Saints Row The Third Modding Basics

Mottainai said:
Assuming the problem still exists, here's an example of my latest project to illustrate how I have been dealing with .asm_pc files:

I edited my female character's skin so she had long white gloves - I'm a sucker for long gloves. The files I was working with were 'Default female diffuse.str2_pc' and 'customize_player.asm_pc'. I unpacked and edited and so on, but that's not important here; once I finished editing I repacked the texture .dds into the relevant .cvgm_pc and .gvbm_pc files in a subdirectory called 'Default female diffuse', then repacked them into an .str2_pc by dragging the whole directory onto Gibbed.SaintsRow3.PackSTR2.exe (this is described elsewhere and only really applies to textures; the point is, this is how you make the .str2_pc so that it works, NOT by dragging it onto a .bat file as described by Miku above - put that leek down and try again =P ) and renamed the 'Default female diffuse_PACKED.str2_pc' file that was created so it was called ' Default female diffuse.str2_pc ', the same as the original file. Then I copied the old 'customize_player.asm_pc' into the tools directory and updated my .bat file so that it read:

Code: 
REM param 1 is the file name to save - param 2 is the folder containing the str2 pc files
REM Gibbed.SaintsRow3.PackSTR2.exe 'Default female diffuse.str2_pc' 'Default female diffuse'
 
REM param 1 is the asm - param 2 is the folder with the str2 files. . means current folder
Gibbed.SaintsRow3.UpdateASM.exe customize_player.asm_pc .
pause

saved that and ran it (note that the second line is commented out because I already did that bit seperately - I like to do one thing at once so that if a problem arises I know what's going wrong). Then I cut the newly updated customize_player.asm_pc and Default female diffuse.str2_pc, pasted them into a storage directory, copied them to the game's root directory and ran the game. Voila, long white gloves in-game.

- there has to be an existing .asm_pc file to update, it can't create one
- the .bat file can be called anything you want
- be tidy with your files - only put .str2_pc or .asm_pc files in the same directory as the tools when you're working directly on them. This will prevent things getting confused
- watch your spelling! The difference between UK and US english caused me about three hours of headscratching...

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Your explanation is very clear, and I'm about to try this. I'll post my results in a few minutes. :) or questions if more arise. Thank you.
 
Ok, so i need a little help
when i extract .str2_pc files with bibbed I get this error , i have a folder that it extracts to still but when i use the editing tool for textures it says its not a valid cpeg file which it says that it is ... im so confused on what im doing wrong,...
 

Attachments

  • error.png
    error.png
    241.2 KB · Views: 796
  • error2.png
    error2.png
    173.1 KB · Views: 803
So I'm wanting to modify some of the clothes textures... The problem is all of the .str2_pc files for the clothes are named in a VERY non-descriptive way. Is there a way to find the textures I want other than going through each file?

Well i managed to find the textures I wanted, but there are 2 versions of each thing: custmesh_#######.str2_pc and custmesh_#######f.str2_pc. Using the one w/o an "f" doesn't change the texture in-game, but using the one w/ an "f" causes the game to freeze when loading. Using them both does the same. What do?
 
Any time you change the contents of a str2_pc file, you also need to update the corresponding asm file as well. Forgetting that step is the #1 cause of lockups.
 
Well I'm at least attempting to update it. Whether or not its actually working is another question. The weird thing is that I was able to modify the Default female diffuse texture without any problems using the same method, so i don't understand why this isn't working...

Also, I found out using custmesh_#f doesn't necessarily lock up the game, it just glitches out the item.
 
Hello, I'm trying to extract misc_tables and I really have no understanding of the term "run a bat file" or whatever, I haven't done this before in my life so naturally I'm stuck. Is there any advice I can follow?
 
TNSGT said:
Hello, I'm trying to extract misc_tables and I really have no understanding of the term "run a bat file" or whatever, I haven't done this before in my life so naturally I'm stuck. Is there any advice I can follow?
Click to expand...

A batch file is simply a text file with the extension changed from .txt to .bat. In simple terms, you would create a new text file by right clicking in the folder and creating one, renaming it from "New Document.txt" to something like "unpack.bat", right clicking on your shiny new bat file and choosing Edit, then typing in those commands and saving it. You would run it by just double clicking on it afterwards.

EDIT:
You also want to make sure that you set your Windows folder view options to show extensions. You can do this in Control Panel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top