images-importing-editing-exporting.md

description
How to edit images and preserve transparency

Textures: Importing, editing, exporting

{% hint style="success" %} Rache Bartmoss once said: the first step to importing a texture is exporting a texture. {% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" %} For documentation on the Wolvenkit Import/Export tool, see here. {% endhint %}

Exporting a texture

1. Add the texture you want to overwrite to your Wolvenkit project.
   1. If necessary, move and rename it. You should stick to the game's naming convention.
2. Find the Export Tool (Tools -> Export Tool) and export the texture.
3. You can now find a png file in your project's raw folder.

Editing a texture

Editing textures is straightforward: just change them in your image editor of choice. The only hitch for reimport is the transparency.

{% hint style="info" %} Wolvenkit supports the .dds file format, but since that is more complex, we won't talk about it here and stick to the .png format.
&#xNAN;If you're using .dds files, you probably know what you're doing anyway :) {% endhint %}

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free image editing software for Windows. It supports PNG transparency out-of-the-box.

Use 32-Bit to get the highest available image quality.

Adobe Photoshop

To export with transparency in Photoshop, you need an alpha channel. Fortunately, creating one is simple. (For the initiated: The alpha channel is just a layer mask over the entire image.)

Find the Channels palette at the bottom right of your Workspace and add a new channel:

You now have an alpha channel.

Your image will turn black now, because the selected alpha channel will not have transparency yet.

{% hint style="info" %} To get your image back, select "RGB" on the Channels palette — but we'll stay on the Alpha channel for now. {% endhint %}

In the layers palette, use your image as selection by ctrl+clicking on the layer's icon:

Layer to selection

With the alpha channel selected, fill your selection with white to mark the transparent parts.

{% hint style="info" %} The fastest way to do that is to press d, x, delete {% endhint %}

You can now save your image as a PNG with transparency. If you have exported a texture in the first section, you should overwrite that file.

Importing a texture

• Find the Import Tool (Tools -> Import Tool) and select your texture.
• If you have stuck to the game's naming convention, Wolvenkit will select the right preset for you. Otherwise, you need to select the right preset:
  • TexG_Generic_Color for a diffuse/albedo
  • TexG_Generic_Normal for a normal map
  • TexG_Generic_UI for anything that you want to use in .inkatlas files
  • … etc
• If your texture is upside-down, uncheck the box for VFlip.
• Click the "import" button. Your .png will now be imported Into the .xbm file.

Troubleshooting

My texture is not transparent!

Check #editing-a-texture and make sure that your texture even has transparency, then make sure that you have the corresponding box checked in the import settings.

My texture shows up completely black or completely white

Change Compression to TCM_None, then reimport

"Must have dimensions in powers of 2"

Your texture must be a square, and its size must be a power of two (512x512, 1024x1024, and so on).
If you want to know more about the theory behind this, you can read this external tutorial. Otherwise: just make it a square!

All images must be the same size

If you are importing a .masklist, all images for the resulting .mlmask must be the same size. Cyberpunk will crash otherwise.

Invalid color space

Some textures need to be in a certain colour space (theory on wikipedia). For certain types of textures, the game requires certain colour spaces. Here's a list:

File type	required colour space
.mlmask / .masklist	Black and White / Non-Color

{% hint style="info" %} If you don't know how to achieve that, google something like
<name of your editor> color space <color space>
e.g. Photoshop color space black and white {% endhint %}

Didn't help!

Maybe your .mlmask has gotten corrupted or is simply incompatible. Replace it with any mlmask from the game files and try a reimport.