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, 20251 yr by KRNV
Update

@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 March 21, 20251 yr by mayaamis

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.

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. 

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 March 24, 20251 yr by KRNV

On 11/23/2024 at 6:49 PM, novemberlemon said:

I can't seem to get the tool to work, I'm not sure if i have the structure set up correctly.

 I've places the oo9core_9_win64.dll, and the default.toc into the folder where the toc_dav.exe tool is, adjusted the ini files to match my game install folder and dump location and when I run the toc.dave.exe an empty command window opens for about 3 seconds and then closes. 

 I'm only after one file specifically, Emmrich Volkarin head model, is it possible I'm not opening the correct .toc?

I'm having this same issue and I've got everything set up correctly too with the fix OP posted--how did you resolve it?

Hey - someone asked me this question so thought I'd throw this at you - anything on facial morph targets ala DAI? Anyway to dump out the SMDs with the minimum and maximum values for each morph parameter? Thanks! 

10 hours ago, IceBuckets said:

Hey - someone asked me this question so thought I'd throw this at you - anything on facial morph targets ala DAI? Anyway to dump out the SMDs with the minimum and maximum values for each morph parameter? Thanks! 

I may look into that someday.

Meanwhile, DAV tool pack just updated, added batch texture convertion tool.

Edited August 21, 2025Aug 21 by id-daemon

@id-daemon

any new info on possibility to export npc's like Felassan that I talked about on previous page?

Like getting smd file for him? The ninjaripper thing didn't work out for me.. :(

Edited September 10, 2025Sep 10 by mayaamis

22 hours ago, mayaamis said:

@id-daemon

any new info on possibility to export npc's like Felassan that I talked about on previous page?

Like getting smd file for him? The ninjaripper thing didn't work out for me.. 😞

no, no new info. Also i dont know who he is and i never played the game.

Struggling to figure this out. I successfully dumped the game, found the head morph and dragged it onto Fb_dav.exe. It spat out a smd which I imported into blender. But now I dont know how to apply the facefix smd.

 

Also, when importing the head smd, i get the error about 'SMD only supports 128 bones' and '80243 vertices weighted to individual bones' errors. Are these a problem?

On 9/11/2025 at 6:00 PM, id-daemon said:

no, no new info. Also i dont know who he is and i never played the game.

@id-daemon

Felassan has head preset file and all the same head preset values as other npc's you published it's just stored in different subfolder. would it be possible to create .smd file for him as well? :)

Edited November 12, 2025Nov 12 by mayaamis

On 10/3/2025 at 12:40 PM, pewposterous said:

Struggling to figure this out. I successfully dumped the game, found the head morph and dragged it onto Fb_dav.exe. It spat out a smd which I imported into blender. But now I dont know how to apply the facefix smd.

 

Also, when importing the head smd, i get the error about 'SMD only supports 128 bones' and '80243 vertices weighted to individual bones' errors. Are these a problem?

Ignore that msg it pops up for me often too, but just move the cursor on the timeline at the bottom to frame 2 or farther and you will see the change

5 hours ago, mayaamis said:

@id-daemon

Felassan has head preset file and all the same head preset values as other npc's you published it's just stored in different subfolder. would it be possible to create .smd file for him as well? 🙂

to make smd file for him, we need faseposer file for him, not head preset. There are only 151 faseposers that i already published. So he must be using one of those.
p.s. I see you found that he is a variation on Cedric. It means he most probably using Cedric mesh, his fixed face, and then changed some facial features to be different.
p.p.s. on another note, looking into his preset, it seems that his face is made like custom character, from 3 faces: Ben, Kevin & Natasha (faces 9 19 26)

Edited November 12, 2025Nov 12 by id-daemon

@id-daemon

ahh I see. thank you. I will try to use Cedric mesh than in blender and textures that are listed for Felassan, and try to re-sclpt further from that. thank you for looking into it. It is weird they didn't make his own unique mesh and faceposer but it is what it is I guess.

On 11/13/2025 at 5:12 AM, mayaamis said:

@id-daemon

ahh I see. thank you. I will try to use Cedric mesh than in blender and textures that are listed for Felassan, and try to re-sclpt further from that. thank you for looking into it. It is weird they didn't make his own unique mesh and faceposer but it is what it is I guess.

Use the Cedric mesh plus Ben, Kevin and Natasha. I'm not sure what Blenders equivalent is but in 3dsmax, the morpher modifier can morph multiple meshes. Play with the percentages on that modifier until you get close to your desired result. 

On 2/21/2025 at 5:31 PM, IceBuckets said:

With Inquisition, they changed it. Morph adjustments were done via the skeleton - move these bones down a bit and the head morphs. id_daemon had created their tool for DAI that allowed us to pull what exactly those skeleton positions were for every single morph target ( located in a "morph target" file) I haven't been able to find a file like that for Veilguard but id_daemon would know more.

@id_daemon Any chance you know how to extract the morph targets, or whatever the Veilguard equivalent is?

5 hours ago, stellium said:

@id_daemon Any chance you know how to extract the morph targets, or whatever the Veilguard equivalent is?

If you mean facial expressions, then yes, i know how to extract them.

19 hours ago, id-daemon said:

If you mean facial expressions, then yes, i know how to extract them.

What kind of file is that? I’m not really sure how it works in Veilguard compared to the morph target files from previous games. Would that also make it possible to extract the head morphs from the character creator or do they work differently from the facial expressions?

Skeleton deformations for the character creator is probably a more accurate term for Veilguards “morph targets” (DAO/DA2 use straight up targets while I/VG use the skeleton to deform morphs with different bone positions)

 

But I’m not a game dev. 😉

On 12/5/2025 at 5:55 AM, IceBuckets said:

Skeleton deformations for the character creator is probably a more accurate term for Veilguards “morph targets” (DAO/DA2 use straight up targets while I/VG use the skeleton to deform morphs with different bone positions)

 

But I’m not a game dev. 😉

Would that be in an SMD or FacePoser file?

On 12/10/2025 at 7:54 PM, stellium said:

Would that be in an SMD or FacePoser file?

Your guess is as good as mine. Though I don't think it's an SMD as that's a format for a totally different engine. Inquisition it was easier to see where they were since it was straight up a MorphTargets file. 

On 12/5/2025 at 1:46 PM, stellium said:

What kind of file is that? I’m not really sure how it works in Veilguard compared to the morph target files from previous games. Would that also make it possible to extract the head morphs from the character creator or do they work differently from the facial expressions?

After reading your reply, i'm not sure if you mean morphs which allow to make a new character from universal face, or facial expressions of one existing character. Also no, i dont know a way to get custom charaters made in character creator because the process is complicated and includes 3 source head meshes and a lot of modifications upon it.

On 12/14/2025 at 2:34 AM, id-daemon said:

After reading your reply, i'm not sure if you mean morphs which allow to make a new character from universal face, or facial expressions of one existing character. Also no, i dont know a way to get custom charaters made in character creator because the process is complicated and includes 3 source head meshes and a lot of modifications upon it.

I'm super late to reply to this, sorry! But I'm honestly not sure. I want to access both the morph targets for the heads and the head meshes themselves. It sounds to me like both the options you listed would apply, since any changes to the heads would affect both the morph and the facial expression data.