Editing FXA files

[autoola]

Hi,

I´ve worked with FaceFX Editor and have some questions.
1. Each spoken line comes in a F and a M version. Even if Jack says "I go to the mall". Which version uses the game? Does it depend on Shep´s gender? Usually plays the M version, I would guess, just in case of words with gender difference the other.
2. I´ve changed, added and deleted each single key one after another. After reading that the FaceFX Editor can import/export sections, I would like to know how.

3. Is it possible to cut sections out? For example: animation takes 6 seconds. I need the first 2 and the last 2 seconds and not second 2 to 4.

Thank you very much.

[giftfish]

1. _F is used when Shepard is female. _M when male. Both must be present when Shepard's gender can vary. If the line will only be delivered when Shepard is a certain gender, then you only need that one present. Look at how Steve or Sam's dialogues are handled for examples.

2. Right click on the string's animset (far left column).

3. Yep. You have to export each separately. Right click, like above. Export the first time range, then the second. Be careful with the times you pick. Scroll through each bone animation/phoneme entry and see where it starts and ends. There are almost always datapoints that occur before t=0, for example.

[autoola]

I have 2 columns, "Lines" and "Animations". Right clicking on a line like "FXA_123456_F" in the left column gives me the option to delete the animset. Right click on the right column deletes a single animation like m_EE. I can copy things by drag and drop either one animation or complete animset. But I can´t choose anything.

[giftfish]

Nov 26, 2018 1:20:44 GMT autoola said:

I have 2 columns, "Lines" and "Animations". Right clicking on a line like "FXA_123456_F" in the left column gives me the option to delete the animset. Right click on the right column deletes a single animation like m_EE. I can copy things by drag and drop either one animation or complete animset. But I can´t choose anything.

You aren't using the latest version of the toolset.  Download 3.1.2 from GitHub. See link in the menu above.

Beta releases have the latest modding capabilities and are not on Nexus; only stable releases meant for broad community use are located there.

[autoola]

Wow. I´m feeling stupid right now. Shame on me.
Using this new option should speed up my progress. Spent last days with calculating and typing a lot of numbers.
Thank you very much!

[giftfish]

Dec 3, 2018 13:59:07 GMT autoola said:

Using this new option should speed up my progress. Spent last days with calculating and typing a lot of numbers.
Thank you very much!

It will indeed! Still lots of calculations involved, though... as you are finding out. The feature works great, though. I've been using in while inserting new dialogues into TM3. The results in game are great

[autoola]

Hi again!
I was a little bit lazy past few days, but I'm making progress.
I just have to deal with a single pcc I can't edit. I can do whatever I want, FaceFX Editor won't save the changes. It´s just this 1 file. Are there write-protected files?

[giftfish]

Jan 13, 2019 16:16:41 GMT autoola said:

Hi again!
I was a little bit lazy past few days, but I'm making progress.
I just have to deal with a single pcc I can't edit. I can do whatever I want, FaceFX Editor won't save the changes. It´s just this 1 file. Are there write-protected files?

Nope. There are some bugs with the editor. I've had problems with certain operations "sticking", but according to my notes, that's only been with deleting full line animations. To delete, you have to use the old tool. So, if that's the problem you've been having, then do that, instead.

If nothing at all is working and you're using the tool correctly, then my hunch would be that there's another version of the bioconversation in another file, and the game is loading and using that version instead. You can locate duplicates by just doing a text search in the gibbed convo dump.

[autoola]

Jan 14, 2019 17:51:18 GMT giftfish said:

Nope. There are some bugs with the editor. I've had problems with certain operations "sticking", but according to my notes, that's only been with deleting full line animations. To delete, you have to use the old tool. So, if that's the problem you've been having, then do that, instead.

If nothing at all is working and you're using the tool correctly, then my hunch would be that there's another version of the bioconversation in another file, and the game is loading and using that version instead. You can locate duplicates by just doing a text search in the gibbed convo dump.

I just want to edit some lines. But just for trying I deleted whole lines. You can do it with FaceFX Editor when you delete each animation. In game even audio stops playing after 1 sec.

Jan 14, 2019 17:51:18 GMT giftfish said:

If nothing at all is working and you're using the tool correctly, then my hunch would be that there's another version of the bioconversation in another file, and the game is loading and using that version instead. You can locate duplicates by just doing a text search in the gibbed convo dump.

My pcc is from a DLC. I've looked for another pcc where another version could be, but until now I didn´t find anything.

