Are you MODDER? Tell us it should be on the new Redkit for Cyberpunk 2077

[Trykz]

I doubt this is even possible, given the amount of middleware used in this game. You can't edit a head mesh without running into JALI bones. You can't modify flora/fauna without slamming your face into speedtree. You can't replace car engine sounds without bashing into wwise.

I just don't see how its possible to secure dozens of non commercial, third party sub licenses from middleware providers when there is no incentive for them to ever do so.

This is not even getting into the fact that wolvenkit already exists and is a WIP attempt to unify lots of different tools into a single workflow in one application for one game, so already an official toolkit is substantially repeating what wolvenkit already attempts to do. And this is not getting into the fact that a lot of mods are not made with wolvenkit anyway because its new and its internal logic is highly specific to Cyberpunk and so it doesn't have a massive repository of general problems, solutions, methods and tutorials which hex/noesis has.

If this is truly the case, then this venture is doomed from the start. If they can't surpass Witcher level modding capability because they rely so heavily on third party applications to prop up the engine, then the level of modability will be generally the same. And that's not going to cut it.

The reason I could even learn any of this at all, having no relevant skills at the outset is because there was already a giant army of people who did it this way before Cyberpunk was released. And they passed what they learned down to me. And I suppose its one of my responsibilities to pass down what I know to someone else.

There were times when people left to mod other games and it felt to me like there was a danger that if person x, y and z all left to mod RE Engine stuff, there would be no active member of the community who would be able to pass down knowledge to the next person about a specific problem they had a lot of expertise in and it would be lost.

It is appealing to think that a tool can be created that does everything and it can be supported in perpetuity and it will be so intuitive to use that it doesn't need an eye watering amount of documentation and that if you ask for help, there will always be someone who understands the problem and can guide you towards the solution via a workflow that exists entirely in one app.

I don't "think" anything. I "know" that if they can't GREATLY surpass the level of modability of their previous titles, then I also know that this is a colossal waste of time. If modders can't perform simple tasks such as importing custom assets, adding custom locations, creating a custom companion, or scripting a meaningful quest, then most aren't going to bother. Because what's left? Paint schemes and clothing/vehicle replacers/retextures. The very things I've said all along, simply aren't going to cut it.

This is magical thinking. I'm glad you mentioned creation kit because the reason games like Skyrim can be modded on the scale that it is, is largely because there is a giant army of people with very diverse skillsets and general knowledge about creation engine modding going back to the gamebryo days.

Yes. Skyrim's community of modders is quite large. But that has little to do with the "diverse skillsets", and more to do with the "general knowledge". And the reason for that is because of the power and intuitiveness of Bethesda's toolsets. The overall modding community was quite small prior to Oblivion. The Construction Set expanded the community exponentially. And then again with FONV. And yet again with Skyrim. And even yet again with Fallout 4. Suddenly, ANYONE could learn to mod relatively quickly, and with a powerful, intuitive tool at their disposal with which to learn to create the things they wanted in their game, using just stock assets if they didn't know Blender, Nifskope, Photoshop or GIMP to create and import custom components. MANY started in that very order. Learn the kit, make what you can, and if you were so inclined, learn a couple of third party tools to greatly expand your modding potential. No one taught me squat. Yet here I sit, modding in TWO expansive 100+ stage quests to Skyrim. And my third custom android race into Fallout 4.

If this game engine crutches that much on third party applications for everything it does, then it won't feed into the modding community in any significant way. This isn't "magical thinking". It's what they "need to do". Because again, "rudimentary" isn't going to cut it. CDPR cannot afford to just draw in "it's own little bubble" of modders from their previous titles. And only powerful, intuitive tools are going to draw in modders from the overall modding community. I've never modded a CDPR title in my life. But I DO want to mod this game. But if their toolset won't let me get into it neck deep right away without learning a half-dozen NEW tools outside of their kit, then I suppose you'll find me elsewhere. And I doubt many other "non-CDPR title" modders will bother either. Not if it takes that much effort just to do the most basic stuff.

I'm probably wishing for way too much though. (-_-)

I'm beginning to suspect I'm right there with you. There seems to be more folks pointing out what "can't" be done, than there are those pointing out what "can".

 

[Bartinga2077]

You can already recolour pretty much anything, and its better than sliders. The only thing we haven't done yet in materials is reverse engineering shaders, so right now we can't really modify REDEngine material templates (.mt files).

