Mass Effect modding for dummies:

ME1-3 also didn’t handle FOV for widescreen too well. You can expand your view with Widescreen Fixer or Flawless Widescreen:


https://www.flawlesswidescreen.org/

Let’s start off with with ME3 and add A) controller support plus B) a texture mod to replace FemShep’s default geometry + skin with a hotter one.

  1. disable auto updating in Origin or else your files will get replaced with stock
  2. backup and make a copy of the Mass Effect 3 folder, putting it elsewhere, it should be roughly 21.9GB if you have all the DLC like I do, to compare my modded ME3 folder is 45.4GB
  3. signup for and login to nexusmods.com to download your mods

A:
To add awesome controller support into ME3, get this mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/407/?
Needs Mass Effect 3 Mod Manager: http://me3tweaks.com/modmanager/

The download link is: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/download/2483
DO NOT UNZIP IT. Keep it in its 7z format.

Unzip ME3CMM to its own folder and run ME3CMM. Go to Mod Management, Import Mod, Import from 7z
Browse to and choose the SPcontroller 7z file
This may take a while, select the checkbox for it and choose import selected mods
Select it in Available mods and choose APPLY MODS, it may warn you about ‘TESTPATCH DLC HAS NOT BEEN BACKED UP’ choose y to backup, then it will prompt for ‘no game repair database’ click OK and it will do so. It will ‘Updating basegame and DLC TOC files’
Click Create Database, once it’s done click X (the dialog box is tricky, if you click database updated, it will offer to update the backup)
NOW you can finally click Apply Mod

That’s it. Go into your game and enjoy controller support.

B: For sexy femshep
[ instructions will come in a bit since i redid my me3 to vanilla to get you guys the instructions and unpacking dlc takes 1-2 hours ]
http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/229/?

You need the above mod, and ME3Explorer stable: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/ajax/downloadfile?id=2174
You also need: https://github.com/Erik-JS/masseffect-binkw32/releases/tag/r2 and to replace the DLL files in the ME3 Binaries/Win32 folder.

Unzip the femshep mod and you’ll have two files.

  1. unzip me3explorer and run it. confirm the paths of all 3 ME games.you need 20gb to unpack the ME3 dlc. unpack DLC. this will take an hour or two. I’ll be right back and finish these instructions after my DLC unpack finishes.
  2. run it
  3. click ATOC, click Generate all Tocs (you’re supposed to do this after every time you load mods/textures before going back into the game)
  4. click MOD, load the mod file, it may detect it as an older/ancient format, click YES to upgrade it. Click RUN ALL and wait for it to finish.
  5. click texplorer, it will complain NO ME3 Tree found, click YES, make sure all the packages are selected and click continue. it will scan and build for a while. ( out of 5755 in my case)
  6. close texplorer, go to tpf tools, load the tpf file you extracted earlier
  7. check all, analyze with texplorer, install valid

i -think- you may have to go back to autotoc and generate toc again, not 100% sure.

Your default femshep will look like loralai from gilmour girls.

done

I’ll add to this thread once I mod ME2 and 3.

The other 2 major ME3 mods I installed:
ME3Recalibrated: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/411/?
this one is easy to install, just dropping folders into the dlc folder of the ME3 folder

ALOT (A Lot Of Textures) for ME3: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/363/?

ALOT has its own external installer that automates a lot of the mod/texture/tpf installation that we just did above in ME3Explorer.

Let me know if you manage to successfully do this. Cheers. Oh, sorry it’s so messy. I’ll clean it up later.

Are there any mods worth looking into for the first game? Since I’ll probably go back through them in order.

I haven’t dived into modding that one yet. There is the essential controller mod for ME1
http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/60/?

and the HD texture pack: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/1/?

Yeah definitely the mentioned texture pack. It doesn’t hold up as well as people seem to remember.

There is also a mod for 3 that resizes the UI for higher resolutions. Although I was hoping it would fix a menu issue I was having at the opening menu at 4k and no such luck.

Nope, my previous message was wrong. Last time I played the Mass Effect games, I used these texture mods. The one that fixes Garrus’s low-res face textures in ME1 is an absolute must.

The MEUITM is newer, does all that and more. Apparently, for those who don’t want to install any mods at all, no texture mod is needed for the Garrus face fix either, someone found some coalesc.ini settings. http://answers.ea.com/t5/Mass-Effect-1/PC-How-to-fix-Garrus-low-resolution-face-without-Texmod/td-p/4446163

Can someone help me? Cause I download the ME3 Mod Manager and extracted it in BIOGame folder when I open the Mod Manager it says the directory was invalid, I tried to extract it again on desktop and my documents still the directory was invalid.

If you’re still having the problem in 2 weeks time when I have time to reinstall ME3 for an upcoming play-through, I’ll give it a shot then.