A Monolith’s Guide to Replacing Virtual Textures in Stalker 2
Haven’t seen a guide on this yet so I figured I’d put this up. This should work for meshes, materials, etc. Most other UE5 guides don’t cover virtual texture streaming and it’s everywhere in Stalker 2.
Required Tools
FModel: https://fmodel.app/
Unreal Engine 5.1: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US
Installation
Install Unreal Engine 5.1, not 5.3, not 5.2, not 4.8, not openxray 🙁
Install and configure Fmodel (not covered in this tutorial)
How do I know if I need to do all of this?
Not sure if you’re trying to replace a virtual texture? Check the uasset for your texture in FModel and look for this in the uasset properties:
“VirtualTextureStreaming”: true
If you don’t have one, these steps still apply for regular textures. Just skip the virtual texture enabling and converting.
If you do have this in your texture, you need to enable virtual texturing!!!
Set up our project
Create a new project with the template Games > Blank and the following settings
Blueprint
Target Platform: Desktop
Quality Preset: Maximum
Starter Content: [ ] (unchecked)
Raytracing: [ ] (unchecked)
Name the project Stalker2
If anyone knows a way around this lmk this is the only way my packages had the correct mount point
Set up our options
Click the Platforms button and go to Packaging Settings
Enable Use Pak File [X]
Enable Use Io Store [X]
Enable Generate Chunks [X]
Search for “cook”
Enable Cook everything in the project content directory [x]
Virtual Texturing
Click on Edit and go to Project Settings
Search for “virtual”
Scroll down and enable the following
Enable Enable virtual texture support [x]
And then optionally if the textures you’re replacing include these, enable them:
Enable Enable virtual texture lightmaps [x]
Enable Enable virtual texture anistropic filtering [x]
Enable Enable virtual textures for Opacity Mask [x]
UE5 should prompt you to restart. Do that and wait 6 years
Adding your cooked textures
Add your textures matching the directory structure for your texture in FModel
Now its time to edit the properties for each of your textures:
Check the properties for your texture in FModel for these fields:
[?] CompressionSetting
[?] PixelFormat
[?] sRGB
[?] VirtualTextureStreaming
Diffuse texture
PixelFormat is DXT1 and there is no CompressionSetting so this is a “Default” texture
Normal texture – PixelFormat is DXT5 and CompressionSetting is TC_Normal so this is a “Normal” texture
RHO (roughness, height, opacity) or other maps: – PixelFormat is DXT1 and CompressionSetting is TC_Masks so this is a “Masks” texture
Convert to virtual textures
Once you’ve set up all the textures with compression settings, it’s time to make our virtual textures
Select every texture that had VirtualTextureStreaming: true
Right click > Convert To Virtual Texture
In the popup, lower the filter until all of your textures are selected
Hit save all
Create asset label
Back in the Content folder, right click and create a new data asset
Select Primary Asset Label
Name it Label_YOURMODNAME
Set the following:
Priority: 1 or higher
Chunk ID: 1000 or higher, this needs to be unique to your mod so don’t pick 1420 cuz its already taken
Cook Rule: Always cook
Label Assets in my directory: [x] (CHECKED)
HIT SAVE ALL
Package it up
Click Platforms > Windows > Shipping
Click Platforms > Windows > Package Project
Pick a directory for your generated package, I make a Build directory with subdirectories for unique builds
This will take a long time
Yep still packaging
Done yet?
NOPE LOL NICE TRY still packaging
FINALLY!!!!
Grab your .pak
In the directory you picked, grab the 3 files with the chunk id you picked earlier
Rename them all something like z_YourMod_P
*make sure it ends in _P *
Place all 3 files in your ~mods/ directory
Open FModel and confirm your structure matches the game and your asset is replaced. if not cry or check your project name
Debugging
Asset isn’t replaced in FModel
Try recreating the asset label with a different Chunk ID
After doing this, go to Platforms > Windows > Cook Content and then Platforms > Windows > Package Project
Test it out!!!
Open the game and close it again for the 30th time tonight
