Faces from older 2K games?

[tinpanalley]

I've seen 2K20 faces being modified to be used in earlier games. I imagine there is some form of taking the image of the cyber, and reformatting it to work in the file format of an earlier game, but is this something that can be done with relatively easy tools or does it require rocket science levels of hex editing? Basically, I'd like to know what is involved in doing this.

[Andrew]

I believe there are a couple of tutorials for it, but considering the importing and exporting procedure, as well as the need to modify headshapes, I don't think it's something for novices. I could be mistaken, and someone who's been doing that could probably give you an idea of the exact difficulty (and process), but I imagine it might be a bit overwhelming if you don't have any experience working with the face textures and models. It's definitely not just a process of opening a tool, clicking a few buttons, and then having a perfectly converted face between two generations of 2K games. That's not to discourage you or anyone else from trying it of course, but I'm guessing it's not the easiest place to start modding.

[tinpanalley]

Ok, gotcha.
I've done faces before for MLB2K12, so I was thinking there's probably a flat image of a face that can be extracted, that artwork probably needs something done to it to conform to how 2K14 reads faces from 2K20, but maybe it's more complicated than that, yeah. Just thinking of the 2K20 Siakam face that's out there and how great it looks and how great it would be to just transfer faces to 2K14 even if it was a lengthy process.

But, you're probably right, I'll start by editing maybe just making a regular 2K14 cyberface first.

[Andrew]

I imagine it'd be a similar process, I'm just not sure how much manipulation and shape editing is required to get it looking right.