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I just copied the base model, edited the texture, made sure I have every single element of the package, along with the ARC files and tried to get it into the game, but messed up in the ini files somewhere I think. Either that or there is some dependency in the ARC files that I did not set up, or the mesh and textures aren't hooked up correctly on their own and I neglected to do it.

I am new to modding in general, never used anything more complex than a level editor with basic scripting and ini modifications. My actual end goal is to make some custom classes with custom perks and was trying to use this as a way to get familiar with the UDK. http://www.filedropper.com/silveraviators

Any help is appreciated.

I would guess your alpha channel is completely black. You can look at the individual channels of the image in UnrealEd if you double click it, but you'll need an image editor to fix/change it. I assume you don't have one if you are using online converters. Try Gimp or Paint.NET.

CS doesn't use ModBuddy (customised Visual Studio shell), they have switched to using VS Code. Read the Quick Start PDF that comes with the SDK. It's in the Documentation folder, or if you try running the SDK from Steam you'll get a launcher that will open it (and basically do nothing else).

To run UnrealEd, you run the SDK's XcomGame.exe with the "editor" flag. The easiest approach is to create a shortcut to it, then edit it to add the flag. For example:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\XCOM-Chimera-Squad-SDK\Binaries\Win64\XComGame.exe editor

*_S.dds are roughness maps. *_C.dds, R channel is the spec map, and Blue might be the metalness, or some misc texture used for shading (not sure).

Also, how did you even delete the UVs of a model? Couldn't you just copied the UVs from the original model and paste it to the rigged model (it doesn't modify the rig in any way, unless it collapses the rig?). Blender has a way to fix that: https://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14987. I can copy/paste UVs in 3ds Max too (albeit a different way than Blender).

If you have any more questions, then contact me on Steam (same handle as here).

The best way to do this, if you've got room.

Rename your Modded XCOM 2 Folder to anything, for example.

XCOM 2 (Steam - LW2 Modded)

 

Simply redownload the vanilla game, and it will create a new version.

You'd Rename that, when you don't want to play it.

XCOM 2 (Steam - Vanilla)

 

Whichever you want to play must be named by the Steam Name, for Steam to run it.

XCOM 2

 

The real advantage to this is when Steam wants to force an Update you can let it update the Vanilla game.

When War for the Chosen drops, you will still have a working LW2 game.

Then when you decide, and modders have had time, you can update the modded game.

 

A better way of controlling all Steam games is to use Symbolic Links to store your games where you want.

The renaming system is still used, but the links are renamed, not the real folders.

Deleting a Link (How Steam Uninstalls), removes the link only, not the game.

I recommend using this incredibly powerful free tool, to manage Links.

Link Shell Extension

it allows Context Menu, Drag 'n' Drop, and uses Icon Overlays to make it easy in Windows.

This makes it incredibly easy, instead of using the Command Prompt, which isn't easy at all.

 

WARNING

Hard Links can cause infinite loops, if you cross link within, a folder tree, don't use them like that.

Symbolic Links are safer, and also can be used across hard drives. So are much better for this purpose.

 

It allows me to easily manage, over 500 active games, and thousands of mods, as if all on one drive.

In reality it's across 8TB (1.75 TB is SSD), and many games have multiple versions.