Beginner's Guide to Custom Challenges using Waterine's ClgEditor

This tutorial will cover the very basics of using Waterine's ClgEditor tool to create your own combo challenges for SSF4AE. For this, we will need the ClgEditor and Dantarion et al's Ono! Editor.

When you first run the ClgEditor, click the button to 'Open...' and browse to your installation directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\super street fighter iv - arcade edition), then go to ...\resource\battle\chara and go into the folder for the character whose Trial Mode you wish to modify. It should filter the folder contents such that the only file displayed is our desired CLG file, in my case, CMY.clg.

Once the file is loaded, you can see the list of challenge levels on the left. At the top of the window you should see a pulldown menu labeled 'Ultra Selection,' which lets you select which Ultra combo should be loaded for the challenge, and another pulldown labeled 'Target State,' which determines how the dummy (Dan) should act (for use with situational combos, like ones that must start with a counterhit or only work on jumping opponents).

The area underneath those pulldowns is where most of the fun happens.

In the 'Scripts' section, the first button from the left (looks like a sun) creates a new command, either an 'attack' or a 'script,' which you can choose between using the 'Criteria type' pulldown menu to the right. Attacks are just your normal actions while scripts are movement actions, like dashes and FADCs.

The 'Criteria indices' field tells the game which moves it should accept as a successful command. If any strength of a move will do, as is the case with many of the early challenges, you must include each index that fulfills the criteria. For a regular special move (light, medium, hard and EX), you would need entries for all four strengths.

Back in the scripts window, each command represents one discreet portion of a challenge, and you can show up to 8 on the screen. You can go beyond 8 in the list, but unfortunately the display doesn't scroll in-game, so the player won't be able to see the rest.

To the right, you can choose what on-screen instructions and input help to display from the respective pulldown menus.

So, lets say I want to change Cammy's first challenge from a simple Spiral Arrow to a Cannon Spike > FADC > EX Cannon Spike.

Step 1. Select the first trial from the levels list and hit the 'X' button under Scripts to delete the existing command. Then, click the sun button to create a new command. Our first command--Cannon Spike--is an attack, so choose that from the Criteria type pulldown.

Step 2. Next, we need to fill in the Criteria indices field with the indices for the move (I cheated and stole them from Challenge #3), in this case, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105.

Step 3. Under 'On-screen command text's last pulldown menu, we want to select Cannon Spike, and under 'Help menu command text's last pulldown menu, we want to select Cannon Spike Input.

Great! There's our first command. Now, we need to make another.

Step 4. Click on the sun button again, but this time we're going to use a movement script, so select 'Script' from the Criteria type pulldown.

As in step 2, fill in the Criteria indices field with the appropriate inputs, in this case 325 (I stole that from a later challenge, as well; are you seeing a pattern here?).

Likewise, we'll fill in the On-screen command text and Help menu command text, which are a little weird for FADCs: in the first pulldown under On-screen commant text, choose 'EX,' and under the third pulldown, choose 'FocusCancel.' Then, under Help menu's first pulldown, choose 'EX' again, and under the third, choose 'MP+MK.'

Step 5. Alright, moving right along, click the sun button one more time and choose the 'Attack' criteria. Up until now, all of the moves we've wanted to use could be easily pilfered from other challenges. However, no challenge requires an EX Cannon Spike specifically, so we'll have to figure this one out on our own. To do it, open up the Ono! Editor and open Cammy's BCM file. You should see a window that looks something like this:

Click on the bottom button, labeled "Hitbox Table." It should open a new window that looks something like this:

There's a lot of really great information available in this window, but we really only need the numbers on the far left in front of the move names. So, scroll down until you find your desired move, in my case EX Cannon Spike, which is listed under #106 and #107. If the criteria type is an attack, you use the hitbox data number, if it's a script, you should use the script number (you can expand the header info in Ono! to see it).

