Trouble with Hex Editing

[90SK]

I've recently been trying to replace the model of mandalore with the default mandalorian model, with aggravating results. I've never seen the textures: the game either crashes, I get an invisible mandalore, or I get an untextured mandalorian. The untextured mandalorian is the closest I've gotten. I reached it by:

 

Saving n_mandalorian.mdl/mdx as p_mandalorebb.mdl/mdx.

 

Hex editing the model; changing the texture from n_mandalorian to P_Mandalore01.

 

Renaming the texture P_Mandalore01.

 

 

Now, originally I was using P_MandB as the name of the texture, just to keep consistent with the game defaults, but I changed up after reading some threads on past hex editing problems. Still, it doesn't work. Am I missing something blindingly obvious? I expiremented with just replacing the mandalore model with the default mandalorian (without hex editing) and I got the same results.

 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Achilles]

I suppose you have your reasons, but have you considered using the easy method (e.g. appearance.2da)? Find line 462 and change the modela and texa columns from P_MandaloreBB to N_Mandalorian. That should accomplish the same thing and save you a lot of trouble.

 

...or am I missing something blindingly obvious?

 

EDIT: You'll have to change the Race column to N_Mandalorian as well in order for it to work. I hope that helps.

[90SK]

But yeah, I was basically attempting to do the opposite of what nodakrattler did with this mod. He did it sans appearence.2da, and I prefer to avoid using it, so I figured I'd use the hex editing way.

 

Anyway, I tried that out and I still got an untextured mandalorian. This may or may not be due to the fact that TSL doesn't like to replace 2da files, but I have yet to fully test it. It's still useful to know though, Achilles, so thanks for the tip.

 

None the less, I would still appreciate it greatly if someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong with the hex editing, just for future reference.

[Achilles]

No way around it friend. Nodarattler was working with a completely different model; a model that has editable texture references. The game manages the mandalorian textures via the appearance.2da file, not the mdl/mdx files. If you open the model in a hex editor, you won't be able to find a reference for the texture, therefore you can't change it, therefore you end up with blank mandalorians.

 

You can certainly extract the model files, rename them, hex edit them, and drop them in your Override folder if it makes you feel better, but they won't do anything there except take up space. Seriously.

 

BTW, in my previous message, I forgot to mention that you will also have to change the racetex column to N_Mandalorian01, N_Mandalorian02, or N_Mandalorian03 depending on which color you want Mandalore to be.

 

The good news is that this method will work.

[Jackel]

untextured mandalorian is the closest I've gotten.

You could always call him a snow trooper ...

 

Another way to make him look like a normal Mandalorian without model editing or appearance.2da file changes would be finding the uti file for his armour* and adding a disguise property to it to point to the mandalorian armour colour you want him to look like. This way he still keeps the same defense properties his armour provides but looks like the normal guys.

 

*Look up his utc file, find the name of it there then look it up in the bif files.

 

And slightly off topic. Achilles that is a scary avatar.

[Achilles]

^^^^

 

Yep, that would work too

[90SK]

Complete!

 

I ended up more or less using the method Jackel proposed, in the same fashion that was used with the "Juhani's Sanctuary Threads" mod.

 

Anyway, thanks to you both for helping me out.