There are over a hundred material templates for all kinds of things like hair, skin, eyes, glass, metal etc. and special purpose ones for decal meshes, parallax effects, multilayer diffuse etc.

As you said that you can already recolor pretty much everything, are you guys actually going to offer up such a mod for Cyberpunk 2077 soon? Or does something else need to happen first to make that possible?

 

[GogRelvas]

As you said that you can already recolor pretty much everything, are you guys actually going to offer up such a mod for Cyberpunk 2077 soon? Or does something else need to happen first to make that possible?

There are a lot of mods like that already.
Edit: sorry do you mean a mod that lets us use all the possible textures on all objects? That I don't know if it exists

 

[Bartinga2077]

There are a lot of mods like that already.
Edit: sorry do you mean a mod that lets us use all the possible textures on all objects? That I don't know if it exists

I meant a mod with which you can recolor any and all clothes in Cyberpunk 2077, like you can with the Colorizer mod for SWPT. If there is one, can you provide a link? Haven't seen one on Nexus, and can imagine it would be a mod in Burj Khalifa high demand.

 

[Hayte]

Nobody learns to mod on Nexus. The forums are dead. Nexus is just used to upload and distribute mods. You learn how to recolour materials in the modding discords.

Most garment meshes have multilayer materials. A multilayer material is like a stack of greyscale PBR textures that are stenciled onto a mesh in layers and combined at runtime. Each layer can be colourised by either repurposing an existing colour scale ID or creating a new one and changing the red, green and blue float values in the array.

Neurolinked already has a web browser based tool to speed up the process of editing multi layer setups. It has a GUI and a 3D viewport which makes prototyping designs really fast. However, you should still walk though the manual process I described earlier in the thread using a hex editor like 010. Because reading the CR2W stuff and following the chain of REDEngine material files helps you to understand what Neurolinked's tool does and how multilayer materials work. Its a very clever, flexible and efficient system for mashing up endless unique surface variations from a small library of shared textures.

Neurolinked's tool has a somewhat convoluted setup as its web server based. Like many third party tools for Cyberpunk, it is work in progress and is improving all the time.

Mods and tools with manual setup tend not to go on Nexus because people complain that it isn't drag and drop. But the reality is if you want to learn how to edit materials, there is a learning curve to it. Its not just as simple as selecting from a preset palette and calling it a day. The system is flexible enough that if you were to build a UI and develop a workflow for it, it would resemble a productivity app like Substance Designer.

Can the process be simplified, better documented and made more intuitive? Yes. But at some level you still need to learn how the layers work and interact with each other, what masks are, how masks relate to layers, how multiple objects can share the same textures but have them blended and layered in different ways with different colour and light interaction so they look completely different.

 

[GogRelvas]

I meant a mod with which you can recolor any and all clothes in Cyberpunk 2077, like you can with the Colorizer mod for SWPT. If there is one, can you provide a link? Haven't seen one on Nexus, and can imagine it would be a mod in Burj Khalifa high demand.

No I haven't. I thought you meant mods that reskinned some specific textures. Like that there are a lot. I missinterpreted.
But I play on console, haven't searched much.

 

[tuffgamer0]

It would be great to be able to mod files without packing (making atchives).

Just putting modded files to Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod folder?

For instance, it could like this

I mod some texture, and then i put it in mod folder like this:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
file name replaces original file but it is moded:
s1_008_ma_shoe__elegant_n01.xbm

So game recognizes file path and checks if there is similar file name to original then loads new file except original...

 

[Hayte]

It would be great to be able to mod files without packing (making atchives).

Just putting modded files to Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod folder?

For instance, it could like this

I mod some texture, and then i put it in mod folder like this:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
file name replaces original file but it is moded:
s1_008_ma_shoe__elegant_n01.xbm

So game recognizes file path and checks if there is similar file name to original then loads new file except original...

I dont think this is a good idea. The whole point of archives is that all the assets and dependencies required for a mod to work are self contained in the archive. Think of them like zip files that the game can read without having to unzip them.

As soon as you start dealing with loose files/folders you lose track of which assets and dependencies are required by each mod. You can overwrite shared dependencies and removing a mod you dont like will be hell.

If you dont like an archive mod you move it to another folder or delete it. You dont have to chase down a bunch of REDengine files, hex edit them, find all the filepaths and intermediary files required by it and delete those.

Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager. You dont need one for Cyberpunk modding. In fact, mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. They are slower to install mods, enable/disable them and you have less control over load order (which is numerical then alphabetical).

