How to make a singleplayer species with variants

This modding tutorial will explain how to add any skin or model into the single-player species selection menu. It also covers how to correct issues with the Hoth outfits for the two Hoth levels.

Originally written by Inyri Forge

Tools you'll need

• Notepad
• Pakscape
• Image editing software, such as GIMP

• Make sure the model/skin you want to be a new playable species (through the character creation menu) is ready and works.
• Open Pakscape and open "assets0.pk3".
• Extract "MENUS.str" to any folder.
• Add a new entry to MENUS.str to reflect the skin you want to use. If the folder of your skin is "bob_skin", your entry will look like this:
  
  REFERENCE BOB_SKIN NOTES "For character menu" LANG_ENGLISH "Bob's Skin"
  
  Reference is the folder name of your skin, notes you don't need to worry about, and LANG_ENGLISH is the title that will come up on the menu.
  
  NOTE: While I'm not completely sure of this, I believe that the menu will only recognize the strings of the first MENUS.str you put in your base folder. In my experience, after subsequent modifications the strings will not appear. The mod, however, will work just fine.

• Make a new PK3 file (you may call it whatever you want) and make a folder called "strings". Inside that folder, make a folder called "English". Put MENUS.str into this "English" folder.
• You may choose to put the contents of the skin file into your PK3, or use the original PK3. This is up to you. However, we do need to add something to the skin to make it function, so do the following: make a folder called "models" in the base directory of your PK3. Inside this folder, make a folder called "players". Inside this folder, make a folder with the name of your skin. For our example, that would be "bob_skin".
• If you choose to make a new copy of your skin inside this mod, copy all contents of the "bob_skin" folder (or whatever you skin is called) into the new folder in the new PK3. Now is where things can get tricky, if you forget a step.
• Open notepad and make a file with the following content:
   

  *white
  {
  setcvar ui_char_color_red 255
  setcvar ui_char_color_green 255
  setcvar ui_char_color_blue 255
  }

  
  
  Save this as "playerchoice.txt". That's right, save it as a text file. After saving, place it in the "bob_skin" folder, or whatever name you have chosen.
• Now is where we get a little involved. This tutorial will already assume you have your variants chosen and ready. What you will need to do is make icons for each head, torso, and lower body segment that you want to use. Name these "icon_head_a1.jpg", "icon_head_a2.jpg", "icon_head_a3.jpg", etc. Same with "icon_lower_a1.jpg" etc. and "icon_torso_a1.jpg" etc. Put them in your skin's folder.
• Now is the more complicated part. You will need to make skin files for each head, torso, and lower segment for each variant. This can be most complicated. While not difficult, most .skin files are not arranged in a very intuitive manner. We will take this section in steps as well.
  • Assuming you have multiple skins of the same model that you want to use as variants: separate the head, torso, and lower strings of each skin.
  • each head, torso, and lower segment to a new file. Name them the same way you named your icons (ie. head_a1.skin, torso_a1.skin, etc.).
  • Test these out in ModView if you wish, otherwise place these in your skin's folder. In our example, "bob_skin".
  NOTE: Make sure that all of your skin files are pointing to the correct directory! If you did any folder renaming, you'll need to edit your .skin files to match.
• Save your PK3 and try it out!

Fixing the Hoth Skins

• Make sure you have already followed the tutorial for getting a single-player skin or model in the custom menu.
• Copy your torso and lower .skin files, renaming them "lower_e1.skin" and "torso_g1.skin". Please note that these names must be exact. The game is programmed to look for these two skin files for the hoth clothing, and if there's a way to circumvent that I haven't found it yet. I haven't looked, however, because renaming them e1 and g1 isn't that complicated.
• Open up your skin's PK3 (the one you made in the last tutorial) and add these two .skin files to your skin's folder.
• Save and play! This should fix the problem of having the models come up mangled during the Hoth levels.