Dragon's Dogma 2 head mesh conversion errors

[calabar]

When I convert and repackage a Dragon's Dogma 2 mesh, I am only able to view it in certain circumstances in game, and generally the game crashes.

1. When I create a PAK with a modified head mesh, I am able to select it in the character creator in DD2 and DD2: Character Creator and Storage.
2. In DD2 and DD2:CC&S, when I try to generate variations of a face based on the custom head mesh, the game hangs.
3. In DD2:CC&S, when I try to view the pawns and arisens I've created, the game hangs if one of them has the custom head mesh.
4. When I create a PAK with the original mesh or a replacement extracted from the game (swapping head_000_m.mesh.231011879 with head_004_m.mesh.231011879 for instance), it works fine, suggesting that the problem isn't simply a PAK with a replacement head mesh.
5. When I create a PAK with the original mesh converted to FBX, then immediately converted back to .mesh, the game hangs as in (2) and (3). This suggests the problem isn't related to my changes and export in Blender.
6. If I'm using a custom head mesh or an original mesh converted to FBX and back (as in 5), none of the face parameter sliders work, though the eyes can be changed to some extent. Of course, if you're using a custom head mesh, the sliders probably aren't so important, but this shows that some information is missing from the converted mesh that DD2 might expect?

Most of these tests were done in DD2:CC&S, because it's much faster, but they seem to apply to the main game. Also, to fix the mesh so I could at least view it in game without a glitchy texture, I had to remove the UV light map and replace it with the UV diffuse map. I doubt this is related, but maybe it's worth mentioning.

I can try to look into this further, though I'm not so familiar with the file formats involved.

[alphazolam]

DD2 mesh modding is not fully supported by the plugin. There is an extra set of skin weights that FBX does not support. I would recommend the DD2 blender suite for DD2 modding.
Head meshes may have some of their own caveats as well