The game already recognises modified assets in archive. We try to avoid modifying basegame assets as much as possible because the game makes liberal use of asset sharing. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it.

What we do instead is make a copy of the texture we want to edit and instance it. We point the mesh material instance to the filepath of the edited texture instead of the one in /base/surfaces/. This way you change only the appearance of the object you want to edit and leave everything else the same.

 

[tuffgamer0]

I dont think this is a good idea. The whole point of archives is that all the assets and dependencies required for a mod to work are self contained in the archive. Think of them like zip files that the game can read without having to unzip them.

As soon as you start dealing with loose files/folders you lose track of which assets and dependencies are required by each mod. You can overwrite shared dependencies and removing a mod you dont like will be hell.

If you dont like an archive mod you move it to another folder or delete it. You dont have to chase down a bunch of REDengine files, hex edit them, find all the filepaths and intermediary files required by it and delete those.

Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager. You dont need one for Cyberpunk modding. In fact, mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. They are slower to install mods, enable/disable them and you have less control over load order (which is numerical then alphabetical).

The game already recognises modified assets in archive. We try to avoid modifying basegame assets as much as possible because the game makes liberal use of asset sharing. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it.

What we do instead is make a copy of the texture we want to edit and instance it. We point the mesh material instance to the filepath of the edited texture instead of the one in /base/surfaces/. This way you change only the appearance of the object you want to edit and leave everything else the same.

​

Hayte​

Well, all things u descibed doesn't actually look as good u described.

Firstoffall let me remind that I propose named folder in file path:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
So no dependencies problem.

1. Deleting. Deleting/moving/renaming archive == deleting/moving/renaming folder.
2. Overwriting. Overwriting folder name == overwritng archive name.
3. Loosing track. Managing archives is way harder than managing folders when u have lots of mods beacause u cannot quick look into archives and check what's inside. I know what im saying beacuse my mods has over 2000 posts and it is mainly about what is where in archives. Beacause people cannot easy check what is inside mods by them selfs.
4. Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager... Nope, Why?
5. Mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. Well this is tour opinion. But I guarantee if u will have over 100 mods will not be able to track ANY file just by looking archive names. This actually a disaster.
6. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it. Whis has nothing to do with loose files beacause this is same problem with archives.

So let me tell u real down side of archives.
First of all this is not usual packing like zip or something.
I may be wrong but u cannot pack files with new names, So u are not able to add new stuff, just replace.

For instance almost all male characters in game share one rig file. I would like to mod only main character rig and not touch any other npc.
So
I can change main character rig file name to something new and tell game to use new file path and this new name, BUT!
I cannot pack new file....

Why we cannot pack new files? Well I have my thoughs but I would have to describe whole packing process, so lets leave it.

Another good reason to loose files?
One of the most modded game in history has loose file modding ability, so it is probably not so bad.... BTW It has abilty to pack files too :O.


Well I think there is only one best way for us all mates. Give people option. U like archives ok, np. But I dont, so maybe ok too? Why not?

 

[Hayte]

​

Hayte​

Well, all things u descibed doesn't actually look as good u described.

Firstoffall let me remind that I propose named folder in file path:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
So no dependencies problem.

1. Deleting. Deleting/moving/renaming archive == deleting/moving/renaming folder.
2. Overwriting. Overwriting folder name == overwritng archive name.
3. Loosing track. Managing archives is way harder than managing folders when u have lots of mods beacause u cannot quick look into archives and check what's inside. I know what im saying beacuse my mods has over 2000 posts and it is mainly about what is where in archives. Beacause people cannot easy check what is inside mods by them selfs.
4. Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager... Nope, Why?
5. Mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. Well this is tour opinion. But I guarantee if u will have over 100 mods will not be able to track ANY file just by looking archive names. This actually a disaster.
6. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it. Whis has nothing to do with loose files beacause this is same problem with archives.

So let me tell u real down side of archives.
First of all this is not usual packing like zip or something.
I may be wrong but u cannot pack files with new names, So u are not able to add new stuff, just replace.

For instance almost all male characters in game share one rig file. I would like to mod only main character rig and not touch any other npc.
So
I can change main character rig file name to something new and tell game to use new file path and this new name, BUT!
I cannot pack new file....

Why we cannot pack new files? Well I have my thoughs but I would have to describe whole packing process, so lets leave it.

