Help Editing PKB (Popcornfx) Files

[riptor7364]

Anyone know how to edit these? I see you can go in with a simple text editor and mess with the texture paths, but when it comes to things like changing other values, like colors, it's mostly garbled code.

I see a lot of these files for spells and things referencing colorless graphics, and I can't seem to figure out where the color information is stored.

I've swapped out different pkb files from other effects, and the colors swap with it, so I've narrowed it down to these files. Really just after the color information here...

Also tried downloading PopcornFx, a little over my head, couldn't figure out how to open these. Taking a huge leap and assuming I won't be able to because I'm missing project files? I guess these are "baked" files that get compiled or something from another file, I dunno..

Help! Thanks!

 

[Retera]

I found a related post on the popcorn FX forums:
Editing Color Information in PKB (baked files?) - PopcornFX answers

Somebody who sounds like they know what they're talking about says:

These are compiled binary files, so you won't be able to open them in the PopcornFX editor, which only opens the source assets, and does not provide a "decompile" functionality AFAIK.


Depending on how the effect is made, the colors can be anything from an actual constant RGB value, to a texture lookup, to a curve lookup with the curve control-points saved somewhere in the file, to a mathematical expression depending on particle age, to countless other things.

One thing that might work would be to replace the .pkb file entirely from one you made, but how it's baked can depend on some specific things the game engine expects (some special attributes, special sim interfaces, a special renderer material, and so on), which also makes it very painful to do unless you know the exact process they used.

Frankly your best bet might be to ask the developers directly ? perhaps they're opened to the community modding the effects and would be willing to provide some of that information ?

Other than that, I'm afraid you're going to have an extremely hard time changing that color.

So, the answer is that you should make your own particles.

Edit: Ahhh, nevermind, looks like you were probably the one who made that post on the popcorn FX website. Best of luck!