Creating Weapons
This guide covers the most critical asset creation guidelines for new weapons, before you even import them into the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit for use in your mod. While we won’t cover the specifics of 3D modelling or texturing, we’ll provide you with all the information to get your weapon assets set up with all of their necessary components.
Model
If you want your weapon model to work with the existing in-game animations, make sure to follow these weapon creation guidelines.
For these guidelines, we’ve provided some reference files:
All weapon types have a reference mesh that indicates the Grip and the No Funny Zone.
- The Grip is where the character will be holding the weapon. This needs to stay consistent with the reference in order to avoid the weapon clipping through or floating in the hands.
- The No Funny Zone is the area that needs to stay clear of any artistic decoration or extra elements. This is an extension of the grip, in that the character might hold the weapon here during idle poses or might move their hands in this area.
The setups we have in Maya are very specific, but necessary for the weapon models to work. The setup structures vary according to the weapon type.
Setup: Non-Animated Weapons
These weapons do not have animated parts. They include weapons like spears, longswords, battleaxes, and daggers.
In the left column of the image below is the structure for versatile weapons. On the right is the structure for non-versatile weapons. If you’re not sure what kind of weapon yours is, it’s always safer to use the versatile structure.
Setup: Animated Weapons
These weapons have animated parts that you can either leave static or animate yourself. They include weapons like bows, flails, and whips.
If you decide to leave them static, follow the versatile weapon structure shown above for non-animated weapons. If you plan to animate the weapon, set it up as shown below.
Exporting a Model
Your models will need to be in a .gr2 file format in order to be used in our engine.
Textures
Depending on whether you make an entirely new weapon or adjust an existing one, you may have custom textures for it.
Textures should be exported as .tga files.
Basic Textures
- Base Map (BM or BMA): This is your base colour. This should be mostly greyscale values if you want your weapon to be colour-customisable. If your weapon has opacity, that texture will be in the alpha channel of this map.
- Normal Map (NM): This contains the baked details from your highpoly sculpt.
- Physical Map (PM): This is a collection of different greyscale textures packed together.
- Red Channel: Metalness map
- Green Channel: Roughness map
- Blue Channel: Ambient occlusion map
Glow Map (Optional)
- Glow Map (GM): If your weapon needs to glow, you will need a glow map to indicate which regions should do so.
Gradient Maps (Optional)
Gradient mapping takes the grey values on your texture and replaces them with colours of matching value.
You can do this with the textures of a weapon to quickly make colour variations.
You’ll need two things for this:
- A gradient colour profile
- Gradient grayscale masks for the weapon
They go hand in hand!
Gradient Colour Profile
Weapons use 2 gradients: a base gradient and an accent gradient. You can add up to 16 sets on a 256x256 texture.
You don’t need to follow the example below exactly. You just need to make sure the grey values on your weapon texture match your colours in the gradient.
Gradient Grayscale Masks
Each weapon needs four grayscale masks. These will map the colours from the gradient colour profile. Build these up with your gradient in mind!
GMSK.r: This map is a BM mask. Where the texture is black, you will see the gradient mapping. Where it’s white, you will see the BM colours.
GMSK.g: This map assigns the base gradient colour to the weapon.
GMSK.b: This map assigns the accent gradient colour to the weapon.
GMSK.a: This map masks base and accent gradient, where:
- black = base gradient,
- white = accent gradient.
Next Steps
Now that you have your weapon asset ready, you can import it into the Toolkit and set it up for use.