Now, enter those numbers into the Criteria indices field, separated by commas and spaces as necessary.

Fill in the appropriate on-screen command and help menu text, and you should be all set. Click the save button and lets go check it out by copying it into our ...\resource\battle\chara\CMY folder (don't forget to make a backup!!).



Now, as a note, you can make your combos against any version of the characters' movesets you like (Super is the default, of course, but you can use movesets from AE, 2012 or even custom movesets created in Ono!), you just have to copy the appropriate BAC/BCM files into the ...\resource\battle\chara\*** folder to overwrite the ones that are already there.

If you create something cool, be sure to share your work with the community, and always always always make backups!

Using sloth86's Ambient Occlusion Tools in SF4

In the course of making skins for SF4, you might have toggled off an unwanted model, such as Chun Li's spiked bracelets, only to find an unsightly darkening, similar to a shadow, where the object used to be. This darkening is part of what's known as an "ambient occlusion (AO) map," which is used by the game to fake some self-shadowing by the models and thus reduce the amount of shadows your computer needs to draw dynamically to look realistic. However, once the offending model is gone, the AO isn't really appropriate anymore, so we need to do something about it.

For this tutorial, you'll need to download some of sloth86's tools: AOExtractor, AOInject and EMG Swapper, as well as piecemontee's Asset Explorer (aka, SF4Viewer). You'll also need a paint program that can view/edit EPS files, such as Photoshop. UPDATE (6/20/2012): the links for sloth86's tools are dead. You can now get the AO tools here and the EMG Swapper here.

Once you have your tools, open your desired costume file (*.obj.emo) in the Asset Explorer. I'm going to be using Chun Li's default costume (CNL_01.obj.emo):

As you can see in the picture above, I've already toggled off her 'Ring' model, which has left the visible AO darkening on her 'Skin_arm' model, which I intend to fix.

So, next we'll want to select that darkened model, right-click and choose 'raw dump' to get the raw EMG model. Name it something informative with the .emg file extension and click 'save.'

While we're here, take note of which EMG model we're extracting, counting from the top. For me, it's the 10th one. We'll need this information later, so write it down or something.

Next, open the AOExtract tool. You should see a window like this pop up:

In the first field, put in whatever you just saved your dumped model as. In my case, 'skin_arm.emg.' The other options can be left at the default values, unless you just feel like changing them. (Subdividing triangles will make your EPS file look a little nicer, but it takes longer and is unnecessary)

Click 'Extract' and you should end up with a new file, in my case 'new.eps.'

Open your new EPS file in Photoshop and you should see something like this:

Those triangles you see correspond to the triangles used to make the model (just like the UV map, if you're familiar with those). As you can see, some of them are particularly dark, while others are lighter, just like we saw in the Asset Explorer window.

So, using the dropper tool, pick a medium color (we don't want a dark shadow, but we don't want it all bright like a highlight, either). If you're familiar with using hex color values, EFEFEF is a pretty good, generic match.

Once you have your color, you can either use the paint bucket tool to change each triangle by hand, or you can just paint over the whole thing, like I did.

Once you're all finished, we need to 'Save As...' and choose the bitmap (BMP) format, with OS/2 compatibility, 24-bit and no compression.

Next, open the AOInject tool. You should see a window like this:

In the first field, enter the name of your dumped EMG model, in my case, skin_arm.emg. In the second field  enter the name of our modified, blank AO map, in .bmp format. The third field can keep its default value.

Click 'Go' and you should be left with a new EMG model that we can view in the Asset Explorer:

As the pic shows, it's all one uniform gray color, instead of having light and dark areas.

Great!

However, now we need to actually get this unshadowed model back into our character model. For this, we turn to the EMG Swapper tool.


Open it up and you should see a window like this:

In the first field, enter the name of the character model you're working with, in my case, CNL_01.obj.emo. In the second field, enter the number of the model we're replacing (remember the thing we wrote down earlier??), in my case it's number 10. In the third field, enter the name of your modified model (the one we injected the new AO map into), in my case 'blank.emg.' The last field can be left with the default value, unless you want to name it something else.

