Extracting art assets

[ainwood]

Like previous versions of Civilization, Beyond Earth art assets are "DDS" (Direct Draw Surfaces") grouped together and "packed" into FPK files. You can find these .FPK files in the folder:
..\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth\Resource\

either in the dx11 or common subfolders.

To get the assets out into a viewable format, you need to:

• Unpack the .FPK files, and
• Extract the artwork / convert it from .DDS into a different format.

Unpacking the .FPK files
You need an unpacking utility. Firaxis put one out a while back, but it doesn't work with the latest versions of Civilization assets. I used DragonUnpacker.

It is quite intuitive to use, although the buttons lack tool-tips to tell you what they do. Start the program, and click the "open" button (looks like a file). Browse to one of the .FPK files, and click "open". The program will display a list of all files packed in to the particular .FPK file (note that these include other files - the soundtrack is in misc.fpk as .mp3 files). Select the files you want to extract, right-click and choose "Extract file to". Note, if you want to extract a single (graphics) file, you can convert it to .png, .bmp or .TGA on the way. I generally just select all files, and extract everything to a temporary directory. And that's it!

Converting the .DDS files
Now that you've got the art assets (plus maybe a whole lot of others!), you may want to work with the .DDS files directly (if you have the appropriate tools), or convert them into another format. In my case, I was wanting to browse them as images, so they needed to be converted into a more windows-friendly format. Bulk conversion tools are the best, and so I grabbed one from our own forums: Sterkhov's DDS unpacker for interface textures.

This utility does bulk conversions of .DDS files to .PNG files, and is very easy to use: Simply select the directory that you have already unpacked the .FPK files into (as per the step above), then select an output directory where you want to place the converted files, and hit "unpack". Any .DDS files it finds will be converted to .png files.


Edit: Nutty pointed-out that the only .DDS files that can be extracted and converted to .PNGs etc are those that have a "-index" file accompanying them. Eg:
notificationiconsfreesocialpolicy-index.dds
--and--
notificationiconsfreesocialpolicy.dds

Thanks, Nutty!

___________________________________________________________________

I've browsed a few of the Beyond Earth assets, and found that a lot of Civ5 artwork is included. I guess the challenge is to find whether there is any other artwork that is not in the game, but may hint to future releases. Have a look and post any that you find.

Good luck!

 

[Pouakai]

I've used Dragon UnPACKer for years, and didn't realise until now that you could extract multiple files at once. Thanks!

 

[darkedone02]

does these art assets also contains the graphical appearance of terrain and tile improvements? Do you know of a program that is useful for the editing for those as well?

 

[Lord Tirian]

...you may want to work with the .DDS files directly (if you have the appropriate tools)

I just want to mention that this is, much like with Civ5, isn't possible. The files are run-length encoded (a compression method) and hence unreadable. It's only when put together with the "-index" file they result in a sensible texture, hence the need for Sterkhov's tool. It's not a .DDS converter, it decompresses them.

 

[kingchris20]

I just want to mention that this is, much like with Civ5, isn't possible. The files are run-length encoded (a compression method) and hence unreadable. It's only when put together with the "-index" file they result in a sensible texture, hence the need for Sterkhov's tool. It's not a .DDS converter, it decompresses them.

Ahh, well that makes more sense, I tried taking a peak at the sponsor icons, but they were all scrambled....I'll have to try out the dds unpacker tool then...

 

[Cousken]

This was really great! Helped me to find the terrain textures i'm looking to edit. Does anyone know if there is a tutorial on how to make the game use these extracted and edited assets?

 

[Nutty]

When it comes to terrain, some textures you can change via mod, and some you can't. You can:
1. try it using a mod. Add the file to your mod, and set it VFS=true. The filename must be the same, but the path doesn't matter, nor does capitalization (except for Linux users, so it's best to use all lowercase for their benefit). You must also check the Reload Landmark System checkbox [in the mod's properties]. If that doesn't work, though, you'll need to either
2. use a fake DLC, or
3. alternatively, change LooseFilesOverridePAK to 1 in the config.ini, and copy them to your game's assets folder

 

[Rayki]

Quick question, is it normal for most of the .dds files to come up as "empty" files before converting to PNG?

As it is only two of the required texture files I need can be edited, the others can't even be viewed. I haven't got Sterkov's tool yet since the download link won't work for me for some reason and I can't find it available anywhere else. dragonUnpacker's conversion doesn't change anything either.

Edit: Not sure if I'm doing something wrong but now I've got Sterkov's tool it doesn't seem to do anything with the BE files...I've extracted a bunch of the .fpk files and tried it on everything and got nothing. Not only that I can't seem to get working versions of the xenomass, xenowell and alien nest graphics...Without them the liklihood of Spice flowing is very limited...Anyone had this problem?

 

[Nutty]

None of the textures for 3D models (including those for the 3 models you mention, xenomass_*.dds, wellxenomass*.dds, and alienhive*.dds) need to be converted to be viewed and edited. Even the default Windows Photo Viewer can display them! What program are you using to edit them?

 

[Rayki]

.....

 

[Rayki]

Ok so now I've resolved the issue's with my Dune mod and had to re-publish I'm back at trying to put in a Spice resource. So pursuant to my previous posts anyone have any idea why I can only seem to open 2 of the Xenomass graphic files? Without the changes which render the color scheme orange then changing the resource to be Spice just won't work and I've got the same problem with all objects in BE so I could end up in trouble if I don't resolve it.

 

[Gorbles]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13587508#post13587508

Perhaps relevant to your troubles, I don't know.

 

[Rayki]

That's exactly the issue I'm dealing with, but alas I'm on Windows 7 and the Photo Viewer doesn't like dds files so seems I'm out of luck atm.

 

[comrade0011]

You should know that some files are DTX 4 and wont be viewable with the default windows viewers, or the usual .dds viewers, or even GIMP.

They will appear blank and you may mistake them as still being run length encoded.

I successfully opened them using photoshop, and resaved them as dtx3 with alpha.