Dragon Age Veilguard

[KRNV]

I'm not sure if this is due to the possibly different process I went with since I'm not sure how these tools work exactly, but after exporting a head as fbx with FrostyEditor, importing into blender, and somewhat successfully applying the SMD for the character using SourceTools (no exploding lines issue as another person had), I believe there is one snag. The SMD file did apply on the face but not the neck of the head mesh. Is this expected and requires manual tinkering to line it up with the body, or is there something I missed? Do the SMD files require the rgz_skeleton.ebx file in the tool directory to apply to the rest of the body, and/or should I just redo the process by also converting meshes with this tool?

EDIT: I tried the process only using this tool, but the neck size and head mesh positioning is still off. How do you fix it?

EDIT 2: I feel a bit silly in hindsight, the relevant body gave the correct head position but the neck base connection to the collar is still a little bit off? Is that just gonna have to be a manual fix?

Edited March 16 by KRNV
Update

[mayaamis]

@KRNV 

when you are exporting head mesh fbx from frosty in little pop up window you need to check a box that says "flatten hierarchy" and you have to select the proper skeleton to export along with the head mesh for plugin to work right. you need to have skeleton selected when applying smd file.

other than that I found  all head/neck meshes in veilguard have a bit of a weird misalignment with the body meshes.. probably since body you export is the default, but body meshes can be various shapes and sizes and different npc's have different proportions/size.. so it does take some tinkering in blender to align them in size and merge them via vertex snap method

Edited Friday at 10:42 PM by mayaamis

[LuckyDucky]

On 3/13/2025 at 6:50 PM, mayaamis said:

@LuckyDucky I almost always get that error. I just ignore it and go to timeline to frame 2 and see the fix worked anyway..

Thanks for the help, I guess I forgot to move to frame 2 this time. Did we always have to do that? I swear I was able to just upload the animation and it worked, but I do mess around with other models from games so maybe I got confused.

[mayaamis]

On 3/22/2025 at 7:43 AM, LuckyDucky said:

Thanks for the help, I guess I forgot to move to frame 2 this time. Did we always have to do that? I swear I was able to just upload the animation and it worked, but I do mess around with other models from games so maybe I got confused.

yes smd file fix works as two frames long animation. it will never show changes on frame 0... the transformation happens at frame 2. than when you put cursor to frame 2 (or any other frame after 2) and see the changes. 

[KRNV]

On 3/21/2025 at 11:38 PM, mayaamis said:

@KRNV 

when you are exporting head mesh fbx from frosty in little pop up window you need to check a box that says "flatten hierarchy" and you have to select the proper skeleton to export along with the head mesh for plugin to work right. you need to have skeleton selected when applying smd file.

other than that I found  all head/neck meshes in veilguard have a bit of a weird misalignment with the body meshes.. probably since body you export is the default, but body meshes can be various shapes and sizes and different npc's have different proportions/size.. so it does take some tinkering in blender to align them in size and merge them via vertex snap method

Yeah at least the tool gives the proper head morph location on the exported armature, the way these bioware/frostbite? models are set up is so clunky. I'm not sure if it's the correct workaround but the way I went about it was:

Having the base Head armature (w wrong proportions), and using a script to mass add bone constraints -- to every bone with an identical name -- from a body armature of the character (since it has the right head proportions), adding Copy Location (Copy Transforms might work better?), and then parenting any subsequent parts to the Head armature so they properly deform with their correct weights. Also copy+pasting the pose from the facefix armature to the right Body armature.

Another point of annoyance is some meshes being weighted to the male base head shape and being relatively straightforward to properly set up, but then certain meshes like the eyebrow/lash/haircap meshes being shaped to the disproportionate character face and not having weights, and thus requiring a very specific order of transferring weights from the off-proportional head with the right character face deform, and then needing to be parented to an armature that already has the correct face shape applied as the base pose so you don't get x2 the deformation from the facefix pose. 

Also a PSA since it is easy to miss, characters also have a specific separate intermediate _collar mesh that halfway bridges the gap between their head and body, but in my experimenting the neck base on the head mesh still is slightly disproportionate even with the correct head+face proportions.

Edited Monday at 02:07 PM by KRNV