Modding this game

[PaperOdin]

So I’ve been digging around trying to crack open this bad boy for custom tracks and got stuck on a few things. If anyone out there is interested in helping mod this game/find out how to even mod it, mind starting some discussions here so we can get a basis on where to start?

I got the .uasset files extracted via umodel but can’t do from here. The song files and inside these .uassets but I have no way to really open them. Anyone got any clues?

[SkacikPL]

Originally posted by PaperOdin:

Originally posted by SkacikPL:

Those are paths within bank files. Technically proper extraction would retain file names and paths within the bank but most extractors just extract .wems with their hash names.

Gotcha
Went through all the bnk files along with all the loose .wem in all the wwise folders and I can't find anything relating to the soundtrack. Just voice lines, sound effects, and the like. I'm out of ideas now sadly until something new pops up :(

Thanks for all your help though, I really appreciate it

You're using Fmodel wrong.
In archives select WwiseAudio->Windows then go to Packages tab. Common audio banks won't be in any of language folders for obvious reasons.

[PaperOdin]

Originally posted by SkacikPL:

Originally posted by PaperOdin:

Gotcha
Went through all the bnk files along with all the loose .wem in all the wwise folders and I can't find anything relating to the soundtrack. Just voice lines, sound effects, and the like. I'm out of ideas now sadly until something new pops up :(

Thanks for all your help though, I really appreciate it

You're using Fmodel wrong.
In archives select WwiseAudio->Windows then go to Packages tab. Common audio banks won't be in any of language folders for obvious reasons.

…oh

Sorry for being dumb, I didn’t realize you could extracting it from there, I thought it was just the language folders. Now I just gotta find out how to pack it all back up and get it working. My guess is that it should be the same packing process as other UE4 games with the ~mods folder and stuff, but I’ll have to dig into that later

[Falconite]

So excited to of found this! Hope you get it figured out. I'm in love with this game and its concept. I'm a music producer and 3D artist, and I would love to produce a soundtrack in my own style so I'm rooting for your progress! I am an UE cinematic artist but dont have much knowledge related to packing and unpacking asset files. Wish I could be of more help but will be keeping and eye on things!

[PaperOdin]

Originally posted by Falconite:

So excited to of found this! Hope you get it figured out. I'm in love with this game and its concept. I'm a music producer and 3D artist, and I would love to produce a soundtrack in my own style so I'm rooting for your progress! I am an UE cinematic artist but dont have much knowledge related to packing and unpacking asset files. Wish I could be of more help but will be keeping and eye on things!

Oooo an original stylized soundtrack would be a really cool mod for this game, I’m eager to see it eventually!

I’m slowly getting there in regards to getting it working. I spent all night listening to all the tracks and seeing which audio files are in which bnk and such which was quite fun tbh :P

All I gotta do is find a way to replace the wem files, path my folders, and have the game read the mod. I’ll keep you posted whenever I get this working :D

[PaperOdin]

Question to anyone out there that might know:

I extracted the .bnk files, replaced the .wems with my own using Wwise, and packed it all up into a .pak file. Normally with UE4 games, you’d put a folder in the Paks folder called “~mods” and throw your .park in there. It doesn’t seem to work on this which either means I did the file replacement wrong or this game have a different way of loading mods than other UE4 games. Anyone have an idea as to what the solution could be?

[SupDos]

Hope you or someone else manages to figure this out, as I've also been trying to edit the game files to remove the photosensitivity/unreal logo screen when starting the game

I've found the files for it in FModel, and have tried making a new _P.pak file to replace it, but it seems like nothing happens

According to this video, since the game has .sig files next to the paks, there is some extra stuff you need to do for the game to load them, or use a paid program to bypass it https://youtu.be/Kyo8dvuIK00?t=837

I'm also confused because the thing I want to edit is in the .utoc file, which is different to the .pak file and I'm not sure if this one can be edited the same or not!

[North_Dumpling]

I've spent whole evening trying to get it to work, but unfortunately .pak patch doesnt work no matter how hard you try, which is odd. .pak patches worked fine for Ready or Not.