Click 'Go' and you should be left with a new EMO file, which we can view in the Asset Explorer:

Our model fits right in and doesn't have any messy shadows for nonexistent objects anymore. Mission accomplished!

Unfortunately, you can see that her hands still have darkening, which creates a seam next to our modified object, but using your newly found AO mapping expertise, I'm sure you can fix it on your own. ;-)

That's it. Good luck, share your work and ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS!

SSF4AE - doshu's ULSM Tutorial

Here's a more or less basic tutorial about how I built my Ultra Light Stage mod. The aspects that I won't cover are basic Gimp/Photoshop manipulations, building your own BGM selection and how to convert a TRN stage to any other stage. If need be, those aspects can all be learned quickly either by reading the SSFIV/AE wikis, by searching the net, or simply by thinking on your own and doing try/errors.
Also, the first part of the tutorial is way more detailed (both in text and pictures) than the last ones, since I wrote it a while back to explain how the Training stage edit works on the polycount forums.

Since I build my mod, a lot of progress has been made in the field of custom Training stage's templates, so instead of blindly followind this tutorial entirely, you should probably just take the parts you need and try to build even better stages than I did (not so hard IMO :p).

Finally, I have to insist that I'm (or was) a total n00b in modding, and that this tutorial might include some really weird and/or not efficient methods for expert modders. I'm repeating myself here, but better safe than sorry^^. Anyway, if you have a better way of doing things, share it! This tutorial will then hopefully be updated .

Ok, let's start with an overview of the needed tools (find those in the wiki and/or with google) :

• SF4 Assets Explorer
• The Gimp + dds mod
• SFIVAM
• hexadecimal editor HxD
• Ryu's Classic Training Stage mod by hunterk

Quick overview of the whole process :

• extract Ryu's Classic Training Stage's dds and observe how it's made
• build your own dds from whatever art you find that seems fine (but do not forget to get the author's authorization if you want to share your work!)
• do the hex magic
• inject the dds : the stage is done!
• build the 3 preview pics'dds : big, medium and small size
• build the 2 kind of presentation text : Stage Select and pre-versus screen
• inject the whole thing into the appropriate files
• mute that annoying announcer !

1. Building your own stage
   1. Basic explanations
      Ok, so here's a bit of explanation on how it works. As you'll see, it really needs only basic picture editing skill, and not anything fancy.
      
      First, let's look at the "cube" limitations : the edges (this stage was done by hunterk).
      
      
      As you can see, all the vertical sides of the cube are filled with the same part of the texture, making it "loop" when it reaches the end. The same with the floor/ceiling. In practice, it doesn't show that much, except when performing some Ultra's like Ryu's Metsu Shoryuken.
      But what is important here, is that because of that loop, the more the left and right sides of the texture looks alike, the less it will be apparent in the stage. In this case, it's almost "invisible".
      Secondly, here's the kind of file the stage's texture is made of:
      
      
      Basically, the "floor" part is upside, then comes a thin black line, and the the main background. What is important here for "good" results, is that the floor looks as much as possible like one, as it does from all the above examples (and in the WIP preview screenshot). If the original jpg image's "floor" isn't "straight", or is filled with different objects and such, the result might be awkward (or not, it depends).
      
      For example, let's first show the results from the 2 pictures above:
      
      
      All in all, except the crappy resolution problem, those stages look "good" : the floor is “floory”, and the edges of the texture look alike, so it should be pretty "invisible" while playing.
      
      Let's finish the basic explanations with a "difficult" file to work from (at least for my skills)
      
      
      
      That's it for the basic explanations.
   2. Choosing some art and building a dds from it
      Basically, you'll want to work from a picture as high def as possible, even if the dds will only be 1280*800. Also, the scene should ideally be pretty empty in the “front”, thus allowing you to easily build the floor of your stage. It is possible to work from more difficult material, but I'll leave it to you to find how, explaining it here would be long and tedious.
      
