[MHW] How to rename files. (Patreon)

Hello boys and girls.

I know most of you use many armor mods that replace many different existing MHW armors. And you might not be so happy with the certain MHW armor replacements my armor mods take as substitutes. So I'm gonna write a guide to renaming files. The guide will deal with how generic cosmetic armor mods work and how to rename files properly so that you don't bump into checkerboard textures.

This guide is focused on my mods. So the guide might not work with other modders' mods. Below is Advanced Renamer, a very useful tool for renaming multiple file names at the same time. You might need it:

https://www.advancedrenamer.com/download

This will be a long read so take your time.

1. How cosmetic armor mods work

MHW Iceborne takes .mod3, .mrl3, .ctc, .ccl and .evhl files from its chunk files first. The chunk files contain all the files needed to run the game.

If you have nativePC folder in your MHW directory, the game takes the files from it and the files inside nativePC will override what MHW loaded in the first place. This is not the case when the mod you want to load is NOT COSMETIC. You will need Stracker's Loader to make the game load mods that are not cosmetic.

Almost 99% of my armor mods DO NOT REQUIRE Stracker's Loader because they are purely cosmetic. So you don't have to worry about the game updates breaking my mods.

2. What folder names mean

Let's say you downloaded Early WIPs and decided to install Leifang's Black Dress. You opened Leifang dress folder and you see nativePC folder. Inside nativePC folder you'll see 'pl' folder. This folder means the files inside are related to player models. Another thing you see is 'wp' folder(in this case there's no 'wp' folder in nativePC because Kirin armor uses default silger.) This folder is for weapons. inside it you'll see 'slg' folder. Iceborne now loads slingers from wp/slg. Some armor like Nergigante, Odogaron, and etc have their unique slinger design. They can get in the way and ruin your whole appearance.  The reason I made slinger replacements is to prevent this from happening and making slingers blend in well with the outfit mod.

3. Renaming process

So now you see what those folders do. Now let's go deep into 'pl' folder. Go through 'f_equip' folder. This folder contains armor files related to female character. Inside f_equip folder you'll see something like 'mangie_****' and 'pl***_0***' folders. The former is custom folder for storing texture files. The latter is path for certain armor.

Refer to the list below to identify which armor is allocated to which path:

https://mhw.poedb.tw/eng/pl_equip

Now let's say you don't want Leifang's dress to replace Kirin alpha(pl035_0000) because you already have something on kirin alpha armor. Say you want to replace Bone alpha. Go to the link above, press Ctrl+F, and type 'Bone'. You will be able to see that the path for Bone alpha is pl003_0000. Follow the steps below to rename folder and files.

• 1. Rename folder first: You need to change pl035_0000 to pl003_0000.
• 2. Open up Advanced Renamer, drag and drop pl003_0000 folder into Advanced Renamer.
• 3. Type '035' into 'Text to be replaced', and '003' into 'Replace with'.
• 
  

 4. Press 'Start Batch' and you're done. Make sure Advanced Renamer pops up the result window saying that there was no error in the process.

Now you will have to rename silgers too. Renaming slinger file names is just the same.

• 1. Go to wp/slg
• 2. Rename slg***_**** to slg003_0000
• 3. Do the same thing you did with 'pl***_****' using Advanced Renamer.

Keep in mind that some armors don't have their unique slinger files and use default slinger(slg000_0000)

IMPORTANT: When renaming, you DO NOT WANT TO DO ANYTHING TO  'mangie_****' FOLDER AND WHAT'S INSIDE IT.

As I already mentioned above, anything other than 'pl***_0***' folders are custom folders for storing textures. A lot of people try to rename them too, and so get checkerboard textures.

I hope this can help you with renaming files and have no issue at all.

Happy Hunting.