Documentation

Introduction

If you are familiar with MichaelDarkAngel's ARchive_neXt, you should be familiar with the usage of Blacksmith.

If you are not, this documentation will provide all the foreknowledge you need. There are some components to the interface that you should become familiar with.

Sure, this documentation is lengthy, but it is certainly in-depth. However, it has pictures! :)

Table of Contents
Left Panel
Right Panel
Saving and Converting
Find
Soundpack Browser
Icon Glossary
FAQ

Left Panel

The left panel is the file tree/file browser. There will be the three games listed. Each root-level entry corresponds to a specific game. Contents of folders and forge files will display here, similar to the Windows Explorer.

Usage

If you click the + icon, the contents of the game's directory will be appear. You have expanded that entry. Every entry has this icon. If you click the - icon, you will have collapsed that entry.

There are two types of entries that can be expanded: folders and forge. Each entry has an icon. The icon glossary is detailed here.

If while browsing you come across these icons, Blacksmith can preview and convert them as of Version 1.7:

Icon	Type	Respective Viewer
	Mesh (3D Model)	3D & Text Viewers
	Texture Map (Texture)	Image Viewer
	Texture Set	Text Viewer

If you click on Mesh, Texture Map, or Texture Set, Blacksmith will extract, interpret, and display the data in the respective viewer. Do not fret if Blacksmith does not show anything or yields an error. Report the error to me on Xentax in a PM or Discord.

Notes

• Some Texture Maps make references to Mipmaps (meaning that the image data is held in another entry). Blacksmith acknowledges this and works in either situation.
• Model scaling is an issue. Blacksmith attempts to fit the model into the 3D Viewer. It also tries to scale the model significantly when exporting to obj. If the model does not fit in the viewport of your preferred 3D suite, do not complain to me. Rescale it.

Right Panel

The three Viewers live here: 3D, Image, and Text.

3D Viewer

The 3D Viewer is where Meshes (3D models) are displayed.

Toolbar

Item	Description
Controls Help	Displays a list of controls
Camera	Displays the camera's coordinates (position and rotation)
Reset Camera	Resets the camera and 3D model
Vertices	Displays the total number of vertices
Faces	Displays the total number of faces/triangles
Meshes	Displays the number of meshes

Image Viewer

Item	Description
Dimensions	Displays the dimensions of the image
Zoom Level	Adjusts the zoom level
Toggle Alpha/Transparency	Toggles the background between the transparency grid and black (effective on textures with an alpha channel)

Text Viewer

If you could not guess what Text Viewer does, it displays text.

Saving and Converting

One of Blacksmith's goals is to convert supported files (Meshes and Texture Maps). It can also export sounds (go here for information). Here are what formats Blacksmith can export and convert.

Type	Formats
Mesh (3D model)	obj
pck (Soundpack)	ogg
Texture Map (Texture)	dds, jpeg, png, tga, tiff

How to save/convert

1. Right-click an entry.

2. You have two options. a. Datafile

   1. Save Raw Data As... (saves the compressed and uncombined data)
   2. Save Decompressed Data As... (saves the decompressed and combined data)

   b. (dependent on which entry you click) Model or Texture 3. "Save As..." (brings up the Save As... window)

Save As Window

The presented options will change based on which entry type you selected (Mesh or Texture Map).

Find

Blacksmith has a comprehensive Find feature, helpful when browsing in tens of thousands of entries.

Item	Description
Forge to search in	An active list of expanded forge files is kept here. Select a forge file to search within its entries.
Query	Your search query. The dropdown tells Blacksmith how to search. The dropdown has "case-sensitive" and "case-insensitive" variants of each entry: "Partial/Whole" (supports partial or whole names), "Regex" (Regular Expression), and "Wildcard".
Filter By	A list of certain data types to search by. A query is unneeded in order for this option to work.

How to access

Click the Find item from the top menu.

Soundpack Browser

Blacksmith has support for viewing the contents of a pck (soundpack) file. pck files are not located in forge files, rather in the sounddata folder (found on the root of each game).

How to access

1. Open the sounddata folder from any game.
2. Locate a pck file.
3. Click on it. The Soundpack Browser will appear and load all entries from the soundpack.

How to use

Single Selection

Click an entry and click Extract Selected.

Multiple Selection

Hold either Shift key, click multiple entries, and click Extract Selected.

Icon Glossary

This list will update as new versions add or remove icons. These are current as of Version 1.7.

Icon	Type
	Animation
	Build Table
	Cell Data Block
	Entity
	Entity Builder
	Entity Group
	Local Cube Map
	Localization Package
	LOD Selector
	Material
	Material Template, Compiled Material Template
	Mesh (3D Model)
	Mesh Shape
	Mesh Shape Triangle Material Data
	Mipmap
	Object Pack
	Procedural Entity
	Soundpack
	Terrain Node Data
	Texture Map (Texture)
	Texture Set
	Theatre Cinematic/Theater Cinematic
	Universe
	Water Mesh
	World

So you have made it

There was quite a lot of information presented above. You can always refer to by selecting Menu > Documentation. Not every aspect of Blacksmith was mentioned here, the documentation would drone on even more.

So I will leave that up to you to discover the other features. Contact me if you have questions or errors/issues.

Thanks for reading!

FAQ

I do not know what forge, Mesh, Texture Map, or Texture Set are.

Do not worry. The knowledge of each of these types is not essential to use Blacksmith, but helps. forge is an archive file (conceptually similar to a zip, rar, or tar file), but can only be read by the games and Blacksmith. Mesh is a 3D model. Texture Map is a file that provides information about a texture and texture data. Texture Sets contain references to Texture Maps and are referred by Materials.

I do not own every game. Where can I get them?

There is no need since Blacksmith works with one, two, or three games. BLACKSMITH DOES NOT CONDONE PIRACY. Purchase games on Steam or from Ubisoft's store/Uplay.