DS3 Mods

Mod DS3 at your own risk. Nobody but yourself
assumes responsibility for what happens to
your game at anybodys suggestion.
So nobody likes DS3, at least the die hards.
Well I've a mod for it anyways.

It's my first for DS3 as I just found out how to mod it.

Here is a link to the mod...
a skin for Anjali.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eUZI1zoxQRloa8btps-mZ1k5ZH4sp0f4

Modding DS3 is not like modding DS1or2. It actually is a lot easier.
For DS3, all of it's game files are compressed into (.OAF) files.
However there is a 'Data' Subfolder where these hidden files
"should" be, if they were not compressed into the (.OAF) files.
What does that mean?
If you make your own version, you can "replace" the version
the game uses in the (.OAF) file. Understand?

The game first looks into the actual folders first, (in the Data folder).
If it doesn't find what it looks for, (which is everything)
it will then look into the compressed (.OAF) files.
Why? So that the game can allow for mods!!!
Also developers can add or delete something on the fly.
Which is good for testing.

An example is my above link, a new skin for the Anjali character.
I took the head and body texture and made new versions,
then put them in the folders they need to be in if
they where in foders and not compressed.
Make since?

But can we add new items without replacing old ones?
Yes. It would require editing some other files.
Or making new files.
I do not at all know what or where they are yet.
But I wanted to get this started with a quick example and some explanations on what we can do with DS3 at the moment.

First, before we can mod DS3, we need to get at the files.
http://raptor-cestiny.cz/download/dungeon-siege-3-oaf-files-extractor.html
This link is a file extractor for Dungeon Siege III.
it extracts files found in the (.OAF) compressed containers.
The site is Czech...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fraptor-cestiny.cz%2Fdownload%2Fdungeon-siege-3-oaf-files-extractor.html&edit-text=&act=url
But the program has an English option. A tab at the top.

What are these files?
They are the meat of the game.

(.actor) files are 3D models...

Szkaradek123@xentax has made a Blender2.49 Import Script for .actor files.
You can get the script by becoming a member at Xentax forums.
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6834

(.DDS) files are image textures (The paintjob of 3D models)
Comparable to the (.BMP) files of DS1
You can edit them with GIMP, PHOTOSHOP, or PAINT.NET

I've literally only took a small glance last night so I can't tell you more about the files.
Can we experiment?
Yes. And if your game becomes broken, just delete the files you added, and the game will
revert to the working versions in the (.OAF) files.

3D models have something inside them that moves them around called 'BONES'.
A collection of bones is referred to as the model's armature.
Armatures are targeted by the game's animations.
Many 'actors' may share the same bones.
So if you took one model and renamed it to that of a main character, you could watch a new version of the character.
Like a skeleton in the place of your own character.
(I don't know if skeletons share the armature with human pcs)
Sometimes, animation files are dynamic enough to be able to target more then one armature, so other models might work as well.
Also, if you rename animations, you can have different actions for "un-intended" situations.

Mod wise, a character would have a select number of files to make it work in a game.
Depending on how the character is intended,
it may be 7 or 8 files.
For DS1 (or DS2, I haven't had the opertunity to mod that geme yet), we hade to make lots of armor objects for a new character, and lots of textures, lots of icons, and even muti-gender versions.

DS3 has only four characters and each item is unique to that character.
However certainly we can expand the list of characters to choose from once we figure out the files.

That's my 2 cents on Modding DS3.
I hope others take interest and explorer
enough to uncover the hidden details of DS3.
-CG