Another good reason to loose files?
One of the most modded game in history has loose file modding ability, so it is probably not so bad.... BTW It has abilty to pack files too :O.


Well I think there is only one best way for us all mates. Give people option. U like archives ok, np. But I dont, so maybe ok too? Why not?

One thing you need to understand is you cant just drop textures into random folders and expect the game to just magically know when and where to load them. You have to explictly point to them in a chain of REDEngine files that go all the way back to the mesh itself and the material shader code.

How does the game know this 3d model has this texture at this location wrapped around it? Is it even a texture that the shader has an input for? If you have multiple mods that replace the mesh and overwrite one with another, you break the associated material chain, which starts at the mesh.

Lets use an example of Almico's Sculpted mod and Avallonkao's 4k body textures. Both of these have a custom normal map (for muscle definition). Lets say you install Almico's mod with loose files as you say. How does the game know to use this custom normal map?

The player base body mesh has a material assigned to each of its submeshes. The material assignments are compressed and appended to the end of the file in a KARK buffer. If you decompress this buffer, you will get CMaterialInstances. These are instances of a hard coded material template, in this case, the template for Cyberpunk's skin shader. The skin shader is instanced for every skin colour tone, which points to a different albedo texture corresponding to each of the skin tone options at character creation.

This instance will also point to a normal map and with Sculpted, this is a custom normal that overrides the basegame one.

But lets say it works differently and it actually points to a normal map at a custom location: \Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\Almico\skin\custom_normal.xbm

How does the game know that the player base body mesh should use this normal map? Well first you need to edit the mesh. You need the mesh material buffer to explicitly point to: \Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\Almico\skin\custom_normal.xbm.

If you then install Avallonkao's 4K skin texture this is going to use a custom albedo and normal map. Lets install them to a random folder like you suggest. But if you want the player base body to point to Avallon's custom albedo and normal you need to...edit the same mesh? Now you have a conflict. These 2 mods share a dependency.

Not being able to add new items has nothing to do with archiving. We can't add new items because we need to modify tweakdb and we need runtime compiling of appearance and entity files. But that stuff is not within my skillset. You would have to ask Sombra or something to get a better idea of how this can work in practice. I believe Nim has added an item to the game but I don't know how she did it. Added, not replaced an existing item.

You can archive custom files and many modders do this. However Wolvenkit Console (formerly CP77 Tools) cannot unpack them correctly as the tool wont recognise the file hashes. It will dump them with .bin extensions in the root folder. If you know what to rename the files to and what file paths they should be at, you can recreate the file/folder structure and the mod will work. But if you don't understand the structure of the mod, you won't know what to rename things to and where they should be. This is why I upload loose folders, with custom assets (newly created textures, hex edited REDEngine files etc. so people can modify them further and pack their own .archive version of it.

The reason you need a mod manager for loose files to work is because if you install Evillord's 4K faith hair mod, these are the files and folders you would have to copy to your mod folder: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Take note that it is not just a mesh and some textures. It is all the intermediary engine files that link one to the other.

This mod replaces hair 18. If you then install any other hair mod which replaces hair 18 you have a problem. The new mesh points to different instanced materials. All the custom evilhair textures are now orphaned. Lets say you decide you don't like the new hair mod. You want to go back to Faith hair. Well you can't. You have just irreparably bricked Faith hair mod by overwriting the mesh. You need to go back to the original download, unzip the file, copy the mesh, rig and animgraph back into your mod folder.

So its easier to just archive it. Everything required by Faith hair is inside the archive. All of its dependencies stay with it. Mod users only need to handle a single file. The .archive. They do not need to handle dozens of files in convoluted folders they don't understand the relationship between.

If you decide you want to try out another Hair 18 replacer called new_hair.archive, you move faith_hair.archive to a subfolder. Try out the new hair in game. Don't like it? Delete new_hair.archive. Move faith_hair.archive back into your mod folder. You don't permanently overwrite or break anything.

 

[tuffgamer0]

Good for you PC folks to have moders, but as it was stated in apology letter, 1.1 and 1.2 are more focused on console experience.

I dont think this is a good idea. The whole point of archives is that all the assets and dependencies required for a mod to work are self contained in the archive. Think of them like zip files that the game can read without having to unzip them.

As soon as you start dealing with loose files/folders you lose track of which assets and dependencies are required by each mod. You can overwrite shared dependencies and removing a mod you dont like will be hell.

If you dont like an archive mod you move it to another folder or delete it. You dont have to chase down a bunch of REDengine files, hex edit them, find all the filepaths and intermediary files required by it and delete those.

Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager. You dont need one for Cyberpunk modding. In fact, mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. They are slower to install mods, enable/disable them and you have less control over load order (which is numerical then alphabetical).

The game already recognises modified assets in archive. We try to avoid modifying basegame assets as much as possible because the game makes liberal use of asset sharing. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it.

What we do instead is make a copy of the texture we want to edit and instance it. We point the mesh material instance to the filepath of the edited texture instead of the one in /base/surfaces/. This way you change only the appearance of the object you want to edit and leave everything else the same.

​

Hayte​

Well, all things u descibed doesn't actually look as good u described.

Firstoffall let me remind that I propose named folder in file path:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
So no dependencies problem.

1. Deleting. Deleting/moving/renaming archive == deleting/moving/renaming folder.
2. Overwriting. Overwriting folder name == overwritng archive name.
3. Loosing track. Managing archives is way harder than managing folders when u have lots of mods beacause u cannot quick look into archives and check what's inside. I know what im saying beacuse my mods has over 2000 posts and it is mainly about what is where in archives. Beacause people cannot easy check what is inside mods by them selfs.
4. Handling loose files like this requires a mod manager... Nope, Why?
5. Mod managers are worse in this game than manual installation. Well this is tour opinion. But I guarantee if u will have over 100 mods will not be able to track ANY file just by looking archive names. This actually a disaster.
6. Many meshes for example use the same leather texture in /base/surfaces/materials/. Changing this texture will change the appearance of hundreds of objects that share it. Whis has nothing to do with loose files beacause this is same problem with archives.

So let me tell u real down side of archives.
First of all this is not usual packing like zip or something.
I may be wrong but u cannot pack files with new names, So u are not able to add new stuff, just replace.

For instance almost all male characters in game share one rig file. I would like to mod only main character rig and not touch any other npc.
So
I can change main character rig file name to something new and tell game to use new file path and this new name, BUT!
I cannot pack new file....

Why we cannot pack new files? Well I have my thoughs but I would have to describe whole packing process, so lets leave it.

Another good reason to loose files?
One of the most modded game in history has loose file modding ability, so it is probably not so bad.... BTW It has abilty to pack files too :O.


Well I think there is only one best way for us all mates. Give people option. U like archives ok, np. But I dont, so maybe ok too? Why not?

One thing you need to understand is you cant just drop textures into random folders and expect the game to just magically know when and where to load them. You have to explictly point to them in a chain of REDEngine files that go all the way back to the mesh itself and the material shader code.

How does the game know this 3d model has this texture at this location wrapped around it? Is it even a texture that the shader has an input for? If you have multiple mods that replace the mesh and overwrite one with another, you break the associated material chain, which starts at the mesh.

Lets use an example of Almico's Sculpted mod and Avallonkao's 4k body textures. Both of these have a custom normal map (for muscle definition). Lets say you install Almico's mod with loose files as you say. How does the game know to use this custom normal map?

The player base body mesh has a material assigned to each of its submeshes. The material assignments are compressed and appended to the end of the file in a KARK buffer. If you decompress this buffer, you will get CMaterialInstances. These are instances of a hard coded material template, in this case, the template for Cyberpunk's skin shader. The skin shader is instanced for every skin colour tone, which points to a different albedo texture corresponding to each of the skin tone options at character creation.

This instance will also point to a normal map and with Sculpted, this is a custom normal that overrides the basegame one.

But lets say it works differently and it actually points to a normal map at a custom location: \Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\Almico\skin\custom_normal.xbm

How does the game know that the player base body mesh should use this normal map? Well first you need to edit the mesh. You need the mesh material buffer to explicitly point to: \Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\Almico\skin\custom_normal.xbm.

If you then install Avallonkao's 4K skin texture this is going to use a custom albedo and normal map. Lets install them to a random folder like you suggest. But if you want the player base body to point to Avallon's custom albedo and normal you need to...edit the same mesh? Now you have a conflict. These 2 mods share a dependency.

Not being able to add new items has nothing to do with archiving. We can't add new items because we need to modify tweakdb and we need runtime compiling of appearance and entity files. But that stuff is not within my skillset. You would have to ask Sombra or something to get a better idea of how this can work in practice. I believe Nim has added an item to the game but I don't know how she did it. Added, not replaced an existing item.

