Rune Factory 5 modding

[anym6]

The english version of the game has released in the us and eu.  The game has a lot of potential for modding.  Unlike previous games in the series it looks like it uses Unity version 2019.4.17f1 which is an archived version that can be downloaded still and which unity asset bundle extractor and unity asset bundle extractor avalonia both support.  The data is split up across about 43 thousand random files but can be opened in unity asset studio with the load folder option and most assets are in containers.  Models and textures can be edited however people normally do that I think.  I have tried following a guide to do a test mesh edit in blender but it was invisible in the game.  I do not really know what I am doing so I am just glad it did not crash the game.  It should be possible to edit scripts as well.  I am opening this topic for people to discuss modding the game if anyone besides me is interested.

[adolsilver]

Definitely interested, as I heard there was some leftover content in the Japanese version for potential dlc marriage candidate's that supposedly got scrapped, though I forget where I read that, also I see people playing it on Yuzu with better performance than the switch itself, I don't really know a thing about how Yuzu works, but I wonder if it's easier to see edited sprites/models on Yuzu than using a modded switch.

[DORODERE]

2 minutes ago, adolsilver said:

Definitely interested, as I heard there was some leftover content in the Japanese version for potential dlc marriage candidate's that supposedly got scrapped, though I forget where I read that, also I see people playing it on Yuzu with better performance than the switch itself, I don't really know a thing about how Yuzu works, but I wonder if it's easier to see edited sprites/models on Yuzu than using a modded switch.

Almost every game runs better on Yuzu/Ryujinx with a higher resolution and framerate. The Switch is weaker than your average smartphone at this point. Modding them is exactly the same though. Its the exact same files in the exact same folder structure. Mods created for Switch should work out of the box on an emulator from what I've seen in the past.

[anym6]

I do not think the switch is actually worse than most smartphones at gaming.  Do not only look at clock frequencies.  The tegra chip is not bad and the operating system is better for games.  Of course a pc will do better and an emulator can make things run and look better.  I think maybe this game may get ported to pc later like Rune Factory 4 did.  I am not sure but the way it is built would make it very easy for them to port it and there is no reason for them not to.  They will probably wait a while if they do port it though.  That will be better than an emulator if they do.  The mod methods will be the same and work done now can be reused though it may have to be imported into different files.  So anything we do now can be useful later if they do.  I do not think I saw any thing in the files that looked like a dlc wedding thing.  You may have misunderstood something though.  The original japanese version of the game would not let the character date or marry opposite genders and they said they would give a dlc for the japanese version that would make it genderless after the english version came out.  Something about spoilers I did not understand.

 

I have been trying to do simple mods but I have not had a lot of luck.  I can replace textures easy but models do not work and the character becomes a floating head.  It is actually creepy.  I do not know how to change scripts either.  I tried to change the bathroomblock script by making a script that did nothing in unity and exporting then importing that and the game crashed on start.  But uabea let me remove the script and the game does not crash.  Of course everyone bathes in their swimwear so it does not mean anything but the script was annoying and it just seemed like an easy thing to search for me to test with.  If anyone is curious the script is in dbb6d89e70e6556fa0f559ffdef7cf6d.bundle

 

I could not find many guides for modding a unity game.  This was the best I could find  https://shadowrun-series.fandom.com/wiki/Modding_(very_advanced)   I have no experience with model editing and am not good at this stuff but may try to do a little if it is not too difficult but right now it is.  At least they use blender instead of 3ds max which I do not have.

Edited March 27, 2022 by anym6

[enamelbag]

Thanks for starting the topic.
I'm looking forward to the development of the RF5 mod.

