Saints Row (2006) - Notes on Changing Character Models

[Jacob_MP]

Hi, all.

I hope all of you modders and players in the Row are staying well. I've decided to publish this thread with my notes (also included alongside the readme.txt files in the mods that I publish that change the player's character model) to make sure they are accessible to everyone. The notes below are what I've written down. They aren't too well-articulated, but all of the info is there, minus the caps, etc. Everything below that has been written in bold text is identical to what I've included in the "sr1 notes about changing character models.txt" file that I've included with some of my mods (any of the ones that change the player's character model in any way). Give 'em a read. Spread 'em around. Do what you have to do.

**originally created 21/10/2023, converted to .txt format so one can easily view it out of the box via Notepad.

21/10/2023;

notes by Jacob_MP/Modder's Playground: https://www.youtube.com/@moddersplayground https://twitter.com/ModdersPlaygro1

***for the xenia emulated version of this game
Saints Row (2006), changing character models

more specifically, replacing the player's original character model so it would appear as if they are playing as another in-game character (i.e. julius, johnny gat, etc.)

ditched the caps and other stuff in these notes as i had to scrawl this down asap

textures often not preloaded (scripted to appear; the game remembers them to make them appear) for character models when they're modded to replace the player's character model.

i.e. if the player is using julius' or johnny gat's character model instead of their own, then the textures for the replacement character model will not appear until the player is on a mission when said textures are preloaded (i.e. in this case, if julius or johnny gat appears at all in this mission, besides cutscenes - in the case of such characters appearing in only a cutscene, the necessary character model textures will only be preloaded for that cutscene)

tried editing peg (texture) files, the .xml files inside of said peg files and even replacing/renaming textures to fit those of the playa and the character model that i wanna play as. even tried copying and pasting textures from other character models into the player's peg file, replacing said peg file with another character model's peg file and renaming it so the game reads this new peg file as the player's, but to no avail (the game gets stuck in an infinite loading loop, regardless of whether i start a new game or load an existing one)

replacing pc_body.cmesh file with another one will make the player play as another in-game character. some cmesh character models have two parts to accommodate for different pedestrian variants (i.e. the white, blonde-haired business woman in the downtown districts is one example i can recall; different clothing options may appear on this character model, like many other peds in-game)
**done only in the misc2 folder

also, if the player is playing as a different in-game character, make sure to remove any instances or code where the player is forced to wear different clothing in the 3rd street vice kings mission by editing the vk06a.lua file in misc (not present in misc2); this prevents the player from being stuck in an infinite loading screen upon completing, failing or cancelling the mission. ***ALREADY PACKAGED IN THE ATTACHED MOD

extracted files for this game using the phantasy row sdk (software development kit): https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum...mod-manager-patch-system-user-friendly.20220/

**if phantasy row sdk gets removed from saintsrowmods.com then try looking up "phantasy row sdk" or any other modding/extraction/repacking tools on this site

more sr1 modding info for beginners (credits to flippy/flipster/sr1gigachad):

possible solutions regarding texture preloading problem;

1) edit each individual mission file (.lua) to somehow make the character model that the player is using get loaded into the game (preferably out of sight and/or out of reach) so the player doesn't have to run around with a character model with no textures applied to it. also somehow get said character model loaded into free roam and activities.

OR

2) have the player's desired character model loaded into the in-game world at all times so the necessary character model textures are preloaded into the game, regardless of whether or not the player is on a mission or activity.

.xbtl and .lua files were checked through, with a few .cts (cutscene) files checked here and there

hope this helps any modders out there

I hope they help you out, regardless of whether you're a modder or a curious fan of the Saints Row games. I've also attached the original .txt file to this thread, incase that's any help. I've been sitting on this for a good while and there's more that's yet to come.

Until then, stay classy!

Jacob_MP.

CabooseSayzWTF (14/05/2024):

"If you want to fix the free roam texture issue, you can just take any texture that isn't loading right, extract it, and add it to the always_loaded.peg file in pegfiles, take the texture entries from the peg xml file and add the entries into the peg xml file for always loaded. You'll have to do that for any texture that isn't loading right. Example, most of johnny working via free-roam non mission and non ringing johnny up to be in the world. I just got home and got most of johnny working in about 3 mins. I can't guarantee this to always work, johnny here has broken shoe texture and I think belt texture, and the gold chain may be slightly meh but anyways maybe this will help you for future reference. if you don't want to do that, you can also just place the NPC in the world in a cts file such as sr_city.cts and set up a human spawn for it outside the map and give it the invulnerable flag and enable respawn flag (just be sure to set the stream load distance very very far), which does work also however cutscenes will most likely ignore the manually placed ped."

