TPF Tools

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Kfreon created and develops TPF/DDS Tools for ME3Explorer.

TPF Tools permanently alters your game files and cannot be used to install textures without first generating a texture tree. See Getting Started and Texplorer before continuing.

TPF/DDS Tools ("TPF Tools" for short) is the toolset's user-friendly texture installation utility. With it, new textures can be permanently installed into all three games. TPF Tools is compatible with TPF, MOD, and an assortment of image file formats. It also has the ability to use and create a new format, the "METPF", which has better compatibility with the toolset, but cannot be used with Texmod. Last, but not least, TPF Tools has the ability to "autofix" improperly formatted textures loaded into the program, and can bundle any textures into new TPFs or METPFs for distribution.

Background

TPF Tool's first iteration was an amalgamation of Saltisgood's TPF Viewer, and the old TPF-To-MOD functionality in Texplorer. TPF Viewer allowed the contents of a TPF to be viewed without prior extraction, and the TPF-to-MOD function allowed direct conversion from TPF to MOD files. The mature version of TPF Tools has expanded on these functions, several times over and is one of the most-used tools in the toolset today.

Before using TPF Tools for the first time, it's helpful to become familiar with basic information regarding how textures are handled in the trilogy. This will help you better understand error messages in the tool. Consult Textures in Mass Effect for details. Similarly, An Intro to Mass Effect Mods provides additional information on TPF, MOD, and DDS files, while also explaining details about mod install order and more.

Preparation

TPF Tools itself is a simple tool, however a significant amount of preparation is required before it may be used.

DLC Extraction

If you want new textures placed in your BioWare DLC, then they must be extracted prior to installation. To do this, see the ME3Explorer Setup Guide.

Treebuilding

TPFs/DDSes may be loaded into TPF Tools without a texture tree for viewing, but to install the textures, a tree must be present for the desired game. Consult the Texplorer article on how to build a tree for each game in the trilogy.

Texture Files

TPF Tools is compatible with the following file types: BMP, DDS, JPG/JPEG, MOD, PNG, TPF, and METPF. To use the tool, you must have access to one or more of these files, either extracted from the game and edited yourself, or as downloaded from a hosting site like Nexusmods. For information about each type, see An Intro to Mass Effect Mods.

Usage

TPF Tools is a simple utility with a an interface a bit less technical than Texplorer, but there's still a lot of information present. This section will carefully step through the GUI, explain how to use the tool, and how to combat issues with incompatible textures.

Load File

TPF Tools has two main panes that will be empty when opened. To populate the panes, either drag and drop the desired file or use Load and navigate to its location on your computer. The examples in this section of the article will use two different TPFs in the slideshow to the right.

Unlike a majority of other tools in the toolset, TPF Tools has a somewhat interactive interface. If you scroll over various GUI elements, the tool will describe their purpose. If you click Help on the top-left, a series of info boxes will appear on the GUI. If you click it twice, it will bring you to this wiki page.

The Left Pane displays the following features:

Top Menu — Contains a variety of options we'll cover in different parts of the article.
Main Page Tab — Displays the loaded textures. Provides a thumbnail for each, their name, and information about validity. Also depicts the Texmod.def file, which is used when creating a TPF. The toolset reads this information, but the file isn't "installed", as it's not a texture. Arrow keys can be used to navigate through the textures.
Delete Page Tab — Content Forthcoming.
Context Menu — Allows for of individual, texture-specific operations.
Bottom Menu — Operations that generally affect all textures.
Progress Bar — Fills as operations are completed and conveys simple, relevant information (e.g, "15/20 textures installed").

TPF/DDS Tools r738, just opened.
TPF Tools just after loading a TPF.

The Right Pane displays the following features:

Texture Tree Indicators — Displays whether existing texture trees are present for each game. If using the tool for the first time, these indicators will be red since no trees are present. All indicators for games you have installed and want to mod should be green. To generate trees, refer to the Texplorer article.
Game Path Indicators — Similar to the Texture Tree Indicators, all indicators for games you have installed and want to mod should be green. If this isn't the case, use the Change Game Paths menu option on the top to define a new path. Paths should lead to each game's ..\BIOGame folder. Don't proceed until the path for the game you want to mod is detected properly.
Game Modding Indicator — Upon first opening the tool this will default to Mass Effect 3. If you wish to mod a different game, just click it to cycle between all three games in the trilogy.
Pathing and Mod Authorship — Just underneath the indicators. Specifies the path and name of the loaded TPF/selected file. When a TPF, the Comment area contains the comment written by the mod author when they created the TPF.
Texture Details — Compares the selected texture to its counterpart in the game files. Properties on the left are for the loaded texture, properties on the right are for the existing game texture. Formats should always match; mipmaps won't in the case of higher resolution textures. The hash field is editable, in the case of a mismatch. For more details on what the hash is, consult the Texplorer article.
Preview Tab — Enlarges the selected texture to allow for closer inspection. The texture will scale with the window.
PCC Tab — Displays all PCCs that reference that texture. These can be selected/deselected to control which files are modified with the new texture. To select/deselect all, use the Select All button. Copy to Clipboard allows you to copy the list of affected PCCs to the clipboard. Similarly, Export, exports the list to a TXT file. Both can be useful for textures that affect many PCCs, as a reference. Only the selected PCCs will be copied into the list.
Version and Toolset Authorship — On the very bottom right.

