Radish Trial 1 Installation Step By Step Guide

 

Folder Structure

Downloading and installing all the tools as well as their dependencies can create a mess if they're left lying around haphazardly, therefore it's strongly recommend to draw up a well-structured folder hierarchy beforehand.

Tip: Place your root folder for modding as close to the base directory of your disk as possible (C:\, H:\, G:\ etc.) and avoid any special characters. Both special characters and directory names above 256 chars can and will cause serious errors when trying to run the tools.

Advice: Rid of space in the path. So instead of "Witcher 3", use "Witcher_3" to avoid later issues.

​​Warning: A part of the installation has to be on an NTFS file system. It is therefore recommended to store the whole folder structure on a drive formatted with NTFS (most drives run with NTFS nowadays). Here is how to check, if you're unsure: https://www.howtogeek.com/681125/how-to-see-a-drives-file-system-on-windows-10/

In the tutorial, the following basic structure will be referred to (the paths need to be adjusted to your specific folder structure accordingly):

Root	H:\Witcher 3	root of the folder structure
Game installation	H:\Witcher 3\_game	game files
External tools	H:\Witcher 3\_modTools	tools used to mod
Mod projects	H:\Witcher 3\_projects	modding projects
Download	H:\Witcher 3\downloads	for convenience's sake

Note that (sub)folders may need to be added to this structure later on in this guide. This is simply the basic structure.

Installing the Game

Tips:

• Always use a completely fresh install for modding. For this guide, we'll be starting from scratch and start with installing the game.
• An english game installation is required. The Radish suite does not natively support other languages. Attempting it will lead to broken quest names/descriptions etc.
• If you want to play the game while modding it concurrently, using two separate builds is advisable. As the game is DRM-free, one can simply copy everything to a different directory.

Install the game into your chosen directory.

GOG will install your game to _game\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt GOTY by default. This subdivision is not to my liking, so I am going to move the files one directory up, to my game installation folder. This step is optional, but keep it in mind for the future paths, should you not follow.

My _game folder looks like this right now. If you use Steam, you will have a different layout.

For many of the tools used, it's necessary to enable debugging scripts for in-game data to be dumped for further use.
To achieve this, the -debugscripts launch argument needs to be added to the shortcut.

Right click on the shortcut, select Properties, and add the command as shown below:

Uncooking

Now that we have a clean install of The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, we can proceed to what's called "uncooking" the game files. This decodes the game files and makes them usable for modding purposes. There are 2 ways of uncooking the games files, a short one and a longer one.

Tip: Doing both is advised. People have been known to have problems because neither method is exclusively reliable. Save yourself some troubleshooting later on and use both methods from the get-go.

For some mods (usually relatively bigger ones), it can be necessary to uncook some additional files (e.g. shadow meshes). It will be covered in this guide for completion purposes, but is fully optional for basic quests.

 

The modus operandi

Several tools are needed to uncook the game files, including WCC_lite, QuickBMS and Radish. 

WCC_lite

The official Witcher 3 ModKit can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3173?tab=files&file_id=21542

After downloading, extract setup.exe and execute it. It will automatically install into C:\Program Files (x86)\Witcher 3 Mod Tools. That's not necessarily the directory we want it in. To have all the tools together, move the folder Witcher 3 Mod Tools into your _modTools folder (see table above for my absolute path).

My _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools folder:

Now that the modkit is installed, it needs to be patched. By default the application is absurdly slow, but this can thankfully be worked around.

The patch can be found here: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/patched-wcc_lite-for-faster-startup.6883680/.

Download the file and overwrite wcc_lite.exe, which is located in <External tools>\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\bin\x64\.

Next, download the WCC_lite GUI for easier use, as the CLI of WCC_lite can be daunting, to say the least.

The GUI can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3332?tab=files&file_id=22973.

Download it and place it in your _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools folder.

Upon the first start-up, you will be prompted to locate your installation of wcc_lite.exe. Just follow the above-mentioned path and select it.

QuickBMS

The second way of uncooking your game requires QuickBMS together with a preset from the Radish tools Nexus page.

The program can be acquired from here: https://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm.

Create a new folder named QuickBMS in your _modTools path and extract all the files from the downloaded archive here.

The Radish QuickBMS uncook script can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3620?tab=files&file_id=25205.

Extract all the files to your QuickBMS folder, as well.

To set up QuickBMS, open up the .bat file called radish.uncook and adjust the two paths in accordance with your specific directories. The first path SET W3_DIR = D:\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt becomes SET W3_DIR = H:\Witcher 3\_game.

The uncooked files will be copied to the second path. This is just a temporary directory, so it's not important what it's set to. If you intend to keep the uncooked data, a new folder path must be created:

H:\Witcher 3\_uncooked

Uncooked Game Files

This folder will contain all uncooked game files from all sources.

Tip: The complete uncooked game data can take up to >100 GB of disk space, so if storage is an issue, keeping the uncooked game data permanently isn't necessary.

The second path SET OUTPUT_DIR = D:\tmp\qbms.all thus becomes SET OUTPUT_DIR=H:\Witcher 3\_uncooked\QuickBMS.

The Radish Tools

The next step is to download the external (non-ingame) part of the Radish suite, including all the encoders.

Download: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3620?tab=files&file_id=33023

Extract the radish-tools folder into your _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools. This path more for personal taste than for functionality.

My _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools folder now:

 

The uncooking process itself

Warning: As mentioned above, uncooking all the files requires a minimum disk space of 100 GB. Ensure there is enough.

WCC_lite

To uncook the game files via WCC_lite (the long way), open up the GUI. On the left hand side is found a command called uncook. After ticking it, the following image should be seen:

A lot of parameters can be found on the right, only indir and outdir matter here. These must be filled in as below:

indir	<Game installation>\content	H:\Witcher 3\_game\content
outdir	<Uncooked game files>\Wcc	H:\Witcher 3\_uncooked\Wcc

After filling in the params, hit Run Command in the upper left corner.