      For my part, I worked mostly on feeling. Just look at the picture, copy whatever part you want to make the floor of without thinking too much about proportions, copy and paste it as a new image, then resize that new image at 1280*237. That's pretty much it for the floor.
      Return to the original picture, select the other part of it (Ctrl-I should do the trick if your previous selection was still active), copy paste as new image, then resize to 1280*553. That's it for the wall.
      Create a new black backgrounded 1280*800 image, copy paste the floor into it, position it up (using the arrows make it a breeze to do, no pixel precision needed). Do the same for the wall, except you position it down. There should be around 10 pixels left black in between.
      Flip the image horizontally (Image → Transform), then save as a .dds (just name the file whatever .dds when saving). Don't bother about the compression, it's not needed.
      Before injecting the newly created dds file, you need to make it the exact same size as the original one. To do that, just open both the original and the new dds file into your hex editor, and do the following :
      - on the original file : Ctrl-A ; End ; Ctrl-E ; choose 2EE080 ; Ctrl-C
      - on the new file : Ctrl-A ; End ; Ctrl-V ; Ctrl-S
      
      That should do the trick. Basically, you're copying what bytes are missing in the new file from the original one. All the files I created were always 2EE070 sections long, that's how you get the 2EE080 number. Should your file be a different size than that, you will have the adapt this number to that size so that both files are the same size at the end. This method doesn't work with new files bigger than the original though... (see how I'm a n00b in hex editing? Pretty n00bish I must admit, but it works! I have an idea why it does work, but I'll gladly hear some real explanation^^).
      
      A last word about applying filters on the dds befrore injecting it. The ingame look of the stage you built won't be exactly the same as the dds' look, so you might want to try and apply some filters. Here are the ones I used so far:
      - unsharpen: used mostly for high definition material, like most of the stage of the ULSM. I used it twice on each dds.
      - cartoon: used in combination with "Van Gogh" to make low definition material look ok-ish ingame
      Don't hesitate to try other filters too!
      
      Ok, you're good to inject to file into the .emz and test out your newly build stage!
2. Editing the Stage Select screen
   
   This part is really easy, but quite time consuming. I'll first specify the particularities of each kind of file needed for the Stage Select screen (dds resolution : actual picture resolution (ratio) / type of compression needed):
   - big preview picture: 1024*512 / 710*377 (1.88) / BC2/DXT3; the BLD stage needs a 1024*1024 resolution file (adapt the actual picture size accordingly)
   small preview picture: 128*128 / 116*89 (1.30) / BC1/DXT1
   
   Then the pre-versus screen:
   - medium preview picture: 512*256 / 336*214 (1.57) / BC1/DXT1; BLD, KOR, AFX need a 256*256 image, adapt the actual picture size accordingly
   
   And for the text in both screen (up left for the Stage Select screen, up right for the pre-versus'):
   - 256*128 or 512*128 / Comic Sans MS Bold 34 (Place) and Arial Bold 36 (Stage name) / BC2/DXT3
   
   To avoid you the pain of figuring out which stage's text needs which resolution, here's the list of the stages needing a 256*128 dds: AFR, RVR, AFX, VIE, JPN, VCN.
   