TPF Tools window after selecting a texture inside a TPF.
TPF with no texture errors loaded into TPF Tools.

Analyze + Configure

Once you're certain your game paths are correct, the proper texture trees are present, a file is loaded, and you've had time to orient yourself to the GUI, it's time to configure the texture installation parameters.

Analyze with Texplorer — This is the first step. Clicking Analyze with Texplorer will match the mod textures to those in the selected game. You'll see the texture names change to match the tree name. Raw images (DDS, BMP, PNG, JPG) must have file names that contain the hash of the corresponding texture in the me#tree.bin. To read more about hashes, visit the Texplorer article. TPFs and MOD files come pre-built with these hashes in their textures names.
Autofix — Improperly formatted textures will be tagged with arrows (">", "<") and an annotation of "mips" or "format". See the screenshots below for examples. These need to be fixed before installation and made "valid". The toolset will not install invalid textures. Individual textures can be selected and fixed with Autofix, or Run Autofix can be used to fix all invalid textures. If autofix fails, the texture cannot be installed; see the FAQ for more details. More experienced users who know they want to autofix and install all textures with one click can use Autofix & Install. If there is a "Not found" next to one of your textures, consult the FAQ before proceeding. If the texture's name is in Italics, or if you can expand a texture entry, you have a "Duplicate" texture and also need to see the FAQ.
Delete Unwanted Textures — Thumbnails of textures you don't wish to install can be deleted via the "Delete" key on your keyboard. This action will move them from the Main Page to the Delete Page in the left pane.
Change Hash — Most users will never need to use this feature. It's available in the case of Texplorer scanning on texture-modded files, which will alter the hash. Editing this field to match the current Texplorer hash will allow Analyze with Texplorer to locate the texture in the game files properly. It's also handy for copying and pasting the hash into Texplorer's Search Bar.
Convert/Replace — Content forthcoming.
Select PCCs — Content forthcoming.

Simple TPF containing an improperly formatted texture.
Autofixed TPF of Joker's teeth.

Install Textures

Content forthcoming.

Other Operations

Content forthcoming.

FAQs

All common questions and issues that relate to TPF Tools.

ANALYZING -- One or more of my textures is tagged with "<----MIPS".

Just click Autofix. This should re-format the texture to make it compatible with the vanilla game. If successful, the MIPs tag will disappear and the Status bar at the bottom will indicate "Autofix Complete".

If Autofix fails, your only choice is to extract the texture and edit it manually for compatibility. This will be the exception to the rule; Autofix works quite well.

ANALYZING -- One or more of my textures is tagged with "<----FORMAT".

See the FAQ above for MIPs.

ANALYZING -- One or more of my textures is tagged with "<----NOT FOUND".

This means the texture isn't present in your current texture tree. It may or may not be a problem and has three causes:

The hash assigned to the loaded texture is wrong, so TPF Tools can't match it to the correct texture in your tree.
You ran your Texplorer scan on texture-modified files, so your tree contains modified, non-vanilla hashes for this texture (and likely others).
The texture is for a DLC that you don't own.

The first two are problems, the third is not. To solve the first issue, use the directions in this article to extract the texture, rename it, and then replace the incorrect version. To solve the second issue, search for the texture in Texplorer and edit the hash in TPF Tools so it that matches your tree. Or, better yet, vanilla your game and then re-build your tree on vanilla files. The third case does not need special action. TPF Tools will ignore the invalid files upon texture install.

ANALYZING -- I have "Duplicate" textures. What do I do? -- NEEDS EDITING

This is a recent addition even to the TPFTools lineage. We discovered that, in BIOWare's infinite wisdom (Awesome, but weird wisdom), there are different textures with identical hashes and different names.

So what was happening, was the tool would find a hash it liked in the tree, bail out, and say that was it. That just won't do though will it... Now, it isn't such a wuss and keeps looking through the tree until it's found all the matches for a hash, then creates new entries for the duplicate hash textures if it finds any. I call these "Tree Duplicates" and they are are by no definition bad. It's just signifying that there are several textures with that hash. These show up on the left with italic names. The context menu provides a away to see the duplicate, just in case fate puts it far away from its sibling.

The kinda bad ones are the KFreon named "File Duplicates". These are when several of the loaded files are the same. Same here is same hash mostly but also includes some other stuff. Because this tool uses hashes to discern textures, multiple loaded files with the same hash is absolutely unacceptable. How would it decide which is the one it's going to use? Turns out to be chance (due to multi-threading), so we put them in a tree like formation. Subsequent versions of the texture are made sub nodes in a tree with the primary texture on top. These sub node duplicates will be ignored in all operations, but viewing them and their details is allowed. "But I want one of those duplicates!", I'm glad you asked that question. You can promote one of the duplicates to be the "primary" texture from the context menu so that it becomes the texture used in all operations.