Common Steps

1. First think about where you want the unpacked game files to be stored and create a new directory there. Eg: C:\Modding\MGSV\TPP\Unpacked.

   You’ll need around 6GB of free space for the files we’ll be unpacking. It’s much faster to unpack to an SSD if you have the free space.

2. Then take a note of the path where the game is installed.

   • Check out this section above for how to determine this if you haven’t already.

3. Open File Monolith’s Archive Unpacker.exe and beside the Archives field click the ... button.

   • In the new window that popped up navigate to the game’s MGS_TPP directory and within it open the master sub-directory. You’ll see a bunch of DAT (data) files.

   • Hold the Ctrl key down and select both the chunk0.dat and texture0.dat files then press the Open button to confirm. These two DAT files contain the relevant arm archives/textures.

4. Next click the Output Folder’s ... button and select the directory you’ll be unpacking the game files to.

5. Uncheck the Condensed Directory Structure checkbox and then press Unpack Archives to begin the unpacking.

   The reason for unchecking this option for this guide is because it will then auto unpack the necessary archive that we need for the arm. Otherwise it won’t and we’d need to use a tool (for FMDL modding: GzsTool or for PFTXS modding: AutoPftxsTool) to manually unpack it, so this saves some extra steps.
   
   However if you’re intending to convert all the game’s textures at once to DDS (useful for general FMDL Studio 2 use or finding specific textures visually and easily) then this setting needs to be left checked in order to extract all the game’s texture files to a consistent structure. This isn’t something needed for the specific steps in the guides here though.

The arm model we want has already been auto unpacked from the FPK archive it was contained within by Archive Unpacker (turning it from .fpk file to an _fpk directory), at the following path within our unpacked game files directory:

Assets\tpp\pack\player\fova\plfova_sna0_arm0_v00_fpk\Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Scenes\sna0_arm0_cov.fmdl

You’ll notice there’s a nested Assets within the parent one. This is just due to how the game optimizes things to load. You’ll see a similar path structure when unpacking any archive from the game.

While the texture files we need are located at the following paths:

Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Pictures\sna0_arm0_def_bsm.ftex
Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Pictures\sna0_arm0_def_bsm.1.ftexs
Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Pictures\sna0_arm0_def_bsm.2.ftexs
Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Pictures\sna0_arm0_def_bsm.3.ftexs

These are the base/albedo color texture. The arm material is using multiple different textures to look how it does but this guide is focusing on just the base color map.

If you’re curious check out the FTEXS page for more in-depth details about the format. The .ftex file stores metadata information about the texture while the .ftexs files contain the actual image data.

Whenever retexturing we always need the FTEX file + all the related FTEXS files in order to convert to a usable texture format for image editing. Most textures, except if they’re small in resolution, will have three related FTEXS files.

Creating the directories

1. Make some new directory on your computer where you’d like your mod project to be. Eg:

    C:\Users\Username\Bionic arm mod
   

2. Within it create a new sub-directory named Modded.
3. Open Modded and select File Explorer’s path addressbar (the textbox to the left of the searchbox).
4. Type cmd and press Enter. This will open a command line at the current location.

5. Copy the following command then paste it in the CMD window by right-clicking in the window once:

    mkdir "Assets\tpp\Mods\Custom\BionicArmVariants"
   

   Note: the Custom part of the path is intended to be replaced with your username. However you can customize the modded texture path any way you want (for more info see the Important things to know about paths in the spoiler below).

6. Then press Enter. This creates all the sub-directories in one action.

7. Next do the same but for the following command:

    mkdir "Assets\tpp\pack\player\fova\plfova_sna0_arm0_v00_fpk\Assets\tpp\chara\sna\Scenes\"
   

Done! Now we have both required directory paths in the Modded directory.

Copying the files to them

Lastly copy in the model and texture files:

1. Copy those sna0_arm0_def_bsm FTEX and FTEXS files from the original unpacked game files, listed in the earlier section, to the BionicArmVariants directory you just created.
2. Then copy the sna0_arm0_cov.fmdl from the original unpacked game files to the Scenes directory you just created.