It´s weird. I can edit all other pcc, so I guess I'm using the tool correctly.

I'll try to find a solution. Thank you.

[autoola]

So I tried to find out what's going on.
Every BioD file comes in 5 variations. One basic and then one for each language (I have 4 LOC versions - DEU, INT, ITA, FRA). I thought that in LOC versions would be the animation for each language and each line. I deleted all 4 LOC versions and started the game. The cutscene played using the english version without audio. Comparing this to another cutscene (in which I'm able to edit the facial animation), it´s unexpected. The other cutscene doesn't play without at least one LOC version installed. In FaceFX Editor "my" basic pcc has no animations. So I took a look of in Package Editor. There I can find some packages with AnimSequence, AnimSet, FaceFXAsset stored inside. (I guess the "exp" before package name means it is stored inside this file.) Now I'm able to change which person uses which package. But to change just one line, is still not possible for me.

Am I right with my understanding of BioD.pcc (without animation) and BioD_LOC.pcc (contains animation)?

Edit:

I can edit my pcc in FaceFXAnimSetEditor and save it. Then I see the changes in FaceFX Editor, but not in Package Editor and not in game.

[giftfish]

Localized PCCs (LOC) generally contain the FaceFX Animsets (FXE) for bioconversations. The main PCC counterpart contains the bone and robobrad definitions inside the main FaceFX Asset (FXA). However, not all conversations and cutscenes are constructed the same. Edits won't always work the way you expect them to, as a result.

It would probably be easier to tell us exactly which bioconversation you're editing and which language you're playing the game in.

[autoola]

I'm editing the final cutscene of Citadel DLC before returning to Normandy. I play in german. But I don't get any of my editings work in game neither in english nor in german.
BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye.pcc with BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye_LOC_DEU.pcc and BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye_LOC_INT.pcc

[giftfish]

Jan 20, 2019 15:52:03 GMT autoola said:

I'm editing the final cutscene of Citadel DLC before returning to Normandy. I play in german. But I don't get any of my editings work in game neither in english nor in german.
BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye.pcc with BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye_LOC_DEU.pcc and BioD_CitCas_530Goodbye_LOC_INT.pcc

The convo you're trying to edit is an animcutscene. It's not a standard cutscene with dialogue; it's special. Animcutscenes consist of a single interp with a long interpdata. In this case, 82s. FaceFX animsets for animcutscenes are in the main PCC rather than the localized PCC, but they are not yet editable with the FaceFX Editor. In addition, they are, for the most part, impractical to try to edit manually, since the entire face animation is on one continuous timeline. In other words, if Shepard speaks twice (two strings), they are both a part of the same animset.

Long story short: not all dialogues in game can be edited in the same way.

[autoola]

Jan 20, 2019 21:33:56 GMT giftfish said:

The convo you're trying to edit is an animcutscene. It's not a standard cutscene with dialogue; it's special. Animcutscenes consist of a single interp with a long interpdata. In this case, 82s. FaceFX animsets for animcutscenes are in the main PCC rather than the localized PCC, but they are not yet editable with the FaceFX Editor. In addition, they are, for the most part, impractical to try to edit manually, since the entire face animation is on one continuous timeline. In other words, if Shepard speaks twice (two strings), they are both a part of the same animset.

Long story short: not all dialogues in game can be edited in the same way.

Thank you very much! That's somehow good news: I didn't use the tool incorrectly.

"Impractical" doesn't mean "impossible". So I'm guessing there is a way to do it. Probably by editing hex? I opened 530Goodbye.pcc in Package Editor. A subfolder (sorry - I don't know the correct word for it) of Cit004_Goodbye_M_A (Package) is called FXA_ROM_Miranda_M (FaceFXAsset). Looking at this in Interpreter/Hex Editor it seems to contain informations about every animation concerning Miranda in this animcutscene. Is this the file for editing face animation?

I'm very thankful for your patience and your explanations. They're very helpful. ME3Explorer is such a cool tool, I'm just not that good in using it. I would need a user manual - I'm one of these guys reading those things.

Thanks again!

[giftfish]

You're welcome

In theory, that's the correct object. My memory is pretty hazy at this point -- most of the research I did on animcutscenes was a few years ago. You should be able to research on the old forum, though, and find information posted by myself and Deager. Deager has planned on editing that exact scene for CEM and hasn't due to lack of tool support. You could be talking about thousands of hex edits in a sea of unidentified hex. All depends on what you're trying to do.