swtor-slicers / wikipedia

This WikiPedia compiles our SWTOR-related tools and processes' guides, information about the game's file types, etc. There's usually a monthly progress report. For more information, visit our Discord Server.

We are now compatible with the recently released Blender 3.6.12 LTS.

• There was a Blender bug that was making our SWTOR Shaders lose their custom panel UI (it showed up empty of inputs upon undo or reload). This started happening in Blender 3.6.8 and just now 3.6.12 has corrected that.
• We have a beta of the .gr2 importer add-on that ought to work on 4.0.x, BUT NOT ON 4.1.x, as this version introduces late changes to Blender's API that break the object importing process.

Remember that you can have as many versions of Blender as you want at once: each major/minor version of Blender (3.5, 3.6, 4.0, etc.) keeps its own preferences and add-ons completely separate 🙂.

Welcome to the SWTOR Slicers wiki!

We are a group of swtor fans who enjoy messing with the game and pulling out models, textures, etc. This GitHub repository contains tools and guides to help you do so yourself, as well as some other things.

This Wiki is where we pool all the knowledge we are gathering on SWTOR's data and how to use it, be it to discover what BioWare is cooking (datamining), to enhance our SWTOR experience by changing the game's looks (modding), or to make art out of the game's assets and immortalize our player characters through other 3D apps or even 3D-printing (extracting). Bear with us: it's far easier that it seems 🙂.

We encourage you to join our Discord Server, where you will be able to interact with fellow hobbyists in a direct manner, find help if you get stuck, and even contribute if you feel like it.

(We do not condone the usage of our tools for malicious intent, including: exploits, harassment of others, or anything else that may violate EA/Bioware's EULA, TOS, DSA, Privacy Policy Copyrights, Trademarks, or anything else illegal. We will not be held accountable for your actions, and will act against you if it becomes necessary)

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Table of Contents

• Home.
• State of Play May 2024
• Getting Help:
  • Link to the SWTOR Slicers Discord Server.
  • TORCommunity and its online tools.
  • Jedipedia and its online tools.

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INTRODUCTION

IMPORTING SWTOR MODELS INTO BLENDER: A BRIEF OVERVIEW.
Check this intro first. Afterwards, you can jump directly to the guides on extracting PCs, NPCs and others.

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TOOLS

No need to read this section right now: each extracting/assembling guide explains its required tools anyway.

Applications and Blender Add-on tools:

• Slicers GUI (Windows app).
• Blender 3D (multiplatform app):
  Which version. How to learn. Installing our Add-ons.
• SWTOR .gr2 Objects Importer Add-on.
  Required by all the other add-ons.
• SWTOR Character Assembler Add-on.
• SWTOR Area Assembler Add-on.
  • SWTOR Terrain Extractor Command Line Tool.
• ZeroGravitas SWTOR Tools Add-on.
  Includes the Character and Area Assemblers plus other diverse tools.

Online Tools:

• Jedipedia.net:
  • SWTOR Database.
  • File Reader.
  • World Viewer.
• TORCommunity.com:
  • SWTOR Database.
  • Character Designer.
  • NPC viewer's Exporter.

Deprecated Tools:

• EasyMYP (Windows app).
• Noesis (Windows app).

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THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO AUTO-EXTRACTING AND ASSEMBLING PLAYER CHARACTERS AND NPCs:

READ THE BROAD STROKES FIRST: YOU'LL SEE IT'S EASIER THAN YOU THINK!

• The steps:

  • Installing Slicers GUI and extracting SWTOR's game assets.
  • Using TORCommunity's Character Designer to export Player Characters.
    • IF ARMOR SELECTION SEARCH IS DOWN: workaround to manually specify Armor Sets.
  • Using TORCommunity's NPCs Database to export Non Playable Characters.
  • Using our Blender add-ons to auto-assemble the model.
  • Rigging the character for posing and animation
  • Applying SWTOR animations to the character.

• Extra steps that require manual work and some knowledge of SWTOR's assets:

  • Making capes and hair work, manually and through Cloth Simulation.

  • Locating weapons' assets manually.

  • Attaching weapons and other objects to a character with a SWTOR rig.

  • Attaching weapons and other objects to a character with a custom rig.

  • Baking the models' textures and exporting to other apps:

    • Baking with Legacy SWTOR materials and modern ones.
    • Baking the multiple materials of an object into a single one.
    • Exporting to VRChat.
    • Exporting to Star Wars Battlefront II.
    • Exporting to Unreal Engine.
    • Exporting to Garry's Mod.
    • Exporting to Tabletop Simulator.

  • 3D Printing:

    • Baking Normals into real 3D detailing

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ASSEMBLING GAME LOCATIONS AUTOMATICALLY:

• Assembling SWTOR Game Areas with Jedipedia.net data and the SWTOR Area Assembler Addon.

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LOCATING AND ASSEMBLING ASSETS MANUALLY:

• Locating armor parts' assets
• Locating weapons' assets.
• Assigning materials and textures to environmental and architectural elements, furniture, props, ships, vehicles and weapons.
• Assembling multi-part assets (Decorations, Rooms, etc).
• Generic guide to importing objects and assigning materials (Legacy Add-on-based. Needs updating).

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OTHER GUIDES (WIP):

• Snippets.
• Improving and customizing our SWTOR models and materials.
  • List of tips and tricks to cover in the future.
  • Replacing body parts with gear vs. putting gear on top of body parts
  • Merge by Distance before applying Modifiers.
  • Enhancing SWTOR texture maps with Cupscale.
• Other Extracting Strategies (needs updating).
• SWTOR Materials recipes:
  • SWTOR’s holosigns: how to make them work in Blender.

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MODDING (to do)

Modding isn't working at the moment due to SWTOR's change to a 64bit codebase. It's going to take a while 🙁.

• Overview.
• Tools.
• Other techniques:
  • Modding SWTOR textures with Special K (CAUTION).

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DATAMINING (to do)

• Overview.
• Tools.

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SWTOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

• File Formats
  • Overview.
  • gr2 Structure.
  • jba Structure.
  • clo Structure.
• A look at SWTOR's Materials and Texture Files.

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OTHER RESOURCES:

• Articles, lectures and talks about SWTOR's development.
• Playing SWTOR on macOS and Linux.