📘Glossary

Listing of basic concepts, terms, and acronyms

Brief

Typical of any mature technical process, modding is filled with concepts, terms, and acronyms that are required learning to understand how to mod. For example understanding the relationship of multilayered assets, or what assets even are. Building your knowledge with the words in this section will help you communicate with other developers about what your needs and challenges are.

I do not recommend that you start memorizing words and concepts. This is a technical reference for you to fall back on for additional information.

Subject	Information
3dS	The 3DS file extension is short for 3D Studio, and it stores information on the makeup of 3D vector graphics. This includes mesh data, material attributes, camera and lighting information, and more. 3DS is an old binary-based file format, which means it's restricted to descriptors rather than the actual image itself.
Cooked	A CR2W file that's imported or encoded as an engine file, then debugged, compressed, and buffered by the REDengine build process. Files extracted with the Asset Browser using WolvenKit (including Legacy) are cooked files.
CP77 Tools	The original Cyberpunk 2077 modding CLI tool. (Deprecated by WolvenKit CLI)
GitHub	A website which hosts code and helps programmers collaborate on projects. The source code for WolvenKit is hosted here. You can compile the WolvenKit source code yourself, or for non-developers you can find WolvenKit releases here first.
Material json	Material json files are used by the Import/Export tool during for the mesh I/O process. The json will be named after the mesh file then suffixed with .Material.json (i.e. judy_01.Material.json)
Official Modkit for The Witcher 3 (WCC)	An official CDPR command-line tool for modding The Witcher 3. Legacy WolvenKit makes extensive use of the Modkit. We aim to deprecate the Modkit with WolvenKit.
Packed	The final unified package file used by REDengine games. The Witcher 3 uses bundle files while Cyberpunk 2077 uses the archive file format.
Raw	Generic term used to refer to non-REDengine files that have a CR2W counterpart. The raw format of the REDengine XBM texture format can be TGA, PNG, DDS, etc. e.g. "Do you have the raw texture?" - This is an inquiry about the TGA/PNG/DDS counterpart to a game texture file.
REDengine	The proprietary video game engine developed by CD Projekt Red for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Alternatively referred to as RED3, RED4 Uncooked A term used to describe a CR2W file in its most basic uncompressed state. e.g. After using the Official Witcher 3 Modkit to import an FBX to W2MESH, this file is uncooked. Rather than calling these files imported, the uncooked terminology is derived from the cooked (compressed) file state.
W2RC/CR2W	For more information about magic numbers see this Wikipedia page. REDengine format files are commonly referenced as W2RC/CR2W files for shorthand. Originally only CR2W was used, but it was discovered years later that the magic should be read backwards, as Witcher 2 Resource Class.

Subject

Information

3dS

The 3DS file extension is short for 3D Studio, and it stores information on the makeup of 3D vector graphics. This includes mesh data, material attributes, camera and lighting information, and more. 3DS is an old binary-based file format, which means it's restricted to descriptors rather than the actual image itself.

Cooked

A CR2W file that's imported or encoded as an engine file, then debugged, compressed, and buffered by the REDengine build process. Files extracted with the Asset Browser using WolvenKit (including Legacy) are cooked files.

CP77 Tools

The original Cyberpunk 2077 modding CLI tool. (Deprecated by WolvenKit CLI)

GitHub

A website which hosts code and helps programmers collaborate on projects. The source code for WolvenKit is hosted here. You can compile the WolvenKit source code yourself, or for non-developers you can find WolvenKit releases here first.

Material json

Material json files are used by the Import/Export tool during for the mesh I/O process. The json will be named after the mesh file then suffixed with .Material.json (i.e. judy_01.Material.json)

Official Modkit for The Witcher 3 (WCC)

An official CDPR command-line tool for modding The Witcher 3. Legacy WolvenKit makes extensive use of the Modkit. We aim to deprecate the Modkit with WolvenKit.

Packed

The final unified package file used by REDengine games. The Witcher 3 uses bundle files while Cyberpunk 2077 uses the archive file format.

Raw

Generic term used to refer to non-REDengine files that have a CR2W counterpart. The raw format of the REDengine XBM texture format can be TGA, PNG, DDS, etc. e.g. "Do you have the raw texture?" - This is an inquiry about the TGA/PNG/DDS counterpart to a game texture file.

REDengine

The proprietary video game engine developed by CD Projekt Red for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Alternatively referred to as RED3, RED4 Uncooked A term used to describe a CR2W file in its most basic uncompressed state. e.g. After using the Official Witcher 3 Modkit to import an FBX to W2MESH, this file is uncooked. Rather than calling these files imported, the uncooked terminology is derived from the cooked (compressed) file state.

W2RC/CR2W

For more information about magic numbers see this Wikipedia page. REDengine format files are commonly referenced as W2RC/CR2W files for shorthand. Originally only CR2W was used, but it was discovered years later that the magic should be read backwards, as Witcher 2 Resource Class.

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Last updated 1 year ago