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NPV: Preparing the head in Blender

Step 1: How to generate your V's custom head mesh

Summary

Published: May 13 2023 by @manavortex Last documented update: Nov 09 2024 by

This page is a part of the NPV guide. It will show you how to create your V's head in Blender. If you want to load your head back into Cyberpunk, note that you aren't changing anything in the files itself — that will come in NPV: Creating a custom NPC.

We will not be dealing with the body, this is part of the next section as well.

If you want a 3d model, you probably know what you're doing; in that case, make sure to run the script and get the shape right, then go wild.

If you prefer video instructions over written ones, please check out this tutorial by Wouldiwas Sh00kspeared (Nov 2024).

Prerequisites

You have downloaded the prepared Wolvenkit Project from Nexus
You have Blender installed (confirmed working on 4.1 and 4.2)
You have the Wolvenkit Blender Plugin (you won't be able to export otherwise). Check Installing the Wolvenkit Blender Plugin if you don't.

In this section, we will be moving/deleting files. You can complete these steps in Wolvenkit or in the Windows File Explorer.

It's important that you leave the file structure as it is. Moving or renaming files will confuse Wolvenkit and break the example project.

The final section of NPV: Creating a custom NPC tells you how to safely move files.

Step 1: Getting head

Open the head folder in your project's archive section.
1. Optional: Be confused and/or panic about why there are files.list
Look into the head/morphtargets folder
1. Optional: Be confused and/or panic about why there are files again.
Delete all those files that you aren't using (read on as for how)

It's too many of them!

True! That's because I included all options for any given V. But don't worry: after you have deleted the ones that you won't be using, you should be left with a maximum of 13 .morphtarget files for female V and 14 files for male V.

I have included all meshes and morphtargets from the game files. We'll now thin out the options, deleting those parts that your NPV won't be using.

Deleting unused files: the convenient option

The best and most convenient tool for the job is NoraLee's NPV picker. It will give you a list of files that you need to keep.

The list will give you a number of Source Mesh entries like h0_000_pwa_c__basehead.mesh.

You need to keep these files inside the head folder and the .morphtarget file in the subfolder morphtargets. If you want to understand why, keep reading; otherwise, you can proceed to Deleting Files.

What the actual fuck are all those files?

Meshes vs Morphtargets

The .mesh files are the 3d files making up your NPV's head. I've taken them from the game files and prepared them for you (by making them use the player animations and -expressions).

The .morphtarget files are the character creator options (a direct game export). You can safely overwrite them with the most recent version by searching Wolvenkit for the file name – you need to put it into the correct folder, though, or it won't be picked up by the scripts.

We only need the .morphtargets to generate the actual meshes by duplicating the character creator process.

Okay, and all those numbers?

The different variants in the character creator correspond to the different meshes. For example, if you select cyberware 3 in the character creator, the mesh that will get loaded is cyberware_03. Not so difficult, is it?

To learn what the prefixes mean, check #head-file-prefixes.

Finding the right piercing

If your V isn't using any piercings, you can skip this step and go directly to Deleting Files.

In the files, you will see four files for jewelry:

tutorial\npv\your_female_character\head\i1_000_pwa_c__basehead_earring_01.mesh
tutorial\npv\your_female_character\head\i1_000_pwa_c__basehead_earring_02.mesh
tutorial\npv\your_female_character\head\i1_000_pwa_c__basehead_earring_03.mesh
tutorial\npv\your_female_character\head\i1_000_pwa_c__basehead_earring_04.mesh

… none of which is your V's exact piercings. Instead, there are full sets of jewelry, most of which will be hidden.

You have to look at the meshes and find the file that includes your set of piercings. We will delete the ones you don't need later.

Deleting files

Number in file name <=> Number in character creator

Do not delete any files if you're editing the player head (Ignore this hint if you aren't).

Many of the files are variants and your V will be using one or none of them. That means you have a bunch of files to delete.

If you have chosen the convenient option, you should already have a list of files that you need to keep.
Otherwise, you need to refer to #what-the-actual-fuck-are-all-those-files and use the table below for some oversight.

The following table will show you examples on what to keep (as in, you delete everything else):

Expected result

After deletions, both head and head/morphtargets should hold only the files that your V is actually using.