   Another time consuming task is figuring which files you need to edit, so here's the list:

• \ressource\ui\stage_select\stage_select.emz: for every big/small preview picture and Stage Select screen's text. Finding the small ones is easy, since the entry name corresponds to the stage name. The big picture/text is much more difficult to find, so here's a list to help you out (pic/pic/txt/txt; I guess you have to inject the new pic and text twice, in both entries, I haven't tried to do it at only one place...):
  • • • BLD: I30 / I3E / I8A / I98
      • IND: I33 / I41 / I8D / I9B
      • KOR: I36 / I44 / I90 / I9E
      • AFX: I39 / I47 / I93 / IA1
      • LBX: I3C / I4A / I96 / IA4
      • USA: I3F / I4D / I99 / IA7
      • CHN: I42 / I50 / I9C / IAA
      • RUS: I45 / I53 / I9F / IAD
      • BRA: I48 / I56 / IA2 / IB0
      • AFR: I4B / I59 / IA5 / IB3
      • VIE: I4E / I5C / IA8 / IB6
      • JPN: I51 / I5F / IAB / IB9
      • EUR: I54 / I62 / IAE / IBC
      • SCO: I57 / I65 / IB1 / IBF
      • JPX: I5A / I68 / IB4 / IC2
      • LAB: I5D / I6B / IB7 / IC5
      • RVR: I60 / I6E / IBA / IC8
      • VCN: I63 / I71 / IBD / ICB
      • CNX: I66 / I74 / IC0 / ICE
      • BRX: I69 / I77 / IC3 / ID1
      • VNX: I6C / I7A / IC6 / ID4
      • TRN: I6F / I7D / IC9 / ID7
• \ressource\ui\versus\versus\img#.emb.emz, where # is between 0 and 3: for everything pre-versus screen related. The entries are self explanatory, with JPN_name for the text part, and stage_JPN for the medium preview picture. Just take a look to find out which stage is where (the text and the picture entries can be in different files). Also, img3.emb.emz contains Boxer's name, so if you're using a JPN character's name mod, be sure to swap the original (Balrog) with is counterpart (M. Bison, to be found in some other file).

And finally, though I won't go through the hassle of explaining Gimp's image editing manipulations (a small hint about it though, be sure to use the game's original files as models for the shapes, especially for the small preview image; that way the result will fit perfectly into the game's screen), I'll throw a word about the halo thing around the text.
At first, I followed this tutorial. The result was good, but I came around a faster and better looking method after a while: follow all the steps until before applying the first Gaussian filter, then do a select all (CTRL-A), and apply directly a 10 point Gaussian filter. That way, you only have to apply one filter with one setting, removing the need to change the settings from 5 to 10 points every time. Finally, just follow the end steps of the linked tutorial.

Ok, now you're set, all that's left is to inject all of your files one by one into the game's files. A long and boring process if you're doing every stage at once, but the result is really worth it!
One last word about this part of the process: don't pay attention if the SF4 assets explorer preview looks messed up, it doesn't affect the in game result.

1. Mute the announcer
   This is quite easy:

• open \ressource\ui\sound\se\VERSUS_SE.csb with SSFIVAM
• extract everything in a temporary folder ("unpack" command)
• hexedit the files containing the sounds you want to delete by selecting all and replacing the data with zeros (listen to the files in AM beforehand, to found out the name of the sounds you want to delete)
• then inject all the files inside the original file ("replace content with..." command)
  
  There may be a better way, but that one worked great for me^^.

And that's it for the ULSM tutorial!

SSF4AE - Swapping Static Objects with sloth86's Tools

Swapping static objects with sloth86's tools.
copyright sensibeat

sloth86's tools: http://aemods.pbworks.com/w/page/42053948/aetools#Sloth86sModelSwapTools

• DDSREFEDIT32.exe
• EMG2SMD.exe
• EMGSWAP.exe
• OBJ2EMG.exe (latest version: http://www.mediafire.com/?p1vvruy4ycy3ejt)

piecemonteeSF4explorerV0.37b.exe: http://sf4viewer.sourceforge.net/

With this method you can only swap static objects assigned to 1 bone.

First chose a .obj you want to swap:

Chose a character and extract the full model as a .obj with sf4explorer:

You'll have to edit the model in your 3D editor to fit the character:

¤ More infos about that part here: http://filthypants.blogspot.com/2009/08/beginners-guide-to-sf4-model-editing.html

¤ To open the .obj in 3ds max you may need to open it and save it in misfit model 3d first.

