Dragon Ball Xenoverse Textures

[GentlemanPotato]

I've got the models and textures from Dragon Ball Xenoverse but the textures and palettes are in separate files and I have no clue how to put the two together. Anyone know what to do with these?

[Komodo]

Hello there! Resident expert on Xenoverse here. The colour pallet files in the DYT control more than material colouring, They also control shadows, highlights and occasionally "texture" colours in 1-3 4px lines. You can tell which material uses which colour lines by reading the EMM files' "MatScale1X" parameter. Several materials in the games use different shaders which use the pallet information differently. For example, some materials glow in game, and they can accomplish this with a special shader type, or a heightened glare variable "MatScale0W". The EMM files can be read easily with the following tools, if you need them:

LibXenoverse EmmXML
XenoXMLConverter
Genser

Due to this weird relationship between the three files (EMB, DYT.EMB and EMM) , the models will never look as intended outside of the game. Unfortunately the only somewhat useful way of presenting these as intended would be to cut the alpha layer and put it in as an overlay (inverted so that the white lines are black), and then paint the background of the image with a sample of the midtone colour from the appropriate line in the DYT.

Hope this helps!
- Komodo

[GentlemanPotato]

Thanks a lot, seems a bit ridiculous to me. They could've just used simple cel-shading, I'll try to get it looking good though.

[Komodo]

Thanks a lot, seems a bit ridiculous to me. They could've just used simple cel-shading, I'll try to get it looking good though.

All that said, it is entirely possible to emulate the look of the models in blender if you're up for a challenge.
This is the best I can currently do to copy the game's shaders.



It'll work alright for renders, but it won't be saved perfectly on export. Here the pallet from the dyt.emb is split into several secondary textures that I've applied to the correct materials with Coordinates set to Normal and Projection type as Flat, with the primary (ordinary) texture being applied on top with Multiply blending to hide the RGB layers.

(The RGB in this case is used to show cuts and scratches as the character takes damage, while the alpha layer is used for outlines.)

[GentlemanPotato]

Looks good but I'm planning on importing it into Sm4sh Bros so I'll just apply the colours to the lines and see how good it looks. How would I go about separating the damage from the outlines?

[Komodo]

Looks good but I'm planning on importing it into Sm4sh Bros so I'll just apply the colours to the lines and see how good it looks. How would I go about separating the damage from the outlines?

Remove all RGB (except in the case of colour textures. quite rare, best example is Cell's body).
Copy the outline texture from the alpha layer into RGB and invert it so the outlines are black.

That and some nice background colours are all you really need.
It might help to export UV layout from blender as a PNG and stick that on top in photoshop to see what parts need to be coloured.
I use multiply layer blending for outline layer, and tweak the brightness/contrast to soften the horrible blur effect from the outlines.

When you're done, the texture map and the model should look something like mine below:

[GentlemanPotato]

Thanks a lot for the all the help, how's this look?

[Komodo]

Thanks a lot for the all the help, how's this look?

Not bad at all, but I imagine the fur is always going to be an issue for rendering with lights.
How much control do you have with Sm4sh mods? Perhaps you could change the shadow colour.

[GentlemanPotato]

That was just a 3ds max render but I'll have full control of the materials when I put it on smash bros.