For a list, see the table above.

Once you're done, you should have between 4 and 13/14 files:

Step 2: Exporting head

Now, we will export all .morphtarget files from Wolvenkit so that we can edit them in Blender.

You will complete most of these steps in Blender, only the import/export happen in Wolvenkit.

If you run into any errors, check #step-5-optional-troubleshooting

Find the Export Tool (Tools -> Export)
1. To filter, click into the empty row under "name" and write "morphtarget"
2. Check the box in the header to select everything
3. Click "Export Selected"
Switch to your project's raw folder or Wolvenkit's raw perspective. You will find the entire file structure mirrored there.
In head folder, find the file head_import.blend. This file is a utility file which will automatically import and export the files for you. For that reason, it needs to be in a certain relative path.

If you have already changed your structure (by re-naming your folders), you need to make sure that head_import.blend is in the folder head right next to the folder morphtargets.

Open it in Blender. It will take you to the scripting perspective, where you'll see something like this:

Press the play ▶️▶button.
The script will now import a bunch of armatures from the morphtargets folder. You will see them showing up in the topright corner (see the next screenshot under 7. for how it should look)
Switch to the next script in the file, but don't run it yet:

If you've been previously afraid of scripting: This is a good place to stop! :))

Find line 26 and following in the script, and alter the values to those of your V (which you get from the character preset, see here for further explanation).

You don't need to select the eyebrows here, as those are "painted on" later via mesh appearance. The mesh only needs to have the right shape, which is what we're doing here.

After you've changed the values to those of your V, click the "play" button again. This will apply the morphs to your V's face:

Some shapekeys don't correspond 1:1 with their numbers in the character creator. If a part of your shape is shaped subtly wrong or looks weird in the game, undo your changes (Ctrl+Z), add or subtract 1 from the corresponding shape key, and run the script again.

Can I have that with textures?

Yes, you absolutely can! Once you have imported everything back into Wolvenkit, you can re-export the .mesh files and use the Wolvenkit Blender IO suite to import them with materials.

Step 3: Importing head

Unless you are editing original V, start by deleting the morphtargets from the template file — we don't need them anymore.

Remove the entire folder, both from raw and archive. From now on, it's meshes only!

Exporting from Blender

Now that your head looks the way you want, it's time to run the final script, which will export your changed head to .glb for you:

This will overwrite already existing files, leaving you with a set of import-ready mesh files.

Now it's time to get them back into Wolvenkit.

Find the Import Tool (Tools -> Import Tool)
Click "Import All". You shouldn't see any errors.
You're done!

At this point of the guide, you should see your NPV's head in Wolvenkit (re-select the mesh to refresh the preview).

If everything works, you're done with Blender (unless you want to get fancy).

If the head mesh has not changed, you ran into a problem — check the Log View and/or make sure that you completed all steps in the right order. Especially changing any paths will break things.

Step 4: Make sure that it works

Spawn your NPV and check that they look like they should.

If they do, proceed with NPV: Creating a custom NPC
If they don't, check #step-5-optional-troubleshooting

Step 5 (optional): Troubleshooting

Optimally, this process just runs with no hitches. However, during beta testing and troubleshooting, people ran into a few issues, so I'm listing them here.

Blender won't export

You need to use the Wolvenkit Blender IO Suite for export. Make sure that it is installed and up-to-date.

Blender script errors

You can check if Blender has run into errors by opening the Blender console window - from the menu, select Window -> Toggle System Console.

As of December 2023, any script errors have been because the person encountering them has been using the wrong Blender version. You can see which version is currently running either via UI or by checking the path in the system console window's title:

As of plugin version 1.5.5.1, you should have at least 4.0 installed.

The piercings are in the wrong position!

The problem went away after the person having it upgraded Blender.

V was imported, but they're unsettlingly, subtly wrong

If you had the example project lying around for a very long time, please try and redownload it (Nexus link), as the first version had been using an NPC animationgraph for facial expressions.

If that's not it, then you ran into the shapekey offset issue: some shapekeys don't correspond 1:1 with their numbers in the character creator. If a part of your shape is shaped wrong or looks weird in the game, add or subtract 1 from the corresponding shape key, and run the script again.