You can archive custom files and many modders do this. However Wolvenkit Console (formerly CP77 Tools) cannot unpack them correctly as the tool wont recognise the file hashes. It will dump them with .bin extensions in the root folder. If you know what to rename the files to and what file paths they should be at, you can recreate the file/folder structure and the mod will work. But if you don't understand the structure of the mod, you won't know what to rename things to and where they should be. This is why I upload loose folders, with custom assets (newly created textures, hex edited REDEngine files etc. so people can modify them further and pack their own .archive version of it.

The reason you need a mod manager for loose files to work is because if you install Evillord's 4K faith hair mod, these are the files and folders you would have to copy to your mod folder: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Take note that it is not just a mesh and some textures. It is all the intermediary engine files that link one to the other.

This mod replaces hair 18. If you then install any other hair mod which replaces hair 18 you have a problem. The new mesh points to different instanced materials. All the custom evilhair textures are now orphaned. Lets say you decide you don't like the new hair mod. You want to go back to Faith hair. Well you can't. You have just irreparably bricked Faith hair mod by overwriting the mesh. You need to go back to the original download, unzip the file, copy the mesh, rig and animgraph back into your mod folder.

So its easier to just archive it. Everything required by Faith hair is inside the archive. All of its dependencies stay with it. Mod users only need to handle a single file. The .archive. They do not need to handle dozens of files in convoluted folders they don't understand the relationship between.

If you decide you want to try out another Hair 18 replacer called new_hair.archive, you move faith_hair.archive to a subfolder. Try out the new hair in game. Don't like it? Delete new_hair.archive. Move faith_hair.archive back into your mod folder. You don't permanently overwrite or break anything.

"One thing you need to understand is you cant just drop textures into random folders and expect the game to just magically know when and where to load them. "
U put random file names, then u have to unpack them... This is the same way just u have it unpacked already.
Now game has to open all files from mod folder then unpack it, then check whats inside. Reading moded files in alpabetical order.
Maybe it just unpack all files in reverse alphabetical order to one folder and then it just overwrite files if they have same names. So game could just temporary copy all files from all folders to just one folder (in reverse alphabetical order) and overwrite files if needed. I think this is not magic it can be done...

How to find files in loose files? Absolute path - This is how game knows what file path are, even those files are in diffirent archives like it is being done now...

Conflict 2 files with loose files? This is the same problem with archives - just read first in alphabetical order, if there is other file same name just skip it.

"Not being able to add new items has nothing to do with archiving. We can't add new items because we need to modify tweakdb and we need runtime compiling of appearance and entity files. But that stuff is not within my skillset. You would have to ask Sombra or something to get a better idea of how this can work in practice. I believe Nim has added an item to the game but I don't know how she did it. Added, not replaced an existing item."
OK, maybe u right here. But why we have to mod tweakdb? Isnt it beacuse it is needed to pack files? Maybe when game would just read loose files from mod folder and swap them with original, maybe no modding tewakdb would be needed then. Or is it just game design which just doesnt allow this...

I know what ur trying to say about loose files but I didnt said I want all moded files to be overwtien by moders in one folder I just suggest allowing to read unpacked files. And yes this would change how game manages moded files.

 

[DeeQue_ZA]

I’ve been modding TES and FO4 for ages, focusing on mostly Quest and Dialogue.

One of the frustrations with that engine is creating reliable AI (called ‘packages’) to allow for custom NPC behaviour. I would switch instantly to Cyberpunk 2077 if the modding tools were able to do a better job with AI scripting.

 

[Rascott]

I’ve been modding TES and FO4 for ages, focusing on mostly Quest and Dialogue.

One of the frustrations with that engine is creating reliable AI (called ‘packages’) to allow for custom NPC behaviour. I would switch instantly to Cyberpunk 2077 if the modding tools were able to do a better job with AI scripting.

Hopefully the modding community can fully enjoy Night city.

The new mod tool should allow not only to modify the designs, textures and add new assets to the game, but it should also allow to develop complex behavior for the npcs and use it to bring more life to Night city and create new stories and missions.

For example, being able to set the displacement of a certain npcs to fixed locations, generation of voice and written dialogues. The creation of missions associated with places and characters.

Being able to open closed doors and be able to design rooms and new missions would bring this game to life for more than a decade.

I hope that soon Yigsoft can give us some information about what the goals are with the new Redkit. Opening the door to modders has been one of the best decisions of this 2021.

 

[Bartinga2077]

It would be great to be able to mod files without packing (making atchives).

