Mass Effect 1: ME3Explorer using TPFs

[Spyder Arachnid]

So I'm doing a playthrough of the Mass Effect games, and I'm using ME3Explorer this time instead of Texmod.

 

I got the MEUITM installed just fine, but when it comes to old Texmods, they just won't work.

 

For instance, the Mass Effect HD Face Texture mod. When I open it in ME3Explorer using the TPF/DDS Tools and then analyze it, it says that the textures cannot be found in the tree.

 

The naming of the textures are weird and don't match the names of the actual textures. So I went browsing through my tree trying to find them, found the ones I needed to replace, and renamed them to those names. And it still says cannot be found in the tree.

 

I really want to use this face texture for Mass Effect 1, but I just can't seem to figure out what I am doing wrong and why it won't recognize it. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[27X]

Saltisgood actually addresses this in in the launch post, original texmod packages will NOT work with the latest versions of explorer, especially if they are saved and packaged as TGA or JPGs or 8bpc DDS files. ME3 uses a completely different format than 1 or 2. The reason they worked with Texmod is texmod is literally injecting them after ME3 launches, so they are used "correctly" but I guarantee you they actually don't look 100% right, especially with any kind of shading or shader effect applied to them (power use, cinematics etc)

 

What you need to do is open the EXISTING facemaps as ->channels<- in photoshop and then also open these texmods AFTER EXTRACTING them and replace each channel manually, making sure before you paste them in, that they are saved as the CURRENT explorer DDS format, which is not the same in most cases.

 

It's important that the hashes remain named as they are in the NEW format, else they ain't gonna ever show up.

 

 

 

 

incorrect format: (look at the lighting on Wrex's helmet

 

 

correct coverted over format: the collector textures was an me2 tga mod, now converted over to ME3's format:

 

 

 

 

[Spyder Arachnid]

Oh goodness. Thanks for the heads up on that. Figured something like that would end up being the case.

 

I think I'll just stick with using them via Texmod then. At least for ME1. Less work lol.

 

Thanks though, appreciate it.