AutoLink is a mod created by FallingCat best known for allowing alternate costumes for Dead or Alive's fighters. It can actually do a lot more than that, though. With it, you can slow down the action, change the wetness of the characters, turn the whole picture sideways, and support resolutions the game doesn't natively support!

But mostly, it's about the costumes. Because who doesn't want to see Lara Croft beat up Master Chief? ;)

The "right and proper" place to get the mod would be 3DMGame's website[bbs.3dmgame.com] where FallingCat is maintaining the mod. Unfortunately, that website now requires registration to download files which can be quite a pain. If you want the latest version, though, that's the place to go.

Or you can just download it from Google Drive[drive.google.com].

Note: FallingCat uses RAR compression and the Google Drive version uses 7Z. If you don't know what those are, they are a bunch of files compressed and packed into one file, just like Zip. You can use 7-Zip[www.7-zip.org] to extract either type. Costume mods often use these formats, too, as well as mods for many other games.

Take those files and drop them into the game's directory. If you don't know where that is (or just forgot what drive you put it on), Steam will tell you. Right click on Dead or Alive in your library and choose Properties at the bottom of the list. Pick the Local Files tab and choose the option to browse to the files. Pop! There's your directory!
Now just drag the files and folder out of 7-Zip and into that directory. AutoLink is now installed! If you run the game, it should tell you the version of AutoLink along with the game's version down in the lower right corner.

If you go into the AutoLink folder you'll see a file called NAME.txt. That file contains the name AutoLink uses for every fighter (e.g. MARIE for Marie Rose). If you got the file from FallingCat, you'll need to make a folder for every fighter you want to get costume mods for. If you got AutoLink from Google Drive then they are already made for you. (Well, all the ones you are ever likely to use. There's a few specialized ones you can find in the NAME.txt that aren't there.)

Now that you're all installed, you'll probably want a mod to put in. Let's go through it step by step with a nice little mod for Ayane by funnybunny666 that you can find here: https://funnybunny666.deviantart.com/art/Ayane-jacket-pants-648429871

If you follow the download button you'll just get an image. If you follow the link in the description you'll go to Google Drive where you can find the file you want. The download option is in the upper right corner. Use it and you'll get a file called AYANE JACKET PANTS.7z.

Now open up (or create) the AYANE folder in AutoLink. Inside that, make a folder called 01. Get the three files out of AYANE JACKET PANTS.7z and put them into the 01 directory.
Congratulations, you're done! No, really! Start the game, start a fight, select Ayane, and you'll now see a new option in the 'details' for her first costume that says 'Ayane Jacket Pants' that you can select. Something like this, but for Ayane, and with not quite so many possibilities:

Note that the original costume slot 1 option is still there in the game so you aren't overwriting that costume. However, the details option will now be switching modded costumes so I'm afraid that you will no longer be able to select what color underwear your fighter has when using the original costume. We all have to make our sacrifices, I'm afraid.

The numbered folders you made actually have an extra feature to them: they can cover multiple slots. If you make a folder called "04 05 06" then all the mods you put in that folder will show up for slot 4, 5, and 6 instead of just one slot! This can be handy if you plan on dumping all your mods into one folder because, while the game will allow a fight between two players using the same fighter, those two fighters have to wear different costumes (at least when off line). If you've got all your mods in the 01 directory then only one can wear a modded costume.

Note that not all slots are created equal on all fighters! For instance, Tina's slot 1 has a hat that never falls off. If you drop in a costume that relies on Tina's default hair style, you'll find she has a bald patch right on the top of her head! It seems that slot has a different hair style with a blank patch to keep her hair from going through the hat. You'll either need to put that costume in a different slot or switch her hair to another style. I think some other fighters with helmets may not let you switch the hair at all for that slot.

Sometimes mods will have distinct HAIR files, so you'll see a pair of files like "TheModsName.HAIR.TMC" and "TheModsName.HAIR.TMCL" as part of the mod. AutoLink can do something special with these: make them global so all the costumes can use them in all slots!