Now you have your model in place save it and open EMG2SMD.exe:

I want to swap my cap with zangief's hairs (15th #EMG -as viewed in sf4explorer-)

Open the smd in notepad and look for the number of the bone you want to link your object to:

in that case I want to link to the "head bone": #6.

¤ More infos on smd here: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Studiomdl_Data

Now you can use OBJ2EMG.exe:

¤ To use a .obj from 3ds max in OBJ2EMG you may need to open it and save it in misfit model 3d first.

Then use EMGSWAP.exe:

We aren't done yet, it needs some textures (diffusion+normal map dds):

¤ See other tutorials to add dds to your col.emb and nml.emb...

Then use DDSREFEDIT32.exe (I renamed former new.emo to ZGF_01.obj.emo before this step):

That looks OK in sf4explorer:

Let's test in game:

edit:
I thought the bone ID# was in hexadecimal in the smb... it's in decimal sorry for the confusion, I erased that part.
You actually need to write it in hexadecimal when you do it manually, we'll see that in another tutorial...

edit 2: I knew I forgot something...

I didn't linked any material features in the .emm to my "mcap"

2 ways to do it:
1) the lazy way: edit the obj.emo in hexadecimal and change "mcap" by a material that could do the trick like "shoes" or "pants"

2) using NanjouJ's matedit tool, replacing an unused material (in that case "hair") by "mcap" and the features you want to use on it.
http://aemods.pbworks.com/w/page/42053948/aetools#NanjouJsMaterialsTool
UPDATE: use sloth86's EMMEdit instead. It's much easier.

Here's the final result with material features added (no more weird reflections):

Intermediate Guide to SF4 EMG (Model) Swapping

Sloth86 has cracked model manipulation in SF4 wide open. It's now possible to swap models from character to character and costume to costume in a fairly consistent manner, thanks to sloth86's research. Additionally, he was nice enough to write simple, straightforward graphical tools that extend this ability to almost anyone. Just to be clear, though: this procedure often produces strange results, especially with respect to animations. Sometimes these results can be fixed through model editing, sometimes not.

In this tutorial, we're going to use sloth86's methods to take an EMG model from one character and replace it with an EMG model from another character.

First things first, lets get all of the tools we'll need. This is a pretty advanced procedure, so we're going to need piecemontee's SF4Viewer (aka, Asset Explorer), Kensou's Tool(s) and Sloth's tools, specifically, EMGSwap and DDSREFEDIT. Once you have those tools downloaded and organized, we're ready to get started.

First, identify which model you want to move and where you want to put it. I'm planning to take Guy's head (donor model) and place it on Ryu's body (recipient model).

Once you've got it all planned out, open both models (for me, GUY_01.obj.emo and RYU_01.obj.emo) in the Asset Explorer and find the desired objects--in my case Guy's 8th EMG (counting each model, starting from the top in the Asset Explorer's display)--and I'm going to replace Ryu's 12th EMG. The recipient's numbers are important, so write it/them down.

Now, select the donor object, right-click and choose 'Raw dump,' name it something informative (I chose face.emg) and click 'save.'

Next, armed with our model files and numbers, place both the donor *.emg file and recipient *.obj.emo file into the same directory as EMGSwap and double-click on EMGSwap to run it.

This window should pop up:

In the field labeled "Input EMO file," type the name of the recipient model, in my case RYU_01.obj.emo. Then, in the field labeled "EMG # to swap out," type the number of the recipient model you wish to replace, in my case 12 (for Ryu's 12th EMG model, the face). Next, in the field labeled "EMG file to swap in," type in the name of our raw-dumped donor model, in my case face.emg. Finally, in the field labeled "Output EMO file," we'll just leave the default 'new.emo' for now (we'll rename it to replace the old model later, but in the meantime, we don't want to mess anything up before we're sure it's cool).

