So.. You have read my How to port Saints Row IV Characters to Saints Row: The Third guide and want to know whether you can port Saints Row IV homie icons to Saints Row: The Third; short answer, yes, and I will show you how in this post; If you plan to make your own icon, just follow me and skip the Saints Row IV parts.
Before we start:
We are going to need a few tools, for your texture editing expedition.
Make sure you extract all compressed tools, this will require powershell usage (don't worry, I will walk you through it <3)
Let's say you are adding to the texture map. Since I've shown you how to edit the texture you need to know how to make the game understand where your new icon is.
Before we start:
We are going to need a few tools, for your texture editing expedition.
- SRTexTool (This is for both games and I highly recommend this over any other texturing tool, it tells you the proper format the texture should be and gives you warnings if something goes wrong)
- Minimaul's Saints Row Tools (Also can be used for both games, but this is only for Saints Row IV since our next tools are recommended for Saints Row: The Third)
- GibbedTools (If you read my last post, these are the tools recommended for Saints Row: The Third)
Make sure you extract all compressed tools, this will require powershell usage (don't worry, I will walk you through it <3)
- Open powershell in your GibbedTools directory where the exe files are (typically ../volition-1.0.2-with-symbols/bin_sr3) by holding shift and right clicking an empty space and running "Open in Powershell" from the context menu.
- Find the location of your Saints Row: The Third installation, this is where the mods go when you're finished with them
- Inside that folder, enter the packfiles/pc/cache folders and in here you'll find all the data for the game.
- Hold shift and right click on the misc.vpp_pc and click "Copy as path" in the context menu
- Go back to the powershell window and type the command "./Gibbed.SaintsRow3.UnpackVPP.exe <The path to your misc.vpp (use CTRL + V to paste what you have copied)> misc
- Go to the GibbedTools directory I mentioned above (where the exe files are) inside, you should have a folder labeled "misc"
- Now, use the same "Copy to path" method from above with the interface-backend.cpeg_pc file inside the misc folder.
- Go to the SRTexTools folder you extracted and here you'll find two folders labled "Win64" and "Win32," click on whichever your PC is.
- Use same "Open in Powershell" method with that folder (Win64 or Win32, typically Win64 for modern PCs)
- Type the following command "./srtextool.exe x <The path to your interface-backend.cpeg_pc (CTRL + V since you copied it earlier)>
- Move all textures that were extracted (located where the srtextool.exe is) into a new folder labeled SRTT
- Open the "ui_bms_04.tga.DDS" file with your image editing software (I use Paint.net since it is the most convenient)
- This is the Saints Row IV Part (Skip if you're making your own edits)
- Go to the ThomasJepp.SaintsRow-rev133 folder and open that directory in powershell with the same method I listed above
- Do steps 2-4 with Saints Row IV
- Type the following command "./ThomasJepp.SaintsRow.ExtractPackfile.exe <The path to your Saints Row IV misc.vpp (use CTRL+V since you copied it earlier)>"
- Open the folder which should be in the packfiles/pc/cache of Saints Row IV labeled "extracted-misc.vpp"
- Find the interface-backend.cpeg_pc and "Copy to path"
- Use SRTexTool powershell window to extract this using the command "./srtextool.exe x <Saints Row IV interface-backend.cpeg_pc (use CTRL+V once again)>"
- Move extracted textures to new folder labeled "SRIV"
- Open the "ui_bms_04.tga.DDS" just extracted in your image editor
- END OF Saints Row IV PART
- Pick your character and replace, you'll know which texture is for which game, and save the edited one with the A8R8G8B8 format and no mipmaps.
- Copy the SRTT texture you edited out of the SRTT folder and into where the srtextool.exe is, copy the Interface-backend (both cpeg_pc and gpeg_pc) from the misc folder we extracted with GibbedTools earlier and paste it into where the srtextool and the edited ui_bms_04.tga.DDS is
- Type this command inside the srtextool powershell "./srtextool.exe a interface-backend.cpeg_pc ui_bms_04.tga.DDS"
- If it spits out an error, says it is switching formats, or says it is applying mipmaps go back and save the image again before repeating (if you do this, it will say this again but if the format says something like "... to A8R8G8B8" or "mipmaps ... to 0" it is correct)
- The file should be the same size it was before you did the last command, you can use command "./srtextool.exe l interface-backend.cpeg_pc" to check the formatting and mipmaps
- Drag and drop the finished cpeg and gpeg into the main directory of Saints Row: The Third.
- Enjoy!
Let's say you are adding to the texture map. Since I've shown you how to edit the texture you need to know how to make the game understand where your new icon is.
- In your image editor (assuming you have something very similar to Paint.net) select the texture of the homie in the edited "ui_bms_04.tga.DDS" and find where it says "Selection top left: <X, Y>" and "Bounding rectangle size: <X x Y>" Keep those numbers tucked in your mind, it's a surprise tool that will help us later.
- Use either GibbedTools or Minimaul's Tools to unpack the misc_tables.vpp_pc
- In the extracted misc_tables folder, search for a file called "ui_bms_04.xtbl" this identifies the location and size of a texture on the homie bitmap you edited
- Double click to use a code editor, I use Visual Studio for this since it is convenient, but you can use Notepad++ or VSCode, they all work the same (Just do NOT use windows notepad, this destroys the formatting of the file)
- Use CTRL+F on your keyboard and a find prompt should show up, type in the name of the character you want to replace, usually ui_homie_<char name> (Do not edit this name)
- Once you have found the character, edit the StartX and StartY to be the numbers from your "Selection top left" and "ImageWidth" and "ImageHeight" will be the "Bounding rectangle size" I mentioned earlier (X and Y respectively)
- With that finished click on File -> Save As and save it in your Saints Row: The Third directory
- Finally, you are finished. Enjoy causing chaos with your new knowledge!
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