 

[Ricsow]

There's a much easier way to get the texture files for the character model loaded all the time that works flawlessly without any texture glitches or the need for spawning in an NPC, I've also figured out how to give the model swaps facial animations in cutscenes. It's very simple:

Take the peg_xbox2 file for the NPC, and then take pc_body.peg_xbox2 from misc 2, then delete the contents of pc_body and paste everything from the NPC's texture file into that. Then, make a copy of the NPC's morph file and name it pc_facial, it's that easy, works without a hitch

 

[Ricsow]

There's a much easier way to get the texture files for the character model loaded all the time that works flawlessly without any texture glitches or the need for spawning in an NPC, I've also figured out how to give the model swaps facial animations in cutscenes. It's very simple:

View attachment 43444

Take the peg_xbox2 file for the NPC, and then take pc_body.peg_xbox2 from misc 2, then delete the contents of pc_body and paste everything from the NPC's texture file into that. Then, make a copy of the NPC's morph file and name it pc_facial, it's that easy, works without a hitch
View attachment 43445

Just note that on some occassions, using the pc_body peg file may cause an infinite load when starting the game, in that case use sr_alwaysload_user, it's better than the regular alwaysload peg file which from my experience causes texture issues when messed with

 

[Jacob_MP]

Brilliant find! I remember trying something similar a while ago, around 2023-24 or so after making my Johnny Gat and Julius player character mods, though I kept getting the infinite loading screens.

 

[Ricsow]

Brilliant find! I remember trying something similar a while ago, around 2023-24 or so after making my Johnny Gat and Julius player character mods, though I kept getting the infinite loading screens.

I think peg files have a certain limit to them where they break if you add too many files to them, the game needs the player textures so it loads infinitely if it has too much, and stuff like the alwaysload textures will have texture glitches once you add too much

 

[-SeaboundSaint-]

All of this also applies for SR2 on PC. Thanks to this thread, I've managed to replace Playa's body with the leftover bodies used to build Story NPCs during the game's development!

 

[Ricsow]

All of this also applies for SR2 on PC. Thanks to this thread, I've managed to replace Playa's body with the leftover bodies used to build Story NPCs during the game's development!

I find it cool that all the NPCs in 2 are made entirely with the character editor, although I admit I think it’s a downgrade from SR1 where the unique NPCs looked better

 

[-SeaboundSaint-]

I find it cool that all the NPCs in 2 are made entirely with the character editor, although I admit I think it’s a downgrade from SR1 where the unique NPCs looked better

I do agree actually. But there's something to be said in regards to immersion in having the protagonist look as though they belong in the game world alongside other characters.

The WWE games (my other favourite game series) had a similar issue. Create-A-Wrestlers never matched the fidelity of the official roster wrestlers (especially Smackdown vs Raw 2004). You could tell they were CAWs. But in more modern games, even basic CAWs compare well with the official roster models. And a big reason for that is that the clothing CAWs can wear is interchangeable with the official wrestlers. Much like in Saints Row 2, between Playa and NPCs. An interesting parallel from another former THQ series.

 

[Ricsow]

But there's something to be said in regards to immersion in having the protagonist look as though they belong in the game world alongside other characters.

Honestly I do have to say that I think the Playa and the clothes he can wear in SR1 have a higher fidelity than in SR2 so I wouldn't say he really looked out of place. The slight drop in quality was understandable though seeing as clothes were completely colorable now, plus the addition of a female playa and a gender slider.

 

[-SeaboundSaint-]

Honestly I do have to say that I think the Playa and the clothes he can wear in SR1 have a higher fidelity than in SR2 so I wouldn't say he really looked out of place. The slight drop in quality was understandable though seeing as clothes were completely colorable now, plus the addition of a female playa and a gender slider.

Yeah. I'm not disputing that. I'd say SR1 has more of a "perceived cohesiveness", while SR2 has a "literal cohesiveness". SR1's clothes do look better, and make the protagonist more recognizable as the protagonist. But you couldn't recreate an NPC in SR1, like you can in SR2, because the customization items in SR2 are literally the same as NPCs. Both approaches have their pros and cons. But I guess we're really just comparing apples to apples here.

You can see in this early SR1 build that Playa originally had more detailed face textures which changed depending on race preset. I guess they went with a single, more generic texture to both save space and allow for the skin saturation/luminosity sliders.

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I should really get around to playing SR1 again. Tbh, I haven't played it modded yet. Your mods will be some of the first I try when I do! Femme Fatale looks awesome (especially Zombie Lin with her melee anims)!