The Assassin's Creed series is one of Ubisoft's most prominent IPs.
Over the years there has been numerous entries with different characters, in different settings, during different time periods.
These games have been using different versions of Ubisoft's in-house game engine known as the "Anvil Engine"

The various types of files and how to modify them using Anviltoolkit will be covered over 4 lessons
Each lesson will go cover the following subjects:

• UI, Text & Fonts
  
• Textures
  
• Meshes
  
• Buildtables & Materials
  
• Animations
  

• A personal computer (PC)
  
• AnvilToolkit
  
• Notepad++
  
• Image editing apps (e.g. Adobe Photoshop & Paint.NET)
  
• Blender (ideally version 4.0 - 4.1)
  

This lesson will over 3 topics
(skip the parts you already know)

• AnvilToolkit basics
• Game files
• Editing UI, text & font files
  
  

The main tool required to edit the files within the supported "Anvil Engine" games.
First, to start your work you will need to add the right "path" for the game you wish to modify.
Click or add the icon for the game you want to edit and you will see this message.

Click Yes and then proceed to add the coresponding game's executable (.exe) path.
Example: D:\Games\Assassin's Creed II\steamapps\common\Assassin's Creed 2

Once done correctly you will see the game's files and with that done, we can now begin.

We will be using Assassin's Creed 2's files for this lesson's example and will explain the most important files.
Note: File names tend to resemble things in the games such as locations and characters, so prior experience does help.

• You will mostly find the main playable character files and their various costumes. (e.g. Ezio, Altair and Desmond)
• All the texts files in the game
  

• Contains most of the game's UI files
• Fonts used in the game's texts
  

• Contains the relevant "modern day" characters and assets that were used in the Abstergo section of the campaign.
  

• Contains the relevant files used in the infamous Altair "dream sequence".
  

• Contains assets used in the Firenze map (A.K.A Florence)
  
  

As stated earlier having prior knowledge of the game, it's characters and locations will be extremely useful in finding which Forge or Data file you wish to edit.
Inside the "Forge" files are "Data" files which contains the files you want to edit.
Keep in mind that you will usually find texts files inside DataPC.forge.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations, will be used for this lesson.
Ok, so let's say I want to turn ACR's "Armor of Brutus" outfit into a custom one i.e. the "Auditore's Robes" from AC2.
I will need to edit both the text and the image in the outfits menu's UI to make it look legit, right? Let's go.

To understand the fundamentals of editing textures using the AnvilToolKit, consult the Texture Viewer tutorial.

To find the relevant image files I will need to unpack DataPC_extra.forge and look for the correct "MapDesc" data file.
In this instance I will be looking for one with the name "Brutus" attached.
Note: some files will have typos in their names and will be trickier to find than usual.

Now open file up and export it's TextureMap to a DDS and use an image editing software e.g. Photoshop or Paint.net.
Make your edits or replacement from scratch, then replace the texture in the MapDesc file.
Repack all the edited files as usual and there you go.

To find the relevant text files I will need to unpack DataPC.forge and look for the correct "LocalizationPackage" data file.
For example; if your primary language is English, you should open xx_-_LocalizationPackage_English.data.
(Edit the one which contains the language you primarily use.)

Now I will export it into an xml file. Search for the corresponding outfit's name in the xml via Notepad++
(ideally use Notepad++'s search feature to find the name)

After finding the name and changing it to "Auditore's Robes", I will now import my modified xml file in place of where the original localization Package was.

As you can see the name is now "Auditore's Robes".

Here is the end result of changing both aspects of the UI

Assassin's Creed 2, will be used for this demonstration.

DataPC_extra.forge should contain the fonts for Anvil Engine games.
Open up the forge file and you will see a group of files like in the picture below.
You will see fonts for various languages e.g. Russian or Asian font etc.
For my demonstration, I will use the Latin font.

The following files are for the Latin font:
6_-_AC2Aaux_ProBold_Latin_1_MapDesc.data
8_-_AC2Aaux_ProMedium_Latin_1_MapDesc.data
14_-_AC2Aaux_ProLight_Latin_1_MapDesc.data

Once you open them, you will see images like the ones shown below.

You can edit them akin to any other texture.

Here is a collage of examples after changing most of the font into the beloved "Comic Sans" style in Assassin's Creed 2.

End of Lesson 1