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This is a 2nd level Tutorial on how to edit assets and assetbundles. Tools - Unity Assets Bundle Extractor https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?22675-Unity-Assets-Bundle-Extractor - Text editor (e.g. notepad++) - Asset Studio https://github.com/Perfare/AssetStudio/releases - paint, gimp, photoshop, paint3d, blender 0. What is a 2nd level Tutorial? PoE2 has three levels at which one can mod the game. Level 1 is modifying the gamedatabundles, stringtables etc. Let's call it scripting and shuffling of existing things. You can't add totally new stuff or change the game mechanics. Level 2 allows you to add self made contend (new npcs, new hairstyles, new look etc.) just like a DLC. Level 3 is changing the game mechanics. In other games this is called the "hard coded" level and is normally not accessible to moders. Level 1 has no influence on level 2 or 3. Level 2 has no influence on level 3 but on level 1. Level 3 has influence on level 1 and 2. 1. What are assets and assetbundles? The Unity engine stores all files required to display anything in the game (animations, areas and character meshes, some scripts, visual maps, variable lists e.g. for companion stats) in so called assets and assetbundles. The asset files are the "levelxy" or "sharedassets" in the "PillarsOfEternityII_Data" folder. Assetbundles are the unity3d files in the "PillarsOfEternityII_Data\assetbundles" folder. The "levelxy" and "sharedassets" contain mainly areas and maps and the interaction between all the stuff on it (npc, quest and sequence triggers). So if you want to edit/build maps this are the once you need to get familiar with. The assetbundles in "PillarsOfEternityII_Data\assetbundles\streamtile" contain the textures for the areas and maps. The focus of this tutorial will be the assetbundles in "PillarsOfEternityII_Data\assetbundles". The contain the stats and appearance files for all items, characters, creatures and the UI. They have mostly convenient names. The ones that start with "lax" are the expansions and DLC's. 2. How to mod assetbundles? 2.1 UABE and Asset Studio In order to modify assets or assetbundles you need Unity Assets Bundle Extractor (UABE). It is the only tool I know, which can import files into existing assets or assetbundles. UABE is not very helpful for browsing the files. This is where Asset Studio shines. It can give you previews of files without the need for extraction and external programs. 2.2 Things you need to do, before start modding. The big unity3d files are "compressed"!? Not really, but you will have to "uncompress" them. UABE has a protection build in to prevent unwanted overwrite. To make your life easy just do this ALWAYS!!! when modding an assetbundle. - take the unity3d file you want to "uncompress" or mod and name it name2.unity3d e.g. characters.unity3d --> characters2.unity3d - open characters2.unity3d in UABE via File -> open - if you haven't "uncompress" the file you will be prompted to do so. - save the file as characters.unity3d without the number. Now you have two files, a backup with a number and one modded, which is used by the game. PS: there is no need to "compress" those files. 2.3 The file structure inside the assets or assetbundles. Use UABE or Asset Studio to open the assets or assetbundles. You will see many different file types. If you already know, how to mod gamedatabundles, you will recognize monobehavier files with "prefab" in their names. This prefab files are text files containing, how all the other files are put together. They are the assembly instructions. Here is an example, I will use in this tutorial. It's the prefab for the female Godlike head 1. Practically all visual object prefabs can be found in "items.unity3d". It looks like a lot, but it is more simple than it seems. If you want to change the appearance of anything in the game the cyan part is the most important. The locations of all necessary files are under "FBXModelData ModelData". The strings are all references to files in characters.unit3d. The next important part is "SubMeshSettings SubMeshes". Here are the meshes used and under "MaterialOverride" is the reference of their color files. When you open those meshes and material files, you will see the same structure and references to object (fbx), skeleton, and texture files. 2.4 Referencing in the assets or assetbundles I have used the term reference very often in the previous section. There are 3 ways to reference something in the assets or assetbundles. 1. Reference by name (eg. string MeshName = "F_GODM_Head01") 2. Reference by SInt64 m_PathID. When you open an asset or assetbundle in UABE and click on "Info" a window called "Asset info" with all the files in the asset will open. In this Window there is a tab called "PathID". This is the SInt64 m_PathID of the file. If you want to find a file mentioned in the prefab or other files, copy SInt64 m_PathID, open the "Asset info"-window of the asset, click on view, select file id (there is only one), fill in the path id and click ok to find the file. 3. In some cases we have files referenced across assets and assetbundles. The prefab files are in items.unity3d and reference to characters.unity3d. I have not figured out yet, how this is done. Presumably it has something to do with a file in every asset with the path id 1 and/or the "UnityAssetGuidString".

I'd love to build a web app for this game to help players find resources on the map, but 2 things make this difficult. First, there isn't a displayable map coordinate system. Adding an accurate lat/lon or similar coordinate or grid system would help users find specific items. Second, it would be great if you made available some of the game assets, like item icons, that could be used in fan-made web apps. Great job so far! Loving the game and all the recent improvements!