Ripping WWE 2K Models

For 2K22

First, download WWE 2k22 from somewhere, then:

For non-create a character wrestlers, announcers, management, referees:

• Download CakeTools (this is free)
  Note: For CakeTools to function you need to install some fonts. If they are not included in one of the folders in this download you can grab them here
• Open CakeTools
• Click open baked file
• Go to the 2k22 game directory, and select one of the baked files there (they are listed from 00 to 07)
• Open the left hand panel, double click the character folder and in each baked file there should be some wrestlers available. Double click on the ones you want and export them. This is done by either:
  • extracting the folder
  • double clicking the individual files and extracting those
    the buttons for them are the small red ones underneath the 'mdl viewer' text

The models themselves are MDL files. You can preview them by double clicking them.
Note: CakeTools is a bit jank so it can only export one folder and not any folders within said folder, as far as I remember. So in this case, if you click something like referee_255 and extract the folder, you will get a folder labeled referee 255 and the MDL file, and whatever other file is also there with the MDL, but not the texture folder that is also there with it. You will need to extract that separately.

The links above should have plugins for blender. Just install them on the latest version of blender and they should work. After that, just export the model as an fbx and import it to blender 2.79.

For Create-A-Wrestlers (CAWs):

• Download NinjaRipper.
  • This is a paid tool and there's no way around it since it uses your IP from Patreon to determine if you can open it, but only on the newer versions. 2K22 rips only work on NinjaRipper 2.0.10 and above, sadly.
  • PLEASE backup your save before using NinjaRipper. It has been noted to accidentally wipe a save because of 2K jank. Also do not use it in the character creator.
• OPTIONAL STEPS BUT MAKES THE WHOLE THING A LOT EASIER:
  • Download the WWE 2K22 patcher so mods can be enabled. It should be this version but check the guy's Twitter in case a new one drops for some reason.
  • Apply it by placing it in the 2k22 directory and running it
  • Place THIS file in the 2K22 directory. It's a mod file which adjusts The Rock's entrance so any wrestler using it will be in a T-pose, letting transferring weights be MUCH, MUCH easier.
    • Alternatively in case you have other mods installed, here is the mod by itself
  • Make a CAW and then preview their entrance using The Rock's entrance. use NinjaRipper to rip them while they are in that pose.
• If you do not want to mod it, select a wrestler's entrance that has their arms up for ease of mesh warp posing. I'd recommend Finn Balor 2 or one of Roode's entrances.
  I highly recommend selecting the 'png textures' option while using NinjaRipper as the DDS rips can have some issues when using other plugins.
  It will probably freeze the game for a moment while it's working. You will get a folder full of NR files and textures.
  As far as I have tested, the NinjaRipper plugin is compatible with both 2.79 and 2.8+, so just choose your preferred blender version.
• Install the NinjaRipper plugin, go the the folder of NR files, and select them all.
• A quirk of NinjaRipper is that you need to either enter a matrix value or an FoV Y value for import. I cannot find the matrix value for 2k22, so guess and checking the FOV Y value by repeatedly importing it and looking is the best bet here.
  Note: 2k22 rips are HUGE, so zoom out.
  To speed it up, select the spherical skybox and see what number .NR file it is, and just focus on importing that instead of everything. Once it actually looks like a sphere on zooming out (you can compare using an actual UV sphere), then import everything using that number.
• A few quirks when importing into blender 2.79:
  1. All normals are flipped, so you can temporarily fix the view by tapping n and hitting the checkmarked backface culling option.
  2. There are at minimum 2 of the same mesh overlapping one another; only 1 is correct.
  3. The correct one comes with 4 different UVs, usually. If it has 4, its the third one. if it has 3 or 2, its the second one. Unless its hair, then it's the first one.
• To clean up the rip, delete everything but the wrestler by box selecting the wrestler, hitting control+i, and hitting delete, then deleting all the other superfluous stuff around it.
• Next is going through each mesh on the side and seeing if it has more than one UV. If it only has one UV, delete it, EXCEPT IF IT IS HAIR. As far as I've seen, the correct hair mesh is the only one that has one UV.
• Go through each UV and delete the bad ones.
  • The right ones are VERY obvious except for the hair, which is a bunch of overlapping UVs and not the neatly packed ones in the wrong hair meshes.
  • Also, delete the eye covering mesh and the eyebrow/eyelash mesh. They don't rip properly and are inconsequential.
    • Also also, for eyes, remove every UV and make a new one using u in edit mode, since all the eye UVs are screwed up.
  • Aside from that, the correct UVs are usually all grouped in numerical order so there should be a divide between the right meshes and the wrong ones.
• You can fix the textures by going over to the texture tab deselecting the top material, and selecting the correct one. There's usually like 8 or 9 there. They are usually the ones that have some actual color to them and look like a texture and are usually somewhere in the middleish.
• After all unnecessary meshes and UVs have been deleted, you can download Material Combiner, an addon which auto places all textures on an atlas and have all the textures properly show up. If there's a big gaping hole in the atlas that looks like a black void, you probably picked the wrong texture. Just ctrl+Z and go find the fucked up one and switch it to something else.

• After running MatCombiner, select all the meshes and run this script in the script box to change the UV names:
  

  ⎗

  ✓

  1 2 3 4 5

  import bpy for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects: for uvmap in obj.data.uv_layers: uvmap.name = 'UVMap'

  so you can safely merge them all using ctrl+J

• After merging, remember to flip the normals for it if you haven't and merge the doubles.
• You should now have a model that's workable.
• If you used the mod, after this, you can take a ripped wrestler body (2K22 wrestler ripping) and transfer weights from there.
  • At this point, you can pose your model over a PES reference model, apply armature in the modifiers tab, then run MFG's addon to change the model's vertex groups to PES ones
• If not, try posing it as best you can using mesh warping first then transfer weights. For more information on this, please see Tomato's tutorials.

For 2K20

For Wrestlers:
2k20 model rips are much the same, the difference being you need a different version of CakeTools.
I actually haven't checked if they have the same bone names actually... but honestly, I would just say use 2K22. They have all the same wrestlers.

For CAWs:
Now, for 2k20, you are very much in luck since NinjaRipper 2.0.4 works just fine, and that one you can find around the web if you look hard enough.
Place this modded baked file in the 2K20 directory as it will make them T-pose in the middle of the ring for easy ripping. No need for a mod patcher.
Anything else is pretty much the same as 2K22 for the procedure on cleaning up the models, except this time, we can use a matrix import on NinjaRipper's plugin to get it exact instead of guessing and checking. Just open the log file with the rip, ctrl+f "viewproj" and find something like "viewproj 4x4" or something like that. Copy the string of brackets and numbers after that up to but right before the semicolon, paste it into the matrix import box, and then import everything. From there, once you have the model in blender, the process is very similar to what's described above.