Extracting strategies

In this section we present ways to extract SWTOR's game assets, determine the ones we need, and see about how to assemble, texture and render them, or maybe modify them. There are basically three methods to get the game's 3D objects we might be interested in:

1. Using online tools at websites such as Jedipedia.net or TORCommunity.com to obtain identifying information, then using that information to collect the assets among those extracted through either the Slicers GUI or the old EasyMYP tools. Depending on the capabilities of the 3D apps where we'll assemble the assets, we might use them in their native formats, or convert them to common 3D and 2D formats first through applications such as Blender.

   The advantage of this method is that it can be automated to some extent. The Character Designer (and the asset database's 3D viewer, too) at TORCommunity.com is able to produce files describing all the 3D objects, their texture files, and their materials' attributes needed for any combination of player character features and armor gear, out of a replica of both SWTOR's Character Creator screen and Outfit Designer window. In this Github we have the Slicers GUI tool that can take those files and collect all the assets involved (from an EasyMYP or Slicers GUI extraction).

   Still, we'll explain in these pages how the information-gathering and assets-locating process works, as it is still necessary in order to find other game objects such as weapons, vehicles, environmental stuff, etc. Also, it can help others to build their own tools and be more adventurous in their 3D experiments: for example, combining assets in ways that the game won't do but are perfectly possible (say, applying the normal map of a Body Type 3 to other types, to give them the same muscled appearance) or using material properties and user-created maps in ways SWTOR doesn't (for example, creating full body tattoos, glowy Sith eyes, etc.).

2. Using ripping tools like Ninja Ripper to take a "3D snapshot" of all the assets present in a given scene of the game while it's running (such as, for example, the ones showing up while at a Characters Selection screen), then loading the resulting files into a 3D app to isolate the parts we are interested in.

   The advantage of this method is that we don't need to know much about the game's naming and organization conventions: everything in the scene is thrown inside a folder. The disadvantage is that, obviously, we can't capture the armor gear our characters don't own yet, or environmental stuff from places we don't have access to yet.

   That's not the only one: this method won't save us from having to deal with the non-standard (though hardly unusual) way Bioware deals with texture map files: things like storing emissiveness and opacity maps inside normal maps' unused channels. It won't get us the character and surrounding objects posed the way we saw them in the game when capturing the scene, either: the characters will appear in a neutral "A-Pose" (like a "T-Pose" but with the arms lowered at an angle) and everything will be centered at coordinates 0,0,0. There will be multiple duplicates of most objects. Also, the objects and textures will have a simple numbered name scheme. In short, cleaning and tidying up will be terribly tedious. Given all that, this method looks more appropriate to cases where we absolutely want to extract something that can't be achieved by other means.

   Interestingly enough, Ninja Ripper can rip 3D models from web browsers, too, and there are a few websites with 3D visors for SWTOR objects such as creatures, bosses, armor, weapons… That could be the best fit for this method, as clean-up ought to be minimal.

   Here there is a guide about this tool's usage: Exporting a Player Model to Blender (The NinjaRipper Method).

   WARNING: the latest Ninja Ripper (2.0.5 beta) seems not to work well with SWTOR. Staying with 2.0.4 is recommended for the time being.

3. Looking for preassembled models posted in sites such as DeviantArt.com or Steam's forums, mostly non-player characters: companions, popular characters such as a Darth Marr or a Darth Revan (I know, I know 😅 )… They usually are in the XNALara format used by XPS (XnaPosingStudio) a popular and free game characters posing app, which might suffice for producing the artwork out of them. There is an excellent importer/exporter for 3D apps like Blender if one wants to go beyond that. There's also Garry's Mod, Valve's Source Filmmaker and other apps.

Of those methods, the first is the most flexible and the one we are going to focus on most, as knowing what is what and where it is allows us to experiment. Say, use a body type 3's skin relief map (its normal map) on a body type 1 model to make them more muscular, combine or edit hair styles, use armor sets that we don't own yet, export the results to other apps such as Tabletop Simulator, or even 'mod' SWTOR with retouched versions of the assets!