Overview
How to import Dark Souls models. Must own Dark Souls on steam to work.
2018 UPDATE
The “Render to Texture” step of this guide is obsolete and no longer necessary.
That step was used to bypass a technical limitation in TTS where it refuses to render transparency in some cases.
What you need to do instead is follow the following steps:
1. Convert any necessary textures from .DDS to .PNG using GIMP.
2. Combine any textures together that you desire, inside of GIMP.
3. Add transparency / alpha channel to your texture if it doesn’t have one already.
4. Delete the Top-Left and Top-Right pixel of your texture, so that it shows transparency.
5. Export as .PNG
If you follow these steps, TTS will recognize your texture as being transparent as it should.
What You’ll Need
1. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die (Steam)
2. Dark Souls Mod Tool v0.4b (located at below link)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38150185/DSMODT/DSMODT%20v0.2a.zip
3. AutoDesk 3DS Max (you can use student version if you have a .edu email)
4. NinjaRipper (I used v1.1.4)
Set Up
Install all of the software I mentioned earlier.
As for Dark Souls Mod Tool, extract it somewhere you will recognize but not somewhere it will be in the way.
Dark Souls Mod Tool will automatically detect your installation of Dark Souls on steam, and Ninja Ripper will be used to open it, so you don’t actually ever need to open it from this folder.
Ninja Ripper
Select the .exe for Dark Souls Mod Tool inside of Ninja Ripper
Set up your output folder to where you’re putting your model files.
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Click RUN
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Navigate inside of Dark Souls Mod Tool to find the model you want. It’s pretty self explanatory.
Don’t click on one of the map names by accident! It will take a while to generate the map and just waste time if you’re not looking for that map.
You can change the animation that’s shown near the top.
Once you find a good pose of your model, press F10. This will extract the model.
Now we go to 3DS Max
3DS Max
Very first, make sure you’re familiar with the basics. Move tool, rotate tool, and UV edit are basically what you will need to know. Basic stuff.
First, click MAXScript at the top, then Run, and then find the NinjaRipper Maxscript in the NinjaRipper folder. It’s a .ms file.
Next, select Group radio button (you are importing alot of polygons)
Then, for the folder, select the export from ninja ripper. It will be where you told it to put it, and the folder will be like “Frame0000” like that name.
Then, in the Frames box, type which frames you want. That is all of them usually.
In the box, type this “0000-0046” or replace “46” with however many frames you have. Just open up the folder ninjaripper made to find out what your total frames is. Don’t count the texture files, those are different.
Run the script after you’ve done that, and your model will (mostly) import.
Find all of the misc stuff that you don’t need and delete it. Don’t accidentally delete parts of your model!
Once you’re sure you have ONLY what you need, then you might have to reposition the weapons of your model (I did) I guess if it’s an animal or something it won’t be a problem? Not sure.
Next, you need to convert all of your Meshes to Editable Poly.
Once all of the objects are Editable Poly, attach them together so that they are one object. NOTE: you can’t reposition your model after this. Make sure you put the weapons in place!
Next is ONLY FOR TRANSPARENCY! If your model doesn’t need transparency, then you can skip this part.
Open material editor and copy each bitmap requiring transparency to the respective opacity channel of its texture. Then under Mono Channel Output, click Alpha, and untick Premultiplied Alpha.
Next, click Rendering at the top and pick Render to Texture.
If you haven’t already, select your object and it will populate some of the fields for the Render to Texture box.
Pick an output directory that you can find easily, like desktop or a project folder. This is where the new texture will go.
Next, under Mapping Coordinates, select Use Automatic Unwrap.
Then, under Output, click “Add” and then select Diffuse Map.
Then, under Selected Element Common Settings, select Diffuse Color in “Target Map Slot” field.
Select the texture size you want (I used 1024×1024)
Leave everything else the same!
Next at the bottom, click Unwrap Only.
If you’ve done everything right, it will think for a minute, then you can click Open UV Editor on the right panel like you normally would.
Once you’re in the UV map screen, at the top select Mapping, then pick Flatten Map.
In the flatten map screen, change the Spacing to 0.
Close out of the UV Editor, go back to your Render to Texture window.
Next, change the selection under Mapping Coordinates to Use Existing Channel instead of Automatic Unwap.
THEN you can click Render.
This will create the compiled texture for your model. It will be output in the Output directory you specified in the Render-to-Texture window earlier. This is the texture you’ll use.
NOW we’re not done yet. That texture won’t work for the model the way it is right now. We have to change the UV maps.
If the Automatic UV Flatten is still active, just right click it and do Collapse All.
Now, select your model and then click Modifiers at the top bar and select UV Coordinates and then Unwrap UVW.
Once that’s done, open the UV Editor again like last time.
If you don’t see your UV’s, don’t panic. They are there. Just wait.
Use CTRL+A to select the polygons, then go to mapping and Flatten Map just like before.
Just like before, select 0 for spacing, then apply. It should take a while.
Next, just quick make sure the UV’s look the same as the texture you exported earlier. It should be exactly the same if you did it correctly.
After you’re done, collapse the Unrwap UVW.
Last final steps, you will definitely need to scale down the model alot. How much depends on what you’re using it for, so use another model you’ve done for reference and it should work out.
Finally, after you’ve done all of the other things you want to do to your model, export it to .OBJ
And you’re done!
Make it work in TTS
.OBJ files get copied onto Pastebin.com
NOTE: Dark Souls files are larger than the 500KB limit for free users.
I purchased a PRO account, so you will need to either do the same or send your files to someone who is a PRO user to upload them. I don’t mind uploading your Dark Souls files simply because I’ll already have a mod on the workshop.
Once you upload them, use the “raw” url to put in TTS. It will look like this:
[link]
Textures get uploaded to http://imgur.com
I used JPG, but it’s actually not the best choice… I heard that PNG can do transparency, so maybe you can use that. I’m still figuring that part out. But you can’t re-bake the texture AFTER you modify the orignal UV’s, so chances are you’re screwed at this point anyway.
The imgur URL for TTS should look like this:
And that’s it!
Your models should work fine. Here take a look at mine I did:
NOTE:
If TTS rejects your model when you try to import it, it may have too many polygons.
You’ll need to use the ProOptimize tool in 3DS Max to fix that, reduce it to below 13000 triangles.
Good luck