Just putting modded files to Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod folder?

For instance, it could like this

I mod some texture, and then i put it in mod folder like this:
Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod\[mymodname]\characters\garment\citizen_formal\feet\s1_008_shoe__elegant\textures\
file name replaces original file but it is moded:
s1_008_ma_shoe__elegant_n01.xbm

So game recognizes file path and checks if there is similar file name to original then loads new file except original...

Have to say, I just love the way how the game handles mods today. Before, whenever the game was changed, there was always a mod or two that crashed it the moment it was started. 'Cyber Engine Tweaks', was one of those mods. Whenever the game received maintenance, rest assured CET crashed it after. Nowadays, when there is maintenance, all mods that become incompatible, simply stop working, but the game always plays normally.

That's state-of-the-art mod-support for ya right there.

True, CET's mod author is lightspeed fast updating the mod, but till he does, Cyberpunk plays normally without crashing, while CET's still in there. So, you don't have to search your ass off looking for a mod in a haystack that is crashing the game, and temporary uninstall just to be able to play.

Wish all game-devs were this mod-support-friendly. Thank you very much, CDPR and modders.

 

[AK47OG1]

Hello all. Sorry it has taken me a little while to chime in. The most important tool for me being a texture visual feel Modder primarily, would be a texture format identifier. Using Photoshop Gimp or Paint.net there is no easy way to identify what .dds texture format to save the file in. I have to use a trial and error approach to discover the format. It would be great to have information displayed when extracting a .dds file from a .xbm. I still have a major passion for night city and its resemblance to Blade Runner. Getting lost in the city at night in the rain never bores me. Thanks for your incredible work, hope I can help in any way.

-AK47OG-

 

[Hayte]

Hello all. Sorry it has taken me a little while to chime in. The most important tool for me being a texture visual feel Modder primarily, would be a texture format identifier. Using Photoshop Gimp or Paint.net there is no easy way to identify what .dds texture format to save the file in. I have to use a trial and error approach to discover the format. It would be great to have information displayed when extracting a .dds file from a .xbm. I still have a major passion for night city and its resemblance to Blade Runner. Getting lost in the city at night in the rain never bores me. Thanks for your incredible work, hope I can help in any way.

-AK47OG-

You can find all sorts of information about a .dds file by opening it in 010 editor. You will be automatically prompted to download a .dds hex template which transforms the bytecode into this:

I've underlined variable types in green and values in orange that I think are particularly important for texture artists. This is a 4K resolution BC7 colour texture with an alpha channel. UNORM means linear colour space. It has 13 mips.

Some more general information you may find useful as it relates to Cyberpunk:

1. A .dds texture is a "raw" asset which the game doesn't use directly. .xbm is the format the game actually reads texture data from. This is a REDengine container with CR2W headers and the raw .dds pixel data appended to it in a buffer. When you export a raw .dds texture from an .xbm file using Wolvenkit Console, you are decompressing this buffer.

2. Colour .dds textures are almost always BC7. Greyscale is almost always BC4. Normal maps are always BC5. Check colour textures in 010 to see if they have an alpha channel or not.

3. Cyberpunk normal maps employ a DXT5 trick where the blue channel is reconstituted from red and green. These normal maps look green and the blue channel is blacked out like so:

4. Wolvenkit Console is used to import raw .dds texture data from/export raw .dds texture data to an .xbm. The tool is fairly smart. It will automatically convert rgb colour space to linear and convert traditional "blue" normal maps to "green" ones. So you don't need to worry about blacking out the blue channel.

5. As far as I am aware, there are no textures greater than 2048x2048 pixels in size. Most colour textures are 1024x1024 pixels or smaller and the game doesn't use many colour diffuse textures - these are mainly limited to body/face textures and decals. Most colour textures in the game are direction maps (i.e. normal, flow etc.)

Most other textures are greyscale, 512x512 or smaller and colourized in material shader, sometimes via a tiny gradient map. For example, hair caps are coloured by teeny 4x32 pixel colour gradient textures. Gradient might not be the right word for them. They are really colour LUTs. LUTs have strict limitations on what size they can be if you want them to look correct in the game. Hair cap gradients must be 2270 bytes or smaller for example, otherwise they explode into rainbows. In practical terms this will restrict you to a colour palette of about 10 to 35 colours. It is important to distinguish between a colour texture and a LUT because of this.