The quickest way to do this is to simply put an @ character on the front of both their names. Unfortunately, doing it like that means you'll have to remember to switch the hair when you pick out the mod it came from. If you don't want to remember, just make a copy of the hair files and rename them to something descriptive with @ on the front. So, if you've got a mod that gives the character pink hair, copy the two files and rename them to "@Pink.HAIR.TMC" and "@Pink.Hair.TMCL". You'll then have the 'Pink' option on all your costumes for that fighter in addition to the hair choices that are already there. (Or, in the case of the picture above, "@Rainbow Mika Ponytails.HAIR.TMC" and "@Rainbow Mika Ponytails.HAIR.TMCL".)

This can also be done with faces if those two files are present and you want to keep the face with the hair. The procedure is the same so, in the example, you would have @Pink.FACE.TMC and @Pink.FACE.TMCL. Doing this is handy when the character's face has a bit of the hair on it.

Sometimes, though, the character is wearing a hat makes the character's hair clip right through no matter what style you pick or a mask where the character's nose pokes out. For these situations, you need the empty face and/or hair. You can get those right here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1heXASqPxzIe7HXF8lBgTBDY9VU_qA1IF/view?usp=sharing

Just add the name of the mod to the front of each file so they match the other TMC and TMCL files and you're good.

The game remembers what detail/hair option you picked last for a given costume slot until you quit the game (or, almost as likely, it crashes). You can use this to get your modded costumes to show up outside of fights where you specifically get to select them.
For instance, start a versus fight with Ayane and select her Jacket mod but don't bother selecting another fighter. Instead, back all the way out to the main menu and select movies. Go to the victory movies and select one of Ayane's. (I'm assuming you've actually won with her at least once!) Select the costume that you modded, which is the first one if you followed this guide, then play it. The modded costume will be used!

The hair options will not show global hair options that you've set up. However, if you select a global hair when you're picking out the costume then use option A hair in playback, you'll get the modded hair.

This also works when the computer is picking out fighters to fight against you. If you're lucky enough and the computer happens to pick that character with that costume, you're mod will get used. If you try it, you'll get a real good appreciation of just how many costumes and fighters this game comes with because it will almost never pick what you've set up and setting up EVERY costume takes an eon.

But the Falling Cat has your back! Go back to the character selection screen and press control-0 (that's a zero, not an O). You'll here a plink sound. That's AutoLink saving all your current selections as defaults for every costume slot using a mod. You can quit out of the game, start it up again, go straight to the movies section, and start a movie with Ayane in it. She'll show up with the Jacket mod! If you play in arcade mode and happen to get the first costume, she'll be using the mod, too. In fact, I think they'll even show up in story mode, which could get more than a bit silly.

These defaults are saved in a file called AutoLink000.config in the game directory. The mods are stored by name so adding more mods isn't going to mess anything up. Renaming your mod will, though. Also, buying DLC might change the order of costumes which could make your default show up for the wrong costume.

You can set up default-sets if you want, too. Say you've got a whole bunch of mods for a whole bunch of fighters from other fighting games. You could go through your fighters and pick out a whole bunch of those mods for them, go back to the character select screen, and press control-2. Now you can just press 2 when you start the game and get to the main menu and you'll see those mods used instead of the defaults. AutoLink supports set numbers 1 to 8.

If you select set 9 the game will ignore all the defaults you set up. If you want to remove a default set permenently, just delete the corresponding AutoLinkNNN.config file.

But wait, there's more! AutoLink isn't just about plopping costumes in, there are a lot of other commands in there. Here's the list:

All number keys are the numbers along the top. By CLO1 I mean the character left of the 1 key. On American keyboards that's the single quote ` character but other nations have different setups.


If you're in the character selection screen you can use the number pad to rotate the characters (6 and 4), move them up and down (8 and 2). You can even rotate them head over heals with 9 and 3. If you hold shift down, the arrow keys will pan around. By default, this acts on all characters but you can do control-numpad-1 to control-numpad-4 to just have it act on one of the characters. Control-numpad-9 to have it act on all characters again.