 

[adolsilver]

Yeah the potential extra marriage candidates I saw people talking about last year had to do with unused voice files suggested there were plans to add more, one of which was Livia,  though I don't have a source. The switch is unfortunately weak, while obviously rf5 is not especially optimised for it, rf5's load times among other things almost kill it for me. Thank goodness it is somewhat better in the English release, I imported the Japanese Version day one and it was horrible,

also the floating head issue you mentioned surprised me, I had the opposite happen many, many times when playing the Japanese version last year, I think it had something to do with the summer day 1 beach festival, maybe character's changing into swimsuits caused it, I actually did screenshot it back then too.

[yukitokuroya]

Switch is faster to navigate through compared to Steam. I had to apply Dism to make that trash Valve platform work as it should out of the box(as all other platforms work normally, only steam slowed down to a crawl).

[anym6]

I do not understand what that has to do with anything.

 

@adolsilver The floating head thing is because it is not loading the body model that I tried changing not a game bug.  Any way I try to import the raw mesh it does not seem to work in the game and probably does not load at all.  The hair and face are a separate mesh that I did not change so they load.  I do not have this problem except with meshes I have modded.

 

I do not think Livia would ever be a marriage candidate.

Maybe big spoiler

Spoiler

Livia is one of the dragons and has watched humans age for too long to be comfortable marrying one only to watch them die in a short span of her time.

I can tell you there is not a Livia marriage outfit or video.  I do not think there are any files that would be used for any sort of relationship with Livia.

 

Of course if people got serious about modding the game someone could probably add in stuff like this.  It might not be very hard to do for those who know what they are doing.

Edited March 28, 2022 by anym6

[adolsilver]

I know about the spoilers, otherwise there is no way she could have ever even been considered as a marriage candidate because she looks too young without that knowledge, on another note, I tried to find the voice files I mentioned, right now the only thing that comes up is 4chan posts that potentially has them, but I don't really use 4chan, it was a pure Japanese forum that was discussing it last year, I was attempting to look into the jp versions data and was curious of what others found, anyway sorry for the trouble.

Edited March 28, 2022 by adolsilver

[Darkening Demise]

Unity based and if it ever comes to PC. You can beat people will be going ape shit with modifications.

[PepeLordd]

1 hour ago, Darkening Demise said:

Unity based and if it ever comes to PC. You can beat people will be going ape shit with modifications.

lmao right

[anym6]

Maybe not.  I thought people would do that with Rune Factory 4 but I did not see a lot of mods for it.  There were already tools to do a lot since the files were the same type as the original and the switch port once they were unpacked.  Maybe 5 will do better.  I would really like to see mods before then though.  We do not know that it definitely will come to pc or when if it will.  Besides adult mods the game would benefit from things like better combat stuff but I do not think the series is as popular as it should be.

Edited March 29, 2022 by anym6

[enamelbag]

When I tried to make a mod for RF4SP, the general format was the same, but the 3D models were in a slightly different format and could not be converted directly using Switch's tools.

I'd never made a mod before, I wasn't familiar with reverse engineering and there were no knowledgeable people around, so I gave up on editing the 3D models.

When RF5 comes out on Steam I'll get serious about making mods too... The only thing I can contribute to this community right now is editing portraits.

[adolsilver]

I am very curious on if the game would load edited portraits correctly. I don't have a pc that is powerful enough to run Yuzu without it being exceedingly slow but I do have a modded switch that can test things out.

Edited March 29, 2022 by adolsilver

[enamelbag]

Upload one previously edited portrait as a test.
In the game, there are seven images of the same outfit with different expressions, and this image seems to be one of the swimming costume outfits.

[anym6]

Yeah replacing textures like those used for the portraits is actually really easy.  Drawing the portraits is not easy though.  I tested a few on my own but nothing worth sharing.  If it helps here are the normal number ranges

100s are normal outfits

200s are swimwear

300s are sleepwear

400s are wedding outfits

 

There are exceptions.  Only marriage candidates have wedding outfits.  And bigger exceptions.  Livia has 100s and 200s that are the normal outfit only different on the back for example.

