we won't need to use Noesis (there are .gr2 importers for both apps, and they can export to the most usual 3D formats). Generally, Blender is best as an intermediate step to moving SWTOR objects to other apps, but still it's good to know how Noesis works, because it can help us locate objects and textures visually if there are no other means.

  Noesis can be downloaded from this GitHub's repositories here or as part of an EasyMYP/NodeViewer/Noesis pack hosted by RealymanLP here.

For the second approach (taking a 3D "snapshot"):

• Ninja Ripper: this a well-known 3D game objects extractor. To facilitate the handling of the extracted files, it comes with importer plug-ins for popular 3D apps such as Blender or 3DS Max.

  Generally, we don't recommend using this tool except for some "impossible" cases, as its approach is just too much work.

  NinjaRipper is hosted at http://cgig.ru/ninjaripper/. There are importers for Blender 2.8x or higher and for Blender 2.7x (they are able to import whole folders of NinjaRipper results. Warning: the importing process can take minutes depending on the scene's amount of objects).

Asset search and location tools:

• TORCommunity.com's Character Designer to easily obtain all the assets related to a Player Character and their armor gear (MUST HAVE!).

  This online tool simulates a combination of SWTOR's Character Creator screen and Outfit Designer panel, and lets us replicate our character and gear them with any of SWTOR's outfits, no matter if we own them in the game or not. Once done, we can export a .zip file that contains all the data necessary to collect the assets (either manually or through an script on our PCs) and adjust their materials.

  (Slicers GUI is the tool that processes that .zip file, automatically locating and gathering all the assets)

  Generally speaking, with this tool we can solve our characters and armor gear without needing any other one. You can access it here.

• NodeViewer to manually locate reference data that EasyMYP can't extract (required-ish for non-character, non-armor stuff):

  This is a tool that lets you explore SWTOR's internal database of the game's elements and their relationships, be them objects and materials, weapon values, character creator settings, etc. As it lets us export data in spreadsheet-compatible .csv format, we can keep its use down to a minimum by exporting the most useful data to have it more immediately at our fingertips (it's easier to search so).

  NodeViewer can be downloaded from this GitHub's repositories here or as part of an EasyMYP/NodeViewer/Noesis pack hosted by RealymanLP here.

• NodeBrowser (part of PugTools): alternative to NodeViewer:

  PugTools is a set of tools used by dataminers to explore SWTOR's internal database. It has powerful viewers (for example, one of them lets the user do flybys through whole game locations), and one of those is NodeBrowser, to all effects a better NodeViewer: NodeBrowser has global search, while NodeViewer only lets us search through the selected node tree. Also, NodeBrowser is able to export in .xml format.

  The PugTools version we have access to is an older one graciously offered by Swtor_Miner. Its NodeBrowser component has the limitation of being able to export one node at a time instead of whole subtrees, but on the other hand it exports as far better manageable .xml format. The rest of the viewer tools don't work, mostly. The biggest value of NodeBrowser is its global tree search, as that's crucial to quickly obtain exact asset material data (such as a skin color's palette data). NodeBrowser's search is limited to selected branches.

  PugTools has a code repository here.

Asset-assembling tools (3D Apps)

Once you have your models and textures extracted, there's the matter of which 3D app to use to assemble, texture, light, even animate, and render them.

For those who download prebuilt models from websites and forums:

• XPS/XNALara: Xna Posing Studio (XPS) is the latest incarnation of the original XNALara. it's a free tool, kind of an extremely barebones version of the popular character posing and animation apps Poser or Daz Studio. It was born out of the creators' desire to do 3D fanart of Tomb Raider's Lara Croft and grew from that.

  You could load, say, a Darth Malgus in .xps format, move his limbs this way and that, same with the lights and the camera, and render a picture with an alpha channel to further massage it in Photoshop or the like. Same goes with other formats and associated 3D apps such as Garry's Mod or Valve's Source Filmmaker (SFM). All those are popular apps in the world of machinima (virtual filmmaking with game assets).

  You can find download links and installation guides here.

For just everybody:

• Blender: This is a free, gratis, open source, multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux), fully featured, complete 3D production environment. It does not only 3D (including modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, 3D-painting, sculpting, etc.) but video editing and compositing, too. Because of all that, it's a rather imposing app at a first glance, but the amount of teaching materials in YouTube is equally astounding. Also, it's extensible through the use of addons programmed in Python, many of which are free or dirt-cheap. Blender is almost its own rabbit hole, out of its community's enthusiasm and accelerating development.

  Regarding SWTOR: Blender directly understands its textures' .dds image format (typical of most PC games), and our SWTOR .gr2 model format importer/exporter add-on can not just import the game's objects but auto-assemble whole player characters automatically!

  There's also a XNALara .xps importer add-on that understands the format's animation rigs and material definitions.

  You can download Blender for free at blender.org.

• Autodesk 3DS Max: A commercial package. It used to offer a three years-free, fully featured version through its education channel, which everybody used as it didn't require hard proof of belonging to a learning institution. That changed: now it requires proof, and the free period is one year. 3DS Max has been a popular option for importing and assembling SWTOR assets thanks to a SWTOR .gr2 model import Max Script able to import both SWTOR's .gr2 model format and its animation rigs. Most of those prebuilt characters for XNALara are based on 3DS Max conversions.

  Autodesk's educational licenses are available here.

• And, of course, other commercial 3D apps such as Maya, Cinema 4D, etc.

• Unreal Engine: A commercial package with very generous free tiers. SWTOR's materials are being implemented and, so far, models can be imported by converting them to FBX through Blender. We look forward to adding the relevant tutorials.

  More information about the product and download links can be found here.

Other tools

Complementary utilities to make your life easier: mostly, we are talking Photoshop plugins to import/export the .dds image format, or apps and utilities that directly understand it, such as XnViewMP, GIMP, Kryta, etc., that will allow us to retouch them if we wish to.