Cooked Assets

Supported PAYDAY 3 cooked assets can be exposed directly in the custom editor from the user’s installed copy of the game.

When the cooked-content setup is complete, the assets appear under their original /Game/…​ paths in the Content Browser.

Do not redistribute PAYDAY 3 base-game cooked assets with the modkit or your mod.

Requirements

Cooked assets are available when all of the following are in place:

  • the PAYDAY 3 game path is configured in Project Settings,

  • the PAYDAY 3 AES key is configured in Project Settings,

  • a current AssetRegistry.bin is present in the modkit root,

  • a current JMAP exists in Content/DynamicClasses,

  • Suzie is enabled so the required native game classes can be generated and registered,

  • and the modified Wwise plugin has its matching Audiokinetic ThirdParty SDK files installed when working with cooked audio assets.

The AssetRegistry.bin and JMAP serve different purposes.

AssetRegistry.bin tells the editor which cooked assets exist.

The JMAP is consumed by Suzie to make the native PAYDAY 3 class types available to those assets in the editor.

For cooked audio assets, Wwise is a separate requirement. The modkit includes a modified Wwise integration based on Wwise 2023.1.15.8789.3579, but users must supply the required matching ThirdParty SDK files themselves.

See Set Up Wwise for that setup.

Read-only inspection

Many supported cooked assets can be opened in read-only mode.

This is useful for inspecting things such as:

  • default values,

  • references,

  • asset relationships,

  • class/parent information,

  • and other data that the custom editor can successfully deserialize.

Treat these mounted /Game/…​ assets as reference/dependency content rather than mod-owned editable source.

Unsupported assets

Cooked Unreal content is not uniform, and not every PAYDAY 3 asset type is currently supported.

Some unsupported assets can crash the editor when opened.

If a specific cooked asset crashes the editor, do not assume the entire cooked-content setup is broken.

Unsupported cases are being fixed as they are discovered and reported.

Converting cooked assets for replacement mods

Some simpler asset types can be converted into an uncooked form so they can be edited as part of an asset-replacement mod.

The custom editor contains uncooking/replacement support for compatible assets, including work for meshes and other supported types.

The uncooked result belongs to the user’s mod. The original mounted /Game/…​ asset remains read-only.

Complex assets and partial uncooking

More complex assets cannot currently be reconstructed as complete editable source assets.

Examples include:

  • materials,

  • Blueprints,

  • widgets,

  • and other assets whose complete editor/source representation is not recoverable from the cooked package alone.

For these assets, the custom editor attempts to recover as much useful information as it can.

Depending on the asset type and current support, the uncooked result can include available data and generated stubs that give the mod author a closer starting point for manually recreating or replacing the asset.

This should be treated as a reconstruction aid, not a guarantee that the original uncooked source asset can be reproduced exactly.

Replacement workflow

A typical replacement workflow is:

  1. Locate the original cooked asset under /Game/…​.

  2. Inspect the cooked asset and its available defaults and references.

  3. Right-click the cooked asset and choose Convert to Uncooked.

  4. Make the required changes to the uncooked asset.

  5. Add the changed uncooked asset to the CrimeForge mod’s PAL Explicit Assets list.

  6. Forge the mod through CrimeForge.

  7. Test the replacement in PAYDAY 3.

The supported uncooking depth depends on the asset type and the current custom-editor build.