 

 

I think the rf4 models could be modified using the process for the switch with switch toolbox but I am not sure since I could never edit models.  I have seen a lot of unity games get full model edits though so I think it must be easy for the people who know how to do it.  I hope that we will see full model edits for this game.

Edited March 29, 2022 by anym6

[adolsilver]

56 minutes ago, anym6 said:

Yeah replacing textures like those used for the portraits is actually really easy.  Drawing the portraits is not easy though.  I tested a few on my own but nothing worth sharing.  If it helps here are the normal number ranges

100s are normal outfits

200s are swimwear

300s are sleepwear

400s are wedding outfits

 

There are exceptions.  Only marriage candidates have wedding outfits.  And bigger exceptions.  Livia has 100s and 200s that are the normal outfit only different on the back for example.

 

 

I think the rf4 models could be modified using the process for the switch with switch toolbox but I am not sure since I could never edit models.  I have seen a lot of unity games get full model edits though so I think it must be easy for the people who know how to do it.  I hope that we will see full model edits for this game.

I was debating asking about just that for the past 2 hours but I guess I'll just ask, I'm looking through the files on asset studio gui and was going to attempt a simple portrait swap between Fuuka and Hina, I see the files that would need to be swapped, but I don't have a clue how to switch them out....

[disposabletemp]

You can use UABEA (https://github.com/nesrak1/UABEA) to import/export the portrait image from the asset file.

[anym6]

Yes though it is easier to use unity asset studio to find the files to extract first then uabea to import because of the way these are split.  I do not know if this will work though.  You also have to swap the sactx files for their mouth and eye movements but I think they will not line up.  You may have to either move the character portraits so the faces line up exactly or find whatever script does the faces and modify that.

[adolsilver]

Even after asset studio gui 0.16.0 loads all the uncompressed files and lists them, is it normal for it to still eat up a ton of memory, also I assume I am extracting the .bundle file as a folder from the scene hiearchy tab, and not a png from the asset list tab correct?

Edited March 30, 2022 by adolsilver

[darcyen]

I'm hopeing for model swaps at some point. some of the best marriage candidates aren't marriageable. So swapping priscilla ith her sister elsje would be dope. Or better yet replace all of the bachlors with the unmarriable women models. like reinhard to - simone  and murakumo to Misasagi

[DORODERE]

5 minutes ago, darcyen said:

I'm hopeing for model swaps at some point. some of the best marriage candidates aren't marriageable. So swapping priscilla ith her sister elsje would be dope. Or better yet replace all of the bachlors with the unmarriable women models. like reinhard to - simone  and murakumo to Misasagi

Misasagi not being marriageable is a literal crime.

[darcyen]

2 hours ago, DEMONDICE said:

Misasagi not being marriageable is a literal crime.

Facts

[anym6]

9 hours ago, adolsilver said:

Even after asset studio gui 0.16.0 loads all the uncompressed files and lists them, is it normal for it to still eat up a ton of memory, also I assume I am extracting the .bundle file as a folder from the scene hiearchy tab, and not a png from the asset list tab correct?

Yes it is normal for it to use a lot of memory.  I think it needs about 10 g to load then about 7 g to run.  If your system has less it will use a lot of swap and take a very long time.  If you are only swapping textures it will be fine to only export pngs from the asset tab.  If you right click on a file it has an option to open explorer to the bundle file so you know which one to modify.

 

There is a catalog.json file but the formatting is awful.

Edited March 30, 2022 by anym6

[adolsilver]

For some reason right clicking on the texture asset and then clicking to see what bundle it is in does not work, so I had to do extra steps by clicking the texture, going to the raw tab and copying the string value of the bundle, then searching rf5's content dump folder to figure out what bundle file the texture is in, I replaced some of fuuka's texture files with hina's, unfortunately it just makes fuuka not have any portrait appear at all for her default, swimming or pajama portraits so no luck there.

Edited March 31, 2022 by adolsilver