Warning: This process is slow, it takes a few hours even on modern NVMe SSDs, so be prepared to leave it running.

The WCC GUI should now look like this:

Your _uncooked\Wcc folder should now look like this:

As you might have noticed, the folder structure of this path looks similar to _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\r4data.
When the uncooking is finished, we want to copy all the files from our _uncooked\Wcc folder into this one.

Warning: Do not override any files in modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\r4data, when asked to, as they contain additional necessary data. This process can also take some time, especially on HDDs.

QuickBMS

Uncooking via QuickBMS is more straightforward, as the paths have already been set up in advance. To uncook the files, simply run the edited radish.uncook.bat.

Executing this tool won't take nearly as much time as WCC, but will still take a few minutes. When the tool is finished, the CMD window should look like this:

Upon completion, locate your _uncooked\QuickBMS folder and copy all the data to your _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\r4data directory as well.

Warning: Again, do not override any files in _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\r4data when prompted, as they contain additional necessary data.

Some additional files

Besides the uncooked game files, the Radish suite uses some other files as well.

These can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3620?tab=files&file_id=33018

After downloading, extract the scripts folder to your r4data folder, this time overwrite existing files.

 

To summarize

The game files have been uncooked via WCC_lite and QuickBMS, copied into _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\r4data and the additional scripts folder provided by the Radish Nexus page has been added.

 

Uncooking additional meshes (optional)

For bigger projects with a lot of custom meshes (e.g a new hub), it may be necessary to extract further files; for example, uncooking shadwomeshes for shadows in custom environments to be displayed correctly.

Navigate to _modTools\Witcher 3 Mod Tools\radish-tools\repo.shadowmeshes. If the tools are installed correctly, there should exist an uncook.meshes.bat file. Open it up in a text editor and set the appropriate paths to our game directory, the modkit and the Radish suite. DIR_MODKIT is the main directory of the Official TW3 ModKit and DIR_ENCODER is the directory where all Radish encoders can be found.

Tip: If a path with parentheses in it is used, you have to escape them with a ^ (see comment in file).

My uncook.meshes.bat file:

When running the file, the following error may occur:

If that happens, at least one shadowmesh hasn't been patched successfully. This can lead to errors in your mod, but there's currently no easy workaround.

Installing the Radish Tools

Requirements

After all the necessary game files are uncooked, we can start to install all the latest in-game mods, as well as their requirements.

The first mod we are going to install is the Community Patch - Base mod.

You can find it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3652?tab=files&file_id=24139.

After downloading the archive, extract the modsand content folders into your _game directory and overwrite if prompted.

Next mod we are going to need is Community Patch - Bootstrap and Utilities. The installation here is a bit more complicated.

First we are going to choose a base version of the mod. There are 2 different files to choose from:

1) You have no custom map changing mods installed (recommended for modding the game): https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2109?tab=files&file_id=23947
2) You have a custom map mod (e.g. All Quest Objectives On Map or Colored Map Markers): https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2109?tab=files&file_id=24145

After downloading either the first or the second archive, extract the dlc and mods folder into your _game directory.

Warning: Make sure you only install one of the two versions!

Next step is to download the bootstrap registry.

It can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2109?tab=files&file_id=23946.

In this archive you will only find a mods folder, copy it into your _game directory.

To make this mod usable, we will also need to add the content of _game\mods\modBootstrap\modBootstrap.input.settings to our Witcher 3 input settings.
We achive that by locating our W3 inputs file (commonly: C:\Users\[Your User]\Documents\The Witcher 3\input.settings) and pasting the content to the bottom of the file.

After pasting the content, my input.settings looks like this:

Now the Community Patch - Bootstrap and Utilities mod should finally be installed correctly.

Next we need Community Patch - Shared Imports.

Just download the archive here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2110?tab=files&file_id=27873.

Again, extract the mods folder to your _game directory.

 

The Radish Bundle

Our next step is to download the Radish Ingame Bundle. 

You can get it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3620?tab=files&file_id=33019.

Extract both the dlc and mods folders into your _game directory and overwrite any files when prompted.

Next you need to paste the content of all the *.input.settings files from the archive into your W3 inputs (see above).

Next we are going to register our mods, so that we can load them in-game. Therefor, we need to locate our mods_registry.ws file. It is located at _game\mods\modBootstrap-registry\content\scripts\local. Edit it with any text editor of your choice in order to add the following lines somewhere in the function createMods():

add(modCreate_EnvUiMod());
add(modCreate_RadishUi());

My mods_registry.ws looks like this:

 

The template project

Now that all the necessary tools are installed (including their requirements), we're going to have a closer look at the testHub project to check that we did everything right.

You can download it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3620?tab=files&file_id=31076.

Extract it and copy it into your _projects folder.

The most important file for now is the _settings_.bat located in _projects\modHubTest. Edit it with a text editor of choice to change paths again.
The paths are exactly the same, as when uncooking the shadow meshes:

1) Game Installation
2) The official Modkit
3) Path where the Radish Encoders are located

My _settings_.bat file:

After adjusting the paths correctly, we further have to remove SET RELEASE_VERSION=YES on line by making it a comment. In fact, his setting will hinder any source information of this mod to be seen in-game, and that's not what we want.

After editing the _settings_.bat file, we need to create junction links. We just need to start the _createLinks_.bat once and confirm by typing y (for yes in english, j for ja in german, etc.).

Tip: Both errors at the top can be ignored.

Now the testHub should be launchable. You can build it by starting full.rebuild.bat in _projects\modHubTest.