[PaperOdin]

Originally posted by North_Dumpling:

I've spent whole evening trying to get it to work, but unfortunately .pak patch doesnt work no matter how hard you try, which is odd. .pak patches worked fine for Ready or Not.

Might have to do with the .sig file thing in the post above yours, but I’m not entirely sure quite yet. I’ll keep trying tomorrow, but I’m fairly certain the .pak loading should be the same as other UE4 games. Maybe just needs something else I guess :P

We’re almost there, just gotta crack this last step it seems :D

[SkacikPL]

Originally posted by SupDos:

Hope you or someone else manages to figure this out, as I've also been trying to edit the game files to remove the photosensitivity/unreal logo screen when starting the game

That likely is impossible since most japanese games seem to include those screens as objects within main menu level. Basically the camera stares at plane with texture of the warning screen.

Replacing the texture sheet of the warnings will not make them go away since you aren't modifying the level sequence. And modifying entire levels is borderline impossible once they're cooked.

[SupDos]

Originally posted by SkacikPL:

Originally posted by SupDos:

Hope you or someone else manages to figure this out, as I've also been trying to edit the game files to remove the photosensitivity/unreal logo screen when starting the game

That likely is impossible since most japanese games seem to include those screens as objects within main menu level. Basically the camera stares at plane with texture of the warning screen.

Replacing the texture sheet of the warnings will not make them go away since you aren't modifying the level sequence. And modifying entire levels is borderline impossible once they're cooked.

Going to preface this by saying that I've got no idea how Unreal works and am completely Clueless, but the warning screen seems to be it's own folder inside the game's blueprints (https://i.imgur.com/EvnAT7B.png)

The main menu is listed separately which makes me hopeful it can be removed/edited in some way https://i.imgur.com/64watF4.png

I might just be high on copium though, never delved this deep into modding before

[SkacikPL]

That's a widget blueprint, that means it's slightly less janky than making camera stare at a plane and it's about 50/50 whether replacing it with blank widget blueprint will do anything.

If the widget itself handles its timing and/or overall code has enough failsafes then it could potentially be skippable. If not you'd just be staring at a bugged screen either for same period of time or indefinitely.

Hard to tell their design approach really, there's only one real way to find out but i'd assume entire sequence is hardwired as map level and there's no easy way of bypassing it.

[SupDos]

Originally posted by SkacikPL:

If the widget itself handles its timing and/or overall code has enough failsafes then it could potentially be skippable. If not you'd just be staring at a bugged screen either for same period of time or indefinitely.

Interesting, thank you for explaining that! There's another intro as well which is a plain mp4 in the movies folder and you can delete/rename it to skip, so since the game doesn't crash due to the missing file, maybe it might work similarly to this? Might be a completely different beast though.

Definitely need to try and figure out how to get our pak files loading though, otherwise we won't be getting anywhere

[• Shockwave •]

Originally posted by elliotttate:

You can use Fmodel to browse the game (https://github.com/4sval/FModel)

The AES key is:0x88E8D063BC1DBB87A12FC5251BED42FA72EC37DE2DF199109B1573D7A0E085CE
UE4 version: 4.27

There's tools that can edit the PAK files too

Nice joke with posting key for MS Store release. For Steam you need to use this one:
0xE34CC6C8E61D501C1720E61590E4AF560820169433D1629FDA753F72F9EC2543

[PaperOdin]

Well gents, looks like someone cracked the code :D
https://www.nexusmods.com/hifirush/mods/1

Still gotta find out how to mod certain things like audio and get all that working, but we have a way to load .pak files now!

I've been testing around with getting new .wem files working using Wwise and it's an interesting thing. I have the correct pathing working because the song I'm trying to replace doesn't play, so I'm doing something right at least :P. That being said, I think there might be some specific way that the .wem files are encoded or read that's not letting the custom track play. I'll keep testing it, but that's where we're at so far with custom music. If anyone knows anything about specifics with .wem files with either how the game reads them (which I think is the issue here) or encoding them or whatever, I’m all ears. We're this close to greatness, I can taste it!

[Frikcha]

As someone who knows nothing about modding I think a really cool idea would just be finding out how they sync the music to the action, and replacing one of the tracks with another song of the same bpm.

That would probably be what people want most right now, custom music