Click 'Go' and cross your fingers. If all goes well, you should see a window like this pop up:

Looks good so far.

Now, lets check out our Frankenstein's monster by opening the 'new.emo' file in the Asset Explorer:

Yeesh, looks pretty freaky. Since Guy's head was sized and positioned significantly differently from Ryu's, we're going to have to change some things up to make it look normal again.

So, still in the Asset Explorer, lets select our newly imported model, right-click and choose 'Extract...' from the menu. Name it something informative--like face.obj--and click 'save.'

At this point, you might be asking yourself, "if I'm extracting and converting into an obj anyway, why didn't I just export from Guy's model and import straight into Ryu's model in the Asset Explorer, skipping all this EMGSwap bullshit?" Well, smarty-pants, most files in AE (including the *.obj.emo files we're messing with right now) include an index that includes the location and size of each and every file contained within. The Asset Explorer uses this index to determine what can and can't be extracted/injected safely.

However, sloth86's EMGSwap tool rewrites this index for us, so the Asset Explorer can safely extract/inject our borrowed models once EMGSwap has done its thing. Perhaps someday that same functionality will be integrated directly into the Asset Explorer (it's open source, after all), but that day is not today.

Anyway, so we've gotten our model swapped in, but it looks like crap and we'll need to use model editing to fix it. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this part, since you should already know about model editing enough to fix things yourself. For me, Guy's head was the wrong size, so I needed to enlarge it and move it around a bit. I really should edit Ryu's neck to meet the head, too, but you get the idea...

Alright, with my edits in place, the model looks okay, but you'll notice that the skin looks all white and pasty. That's because it's looking to Ryu's first DDS texture, which corresponds to--you guessed it--his duffel bag. This is actually convenient for my purposes, since I can just replace the duffel texture with my donor texture. Thus, I won't need to edit a bunch of DDS references using sloth86's DDSREFEDIT tool, but you probably will (hence, why I included it in the tools you'd need to download).

I'm only going to use it a little, but I'll try to tell you more about it when the time comes.

In the meantime, we need to create some new texture and normal map containers to go with our new model. To do it, we'll use Kensou's sf4tool, just like in this earlier tutorial I made.

Open your donor's *.col.emb and *.nml.emb files in the Asset Explorer, find the textures that correspond to your donated model, right-click and choose to 'Extract...' them. Name them something informative (I used 'Guy.dds' and 'Guynmap.dds') and click 'save.'

Next, open your recipient's *.col.emb and *.nml.emb files in the Asset Explorer an extract *ALL* of his or her DDS textures. Be sure to name them something informative so you can remember which order they're stored (1.dds, 2.dds, etc. and 1nmap.dds, 2nmap.dds, etc. work well).

Now, as per the aforementioned tutorial, create new *.col.emb and *.nml.emb files with your donated textures in the first position. (I actually replaced my recipient's first textures, so the order for mine was Guy.dds, 2.dds, etc. and Guynmap.dds, 2nmap.dds, etc.) EDIT: I used the first position, but apparently the *last* position is more likely to work...?

At this point, you would run the DDSREFEDIT tool and input the number '0' into the 'new texture map' field and '1' into the 'new normal map' fields (assuming your recipient only had a single texture to begin with; this isn't the case with shoto original costumes, though, so count the textures if you need to, according to the instructions in the program; I had to use '5' for the normal map number), your modified *.obj.emo file in the 'Input EMO file' field, and the number of your recipient's replaced model in the EMG # field (in my case, it was '12'). You would then check the box for '+1 to every other normal map references' (this last bit was unnecessary for me because I replaced the duffel bag normal map with the donated normal map).

This was my result:

Anyway, if this last part seems confusing, don't worry about it. I'll be making another tutorial that goes over the texture reassignment tool using a more typical example in the future. In the meantime, try your best, share your work and ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS.