A common theme with Cyberpunk texture assets is everything is tiny. the resolution is tiny. If there is an opportunity to atlas decals, they will do it. Every time there is an opportunity to use a greyscale texture instead of a colour one, they will do that too, as you can see with multilayer masks. Normal maps save about 1/3 file size because they have no blue channel.

I suppose this makes sense. The game is open world, strives for city like asset density and there are no loading screens. So textures must be very compact for streaming purposes.

 

[tuffgamer0]

Not being able to add new items has nothing to do with archiving.

U were right, I checked if I can pack completly new texture, and it worked, so I got mistaken.
Got to work with meshes now .

 

[DennisReactive]

Official and complex as possible tutorials about inserting\replacing objects in the game. Maybe some checking utilities. Working with animations, materials, animated materials, pivots, etc. To make requirements and pipeline close to using in main CDPR.
Make it on a separate site, using any Wiki engine. Every big company has Wikis about the pipeline for new employers, so it may be easily edited (cut some special internal terms, names, NDA, etc) and shared.
Because modders are mostly not the technical artists, but modelers-painters. And doing mods in their spare time, without an opportunity to ask something directly at the person with special knowledge. Reading all the threads in Discord after you came at home after ur main job is hugely time-consuming. Obviously, CP yet is not such popular as other long-time existing games, so not so many people have good knowledge, part of them may be offline for a while, lost interest in modding, etc. So having this Wiki will be extremely helpful for everybody.
Personally, I'm interested in creating new vehicles.

 

[Bartinga2077]

"ARE YOU MODDER? TELL US IT SHOULD BE ON THE NEW REDKIT FOR CYBERPUNK 2077"​

When using this mod,

JB - TPP MOD WIP third person

A third person mod for Cyberpunk 2077!!

www.nexusmods.com

anything on the FACE is NOT being rendered, and anything on the HEAD, makes V bald.
Can you guys please consider to parley with CDPR to fix that, so that both FACE and HEAD cloth-pieces are visible in 3rd person? There are some really cool helmets, hats, masks, goggles and glasses, both modded and vanilla, that can't be worn when using this mod.

In addition, can you guys also ask CDPR to consider to shrink the standing rectangular item slot to a square, and box-in an accessory slot in place? There are hundreds really awesome accessories in the game, both modded and vanilla, that could be mixed and matched nicely with other costumes, if they have their own item slot.

Should've really done that in the vanilla game to begin with, if you ask me.

Edit: Trenchcoats and other wavy clothes worn by NPCs all have physics, but those very same trenchcoats and all other clothes worn by V, have no physics whatsoever. Can you guys ask CDPR to apply the same physics to the clothes when V's wearing them in 3rd person? Would add greatly to the immersion.

 

[SigilFey]

"ARE YOU MODDER? TELL US IT SHOULD BE ON THE NEW REDKIT FOR CYBERPUNK 2077"​

When using this mod,

JB - TPP MOD WIP third person

A third person mod for Cyberpunk 2077!!

www.nexusmods.com

anything on the FACE is NOT being rendered, and anything on the HEAD, makes V bald.
Can you guys please consider to parley with CDPR to fix that, so that both FACE and HEAD cloth-pieces are visible in 3rd person? There are some really cool helmets, hats, masks, goggles and glasses, both modded and vanilla, that can't be worn when using this mod.

In addition, can you guys also ask CDPR to consider to shrink the standing rectangular item slot to a square, and box-in an accessory slot in place? There are hundreds really awesome accessories in the game, both modded and vanilla, that could be mixed and matched nicely with other costumes, if they have their own item slot.

Should've really done that in the vanilla game to begin with, if you ask me.

Edit: Trenchcoats and other wavy clothes worn by NPCs all have physics, but those very same trenchcoats and all other clothes worn by V, have no physics whatsoever. Can you guys ask CDPR to apply the same physics to the clothes when V's wearing them in 3rd person? Would add greatly to the immersion.

While more customization slots are always cool, I'm not sure it's worth drastically redesigning the way the actual character models are built. That would very much be toying with Pandora's Box.

A more efficient approach to this would be to create things like hat/mask/eyewear/hair combos that are still applied to the character model as a single item. Thus, one item would be just the hat, another just the eyeglasses, a third just the mask, a fourth both the hat and eyeglasses, a fifth just the hat and mask, a sixth all three, etc.

Adding additional slots to existing character skeletons is not only extremely time consuming (they basically need to be built from the ground up), but also prone to lots and lots and lots of bugs and errors.