¶ Asset Database
If you want to find an existing asset such as a mesh, texture or class of function to reuse in your mod. Asset Database is the tool that should be your go to. It creates a searchable database of many of the assets in game and allows you to quickly open them in a variety of tools.
¶ Database Generation
Open the Asset Database program. Under the Database menu you can select which game to focus on, and generate a new database. If you are Texture focused modder and are used to using CRCs, under the Tools menu click "Compile Texture CRCs". This means the database will compile CRCs as well and textures can be searched by CRC. It will make the scan take moderately longer. Without CRC checking a single game will take 5 - 10 minutes on a modern PC with SSD.
¶ Files Tab
Once scan is complete the first tab is the Files tab. This shows a list of all the asset containing files in the game, including DLC. You can sort by file or DLC directory (BIOGame is the basegame directory). On the top right is a search box, enter part of a filename and the main screen will filter down. This is a convenient way to open files without having to go through the game directories.
Right click any file and you can open it in a variety of tools.
¶ Classes Tab
This contains information on all the class functions used by the game. These are used by the game to run unrealscript functions that carry out a very wide variety of actions in game. The left tab shows a list of classes (again it can be searched). In the Tools menu you can filter for classes that work specifically with Kismet (sequences) or Matinee (cutscenes). Right click to open the script definition file (often contained in SFXGame or Engine) or the superclass (its parent class).
In the middle are all the properties that are used by the game. Note some (rarely used) classes have more properties than this but Bioware didn't use them. On the right is the list of usages. This shows every file and export where this class was used. Right click to Open Usage, which will open it in Package Editor. Note the default version of the class is listed in bold. This contains the default values of properties that will be used if not present in a usage.
¶ Materials, Animations and Particle Systems
These tabs work similarly to the Classes tab. The records on the left, details in the middle and usages on the right. Right click the usages to open in Package Editor. Note where the Asset has a gray background this means it is DLC only. Materials (and Particle Systems that use them) require shadercaches which are cooked into DLC files. Therefore using them in other mods maybe problematic. Note there are extension filters you can set in the Tools menu depending on what type of material you are looking for.
¶ Meshes Tab
In addition to the usual lookup you can view Meshes. Select a mesh and click "Toggle Mesh Rendering". This will enable the mesh viewer, the database will fetch the assets from the first usage, and show the mesh similar to meshplorer. If a mesh doesn't show it maybe because the correct materials/textures couldn't be found, try clicking view in wireframe. You can then open the mesh in meshplorer by right clicking the usage.
¶ Textures Tab
Similar to meshes you can also view Textures and TextureMovies in the Textures tab. Click "Toggle Texturing Rendering" to show the textures you click on the left panel. As with materials, gray background indicates DLC only usage. If you use this texture in your mod the DLC must be present. If you clicked "Compile Texture CRCs" you can search by CRC from the filter box.
Github mirror to this tutorial