Art Resources

This article contains links to the BioWare Social Network (BSN), which is now closed.

These links should be replaced with working links where possible, and tutorials edited to remove reliance on BSN.

This page has been marked for review

Art Resources are all Art created and stored in the Dragon Age file system. Creators of world maps will need Art Resources to shape them with Models, while creators of face morphs need Models of Faces. With that ,they are also creating Art Resources. This is Part of the Art Category.

Overview

Art Resources are the part of the Game which is what you hear and see. However the properties of each of the things is not. What they are instead is a property of a Designer Resource. A sword, which is a Designer Resource, for example has attack properties, and another of these properties tell which Model it uses.

Art Resources are almost solely required by Designer Resources, and as such do not make its way into the Game directly.

Any Resource is stored in the Dragon Age file systems ERF files. They are created by external Tools and the Dragon Age Toolset, by multiple ways. The most common and diverse Resource is that of Models. The file name Scheme for Resources follows a general naming structure, due to its Amount and easier Management. It is also split into many ERF Files for different kinds of Resources.

File Structure

ERF files for Dragon Age are stored in the folder and sub-folders:

[Dragon Age Install Directory]\packages\core\

• Browsing the ERF files supplied with the toolset
• List of file types

Modding and Creating

When talking Art Resources, its creation requires mostly knowing only about the resource type in question. Anything about creation, exporting, formats is explained for each on their own.

A common activity in modding is overriding existing Art Resources. This is the process of recreating a special type and mimicking the file name of the original, so that the Designer Resource ,or anything that previously read that File, will now pick the modded one. Art Resources, along with 2DA Resources, need to be manually arranged into the file system. This is normally an Override Folder of some sort, and those Resources are initially stored as single Files.

Generally, the Game and the Toolset reads multiple override Folders after a list of priorities, so it would not matter. However when the Art Resource should be integrated into a custom module, it should be placed alongside the override folder of that Module. The reason is that the Toolset creates DAZIP files (Builder to player installable packages) where you select which folder to integrate. Thus the Resources needed for the Module should not be scattered around the file system.

Only the Builder to player functionality packs those Resources into ERF Files again.

See also: Tutorials

Resource Types

Models

See Main Article: Model

Materials / Textures / Tints

See Main Article: Material editor

In closer relation to Models see Article: Model

Animations

See Main Article: Animation blend tree editor

Morphs

See Main Article: Morph

Face morphs, are generated with the face-morphing tool.

You can download the source files for all the morphs in the main campaign from here: [1]

FaceFX

See Main Article: FaceFX

Handles facial expressions and lip-synching.

Visual effects

See Main Article : VFX editor

You can download the source files for all the visual effects in the main campaign from here: [2]

Audio

See Main Article : Sound and music

Level/Area layouts

See Main Article: Level editor

You can download the source files for all the level layouts in the main campaign from here: [3]

Note that levels and area layouts are are distinct from areas created in the Area editor

See also the Area layout visual index for an image of each area layout included with the Toolset.