You might be wondering why we don’t just use the original path of the textures for our Modded copy. This is because when we get to editing the FMDL model file it needs to point to a custom path not used by the vanilla game files in order to work. So for this guide I’ve chosen the path above.

• Wherever you decide to have your Modded directory just remember to not place them too deeply in the drive, since Windows File Explorer still has a ~260 character path limit and we want to avoid exceeding that length to avoid issues.

  • Eg: C:\Users\Username\Bionic arm mod\Modded would be a decent path length.

• For the path replacer script you can create a different custom directory structure if you want for the modded texture, it just requires the texture be placed anywhere within at least the Assets directory.

  Note: this is different from how FMDL Studio 2 handle paths. With FMDL Studio 2 it requires custom texture paths be within Assets/tpp or else the texture won’t show up in-game.

• MGSV is case-sensitive with its directories and filenames. So assets is different from Assets.

• Valid characters for MGSV file paths are: alphanumeric characters (A to Z, 0 to 9). Underscores (_) and hyphen (-) characters are also valid but no spaces are allowed.

  This only matters for the MGSV file paths themselves (eg: beginning with Assets) not any parent Windows path outside them.

• Paths in MGSV files use forwardslashes rather than backslashes. However the path replacer script auto-corrects this and FMDL Studio 2 handles formatting paths behind the scenes to be correct, so it’s not something you normally have to think about unless editing paths in other types of files.

Converting to DDS

1. First convert the FTEX to a DDS file by dragging only the sna0_arm0_def_bsm.ftex file by itself onto FtexTool.exe that you downloaded earlier. A .dds file will appear beside it.
   • If you’re unsure check out this wiki page that has a video showing how to convert using FtexTool.
2. Once you have a converted DDS file delete the sibling .ftex and .ftexs files that you copied since we no longer need them.

Editing the texture

1. Next check out this page if you haven’t already, for a list of various image editor plugins and tools you can choose from in order to import and export the DDS file.

   There are DDS plugins for a variety of programs so it’s not an exhaustive list but pick something you’re comfortable with.

2. Once you have the texture image opened in your image editor adjust the original texture to be darkened. There are multiple ways to accomplish this depending on the image editor used, so this aspect won’t be covered here.

   Using the red color channel for masking (isolating areas) is useful, or you could just crank down the saturation.
   
   In my case I also adjusted the watch’s LCD screen, similar to inverting the LCD display in real life by adjusting the polarizer film.

3. When you’re happy with the adjustments export to a new DDS file (eg: overwriting the original DDS you converted).

   Since the texture doesn’t have any alpha channel the format you’ll want to save the DDS as is BC1 (aka DXT1), with mipmaps enabled.

Converting back to FTEX

1. Convert the modded texture DDS file back to to FTEX/FTEXS by dragging the .dds file onto FtexTool.exe. An FTEX and related FTEXS files will appear beside it.
   • You can refer to the same wiki page for a video if you’re unsure.
2. Keep the .dds file if you’re following the FMDL Studio 2 guide, otherwise you can delete it if you want.

1. From the SnakeBite tool directory that you unzipped earlier open makebite.exe.

2. In the right half of the program, under Mod Files, click the ... button and navigate to the Modded directory that was created and click the Select Folder button to confirm.

   • After this you’ll see some files appear in the right side of MakeBite. These are the files we modded being detected.

     Note: (for PFTXS Only guide) the MakeBite included with the latest SnakeBite version at the time of writing (0.9.2.2) doesn’t display loose .ftexs files in the Mod Files panel of the GUI. However they’re still packaged during build.

3. In the left half fill out the mod information like the name of the mod, the version, etc. Here are some example values:
   • Name: Bionic Arm Variants - Dark
   • Version: 1.0
   • Author: choc
   • MGSV Version: 1.0.7.1
   • Website: https://mgsvmoddingwiki.github.io/Retexturing_the_Bionic_Arm/
   • Mod Description: Changes the bionic arm to a stealthy dark.

   The MGSV Version field is the minimum game version the mod will work with. Since this is a basic mod it’s compatible with older game versions but if ever unsure you can just leave it on the default value.

4. When complete click the Build Mod button in the bottom-right of the window and select a directory to save the resulting .mgsv archive to.