AutoLink is conrolled by the Dinput8.ini file. There are instructions but they are mostly in Chinese. Google Translate is your friend here if your Chinese is a bit rusty.

Here's the basics of what you can do:

SaveScreenShot
By default the game makes you use Steam's screenshot feature. If you want to use the built-in screenshot, set this to 1. Set it to 2 to save as a .BMP file. Set it to 0 to go back to the default of using Steam only.

BypassMovie
This is supposed to bypass the movie but it doesn't seem to work.

KeyboardOnly
The controller handling code in DOA is awful. If you can't get the game to run or if you would just rather use the keyboard without having to unplug your controller, you can set this to 1 to force the game to use your keyboard.

ResolutionMod
The game supports several resolutions up to 1080p and supports 4K. If you've got something between 1080p and 4K, you're stuck with windowed mode. AutoLink lets you get around that. Set ResolutionMod to 1 and make sure FullscreenResolution is desktop and you'll be able to play at your screen's resolution!

GamepadAnalogStickLimit
I think this is used to give your analog stick a little dead area so you have to actually try to move it before there will be any effect. Default is 35 but you can set it to anything from 0 to 100.

MovieTheaterDeviceFPS
Set the frame rate in movie playback. Set to 30 to see it the way Team Ninja intended, leave it at 60 if you are a sane person.

Right now the most popular place to get mods is the Streetmodders section of Deviant Art:
https://streetmodders.deviantart.com/gallery/58269964/Dead-or-Alive-5-Last-Round-Mods

It wasn't always so, though. Mods used to be uploaded to Zetaboards:
http://w11.zetaboards.com/SFxT_Mods/forum/4220219/
and FreeStepDodge:
http://www.freestepdodge.com/forums/modding.73/

Those are also great places to go if you want to learn how to make mods yourself.

And, of course, LoversLab has all sorts of not even remotely safe for work stuff. In fact, it's so unsafe for work Steam won't even let me say the name.

Don't go TOO crazy. The game does have to load all these things up when it starts! Some mods are extremely demanding, too. If you look far enough back in time, you might even find mods that AutoLink can't deal with.

AutoLink also provides support for the Private Paradise movies and doing... something with stages. I still haven't looked into that part of the mod so you're own your own there.

Now my own contribution - the Mod Maintainer. This is just a little (seriously - like 33K!) application you can use to help rename mods and organize them a bit. For instance, a lot of mods will put the name of the character in the mod name. That's a handy way to let you know which fighter the mod will work with but, after you get dozens of mods for one fighter, it starts to get annoying. You can rename them but some mods have a dozen plus files you have to rename properly. MM makes that far easier.

You can get the program here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bz1R8Tkymet3UjY2ck9jeU1hY0k?resourcekey=0-RyeQzt_ippRw4bS2DfzmFA

Just pull the files down into a folder anywhere you like and run it. You should get a window a bit like this:

You'll need to put in the directory for your Dead or Alive game in at the top (the same one you dropped AutoLink's files into above) then just click Get Mods From and it will figure out what mods you have. Open up the individual fighters with the lttle arrows on the left (Elliot is open in the example) then right click on whatever mod you want to change. You'll be given the option to either rename the mod or delete it. If you've got more than one costume slot folder defined for the fighter, you can copy or move the mod to the other slots.

And that's all there is to it! Simple, easy, quick. That's how the Z family does things.

Note: If you get some error about the .Net Framework not being installed, you'll need to go to Microsoft's downloads and get it. It might be possible to not have it with Windows 7 but anything after that should already have a recent version of .Net Framework installed. You'll need at least version 4.5.2.

Obviously this program is provided AS IS - it's just something I threw together. If you've got a lot of mods already, you might want to back them up somewhere before running. (Honestly, you want to back them up from time to time anyway.)