Can I use Blender to make new hair for Dragon Age: Inquisition?

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1

So I am a complete newbie to this sort of thing. While my day job involves heavy use of After Effects I haven’t really done much with 3d modeling and I’ve never tried creating any game assets before. However, the player hair in DA:I (Dragon Age: Inquisition) is so terrible to me that I am willing to learn how to make my own hair. Plus, I think it would be fun to learn.

I guess my googlefu is pretty poor, or I haven’t been using the right keywords - there’s been little info regarding modding DA:I because supposedly its new engine is hard to crack. I haven’t been able to find much about how to make hair for it. But I finally figured that maybe it doesn’t have to be specific to DA:I since it’s just hair and not anything that would change the mechanics. Anywhoo… it seems like I could use Blender to create the hair and them import them into DA:I somehow. Is this accurate?

If I can use Blender to create hair for DA:I, are there any considerations I need to be aware of that might limit my options in Blender (like DA:I only supports a specific format, or file size, poly count, etc).

And, since I’ve never done this sort of thing before, are there any good tutorials or starting points to learn how to do this? Thank you.

2

Does Dragon Age have mod tools? That game is made in Frostbite which I use every day and I also use Blender so yes, I’m sure you can use Blender to make DA hair if you wish. You will have to make geometry hair so keep that in mind.

3

From what I recall there is no official toolset but other modders are working on it. Searching youtube for “blender geometry hair” seems to have turned up some interesting results!

4

Ok, after scouring forum posts it looks like there is an unofficial toolset: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/529048-dai-tools/?p=17924567

"Warranty voider, author of ME3xplorer (Mass Effect 3 modding tool), Ehamloptiran who wrote BIExplorer ( Bioshock Infinite modding tool ) and others are being nice enough to make this toolset for us
SVN (link to download latest versions will be here)
http://sourceforge.n…jects/daitools/

Technical Discussion and Ehmoptiran’s mesh / texture extractor:
http://me3explorer.f…327.html#p13327

Ehalmoptiran’s forum for DAI Modding:
http://daitools.free…s.org/index.php

How to use DA_Tools.exe tool:
(See second post)

Project Timetable / Progress:
The steps are:

Identify game assets (textures, mesh, etc…)

  1. Read the CAS files in readable form (uncompressed) – done & released (release 10 or higher)
  2. Find texture and mesh examples on the CAS files – done & released (release 10 or higher)
  3. Extract the texture in readable form (dds) – done & released (release 10 or higher)
    3a) Extract the game 3d models in readable form (obj, 3ds, fbx…) – done & released (r 10 or higher)
    3b) Extract game dialog text – done & released (release 25 or higher)
    3c) Extract game sound files – done by other modders, not on our tool

Modify simple Textures & Mesh
4) modify textures (gimp, Photoshop, Paint.net) – donedone & released (release 10 or higher)
4a) Modify Mesh (3ds, maya, blender, daz3D) – donedone & released (release 10 or higher)
5) Make a tool to import modded textures into game w/o crashing the game – done, not released yet
5a) Make a tool to import static mesh (statues, chairs, rocks) - done, not released yet

Modify skinned/ rigged Textures & Mesh
6) rig modded Mesh to fit the npc bodies in game (3ds, maya, blender, daz3D) – done, not released yet
7) Make a tool to import rigged mesh (armour, hair, weapons) - done, not released yet

Modify game character Textures & Mesh
8) rig modded Mesh to fit the Inquisitor bodies in game (3ds, maya, blender, daz3D) – done, not released yet
9) Make a tool to import rigged / dynamic mesh (armour, hair, weapons, body. face) - TO DO

Modify game story / flow (dialog, sound files, dialog wheel, conditionals, damage, stats, spells)
3b) Extract game dialog text – done & released (release 25 or higher)
3c) Extract game sound files – done by other modders, not on our tool
10) Identify and read conditionals, statistics, spells -
11) Make user tool to modify text, sound. statistics, spells, etc… -
12) Make tool to import the modified text, conditionals, etc into game -

** Note that 10, 11 & 12 can be done in paralel with the mesh work

*** After step 5 we can have our first mod (Change the colors of your brown Jammies! ) and some little mods like that, like “use your own flag instead of the Inquisition flag”, or “make your throne blue on Skyhold”. Perhaps we can even make Leliana a redhead if we find her hair texture.
*** After step 5a modders can add some little things like a My little pony statue to inqui’s room or a fancy door to Solas room, or whatever

**** After step 6 modders can change hair, armor and other character accessories. Finally we can try to switch the jamies for jeans ant t-shirt and get Bianca to look as rocket launcher or flame thrower

**** After step 8 we can make new mounts or new Darkspawn, or such

Doubt we get to 8 that this year but I’ve been wrong before, I thought step 5 was gonna happen in 2015 and Ehalmloptiran is doing it already http://lvlt.forum.bioware.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png
"

SO it looks like some great progress is being made towards making mods possible. Maybe by the time I figure out how to make hair, there will be a way to actually get it into the game! I’m still not sure what “rules” or specs I need to follow to make compatible hair, though. I don’t want to get really invested and make a fancy hairstyle that the game doesn’t support.