State of Play April 2024

Our tools are stuck on Blender 3.6.7: they fail on 3.6.8, 3.6.9 and 4.x (we would appreciate some help on this).

The .gr2 Importer Add-on's has several issues with 3.6.8 and 3.6.9, and with 4.0 and 4.1, and we need assistance by programmers with experience in Blender's Python scripting:

• Materials using its SWTOR shaders, upon project reload, lose the SWTOR Shader nodegroups' custom panel UI (it shows up empty of inputs) and its relationship with the underlying "real" shader nodegroups (they exist, but aren't used and the models show up black). This happens on Blender 3.6.8, 3.6.9 and 4.1, but not on 4.0, strangely enough (we have a beta showing that).

• Known changes in 4.1's BMesh API affect the construction of the objects. We aren't sure how we are meant to use the new means available.

Everything else (Character and Area Assemblers, etc.) depends on the .gr2 importer to work. If anybody feels like giving things a look, we have a 4.x branch in the repository explaining the situation.

Remember that you can install any version of Blender you want, alongside 3.6.7: each major/minor version of Blender (3.5, 3.6, 4.0, etc.) keeps its own preferences and add-ons completely separate, so, they don't interfere with each other. You can prep SWTOR projects on 3.6.7 and open them in 4.0 or 4.1. What you can't do is have, say, 3.6.9 and 3.6.7 side by side: installing the latter will replace the former.

Modding tools don't work yet with SWTOR 64 bits.

We've posted a Modding Status Report in the #modding channel. This is going to take quite long, so, please be patient. If you feel you are competent enough to colaborate on coding (serious callers only :slight_smile:) please signal us so and we'll unlock the channel.

New version and guide of the SWTOR Terrain Extractor command line executable.

For converting SWTOR height maps to terrain objects that our Area Assemblers can read. Check the guide here.

SWTOR 64 bits (Game Update 7.2.1 onwards) and our tools and Blender Add-ons

They are almost but not yet fully compatible with files extracted from SWTOR Game Update 7.2.1 (SWTOR 64 bit) onwards:

• Slicers GUI is usable: you have to install the appropriate version for 32 or 64 bit assets extraction. As processing ("Locate" tool) PC and NPC data folders is this bit buggy at the moment, we recommend using the SWTOR Character Assembler Add-on or its equivalent in the ZG SWTOR Tools Add-on for this, instead. The guides have been updated to reflect that.

  Its GR2 Viewer tool doesn't work. We recommend using Jedipedia.net's File reader instead.

• The .gr2 Importer Addon is almost there: it imports objects and skeletons, and applies materials correctly, but the handling of animations from SWTOR 64 bits is yet to be solved (it's a difficult one).

  It can import older SWTOR 32 bit animation files, though. If you need these, you can extract them from SWTOR's .tor files previous to the Game Update (which you can download from here. You'll need to use an older version of Slicers GUI, 1.11.1, to do the extraction, though.

  (Only the .tor files with an "anim" in their names are needed, and they can be processed by placing them in some folder, selecting it as Slicers GUI's "Assets Folder", and using the "All" preset on them).