How to Create High-Resolution Textures in SSF4AE - PC

This tutorial covers how to create *.col.emb files from scratch using Kensou's Tools. These files can contain any number or variety of DDS textures of any size/resolution or compression type (DXT*). The most common usage for this is to create textures that are higher resolution than the default textures, but it can be used for other purposes, as well.

Sensibeat's tutorial for making high-resolution textures is much more informative, but requires a level of comfort working with hexadecimal code and calculations. This method is considerably easier but you should still try to understand sensibeat's instructions since the same techniques are helpful in other aspects of modding.

Anyway, lets get started. All you need are piecemontee's Asset Explorer and Kensou's sf4tool.

Step 1. Open a *.col.emb file in the Asset Explorer and extract the DDS textures. Name them something simple that reflects the order they're supposed to come in (I like to use 1.dds, 2.dds, etc.).

Step 2. Open the DDS textures in a paint/editing program, such as Photoshop or GIMP, and scale them to the desired resolution. In this case, I'm scaling a bunch of 512x512 textures up to 1024x1024.

Step 3. Save the textures as new DDS files with any compression you like. This is your opportunity to change, for example, DXT1 textures into DXT5 to allow for semi-tranparency.

Step 4. Now, open the directory for Kensou's sf4tool.exe (NOT sf4toolnew.exe). If you don't have a directory named 'emb' in there, create it now, and then put your enlarged DDS textures into it. Next, run sf4tool.exe by double-clicking it.

Step 5. In the big file-directory pane on the upper-right of the window, double-click on your emb directory and click on the left-hand button underneath the big pane. The smaller pane to the left should populate with your files. Put them in the proper order by changing the filenames in the smaller pane (you can just click in there and type) and then click on the right-hand button to bundle them all together.

Step 6. Back in your 'emb' directory, you should have a new file called 'newpack.emz.' Rename it to match the col file you're trying to create, in my case GKI_01_01.col.emb.

All set! The *.col.emb file you're left with is formatted a little strangely and contains some garbage hex in the index and at the end of the file, but AE doesn't seem to care, so neither do I. :P

You can now use the Asset Explorer to extract/inject textures from your new file using the new textures as a base for mods.

Sensibeat's cmn File Size Editing Tutorial (Also Applicable to Other emz Bundles)

cmn.emz file size editing tutorial

So now we want to copy some file in our cmn.emz.

We need the Length of the file.
Calculate it or easier, just open the file in the hexadecimal editor, the last offset number is our Length.

I want to "inject" an edited HWK.fce.ema

Last offset is 7BA97 so our Length will be 97 BA 07 00

Note that it's smaller than ZGF.fce.ema but it works the same with bigger files.

Now let's find the ZGF.fce.ema location (search works well too but let's use our new knowledge)
TB = 9C5C28+38 = 9C5C60
The true beginning of the #EMA is at offset 9C5C60


I select the full file


I overwrite it with the HWK.fce.ema file


I insert blanks (00) to make the next #EMA begin at the start of a line (like it was)


Now I know there are 3 files after the one I inserted (Thx to piecemontee's AE) that were moved by my changes.
I need to check the TBs of the #EMA #BAC #BCM + the TBs of the files at the end:

#EMA TB: A41700
A41700 - 40 (CL) = A416C0 (RL)



#BAC TB: A5B6A0
A5B6A0 - 48 (CL) = A5B658 (RL)


#BCM TB: A826B0
A826B0 - 50 (CL) = A82660 (RL)


ZGF.skl.emo TB: A843E0
ZGF.skl.emm TB: A843EC
ZGF.obj.ema TB: A843F8
ZGF.fce.ema TB: A84404
ZGF.cam.ema TB: A84410
ZGF.bac TB: A8441C
ZGF.bcm TB: A84424

We need to enter the Length of the new fce.ema (other lengths didn't change), and new RLs and TBs backwards:


Et voilà.