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Omicron

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    Omicron's Skinning Tutorial #2

    in Skinning

    Posted

    This tutorial will cover the basics of adding species menu support to your skin, so you can choose what head, torso and legs to use.

    This tutorial will assume that you already know how to get a custom skin ingame*, and editing textures, both of which have been covered in my previous tutorial.

     

    This tutorial I originally wrote for the tutorials section in my clan, but I decided to upload it here so others could benefit from it too. Original topic link:

    http://thejawaclan.c...ing-tutorial-2/

     

    Skinning Tutorial #2 - Adding SP species support to a skin

    This tutorial will cover the basics of adding species menu support to your skin, so you can choose what head, torso and legs to use.

    This tutorial will assume that you already know how to get a custom skin ingame*, and editing textures, both of which have been covered in my previous tutorial.

     

    To start off, you'll need have multiple textures for the various parts of your skin if you really want to make use of this. You'll also need to make icons for each part, but more on that will be covered later in the tutorial.

     

    Ok, so you have your skin all made, now to give it species support so you can customise which head, torso and legs to use ingame. You'll need to first make some .skin files, but not quite in the same way as to how you made them before. The main thing you have to bare in mind, is that you need to make them for only a specific part of the model; head, torso and lower.

    To make them, you'll need to open up your normal .skin file, for this example I'll be doing the reborn.

     

    Screenshot%202014-04-26%2013.14.54.png

    This is what you should see^

     

    Find all the lines that are the head parts of the model, I've blurred out the other lines to make it clearer to see what I mean

    highlightSKinFile.png

    Note: You'll also need to copy the caps the each part too, otherwise you'll get a missing texture in ingame if it gets decapitated.

     

    Now copy all of that into a new text document, and save it as Head_a1.skin

     

    Now the same as again, but this time for the torso and legs parts, and call them torso_a1.skin and lower_a1.skin respectfully.

    Now you can do the same for the red and blue team skins, and any other additional skins in the folder, but use a different number/letter for the .skin file. (E.g. head_a2, head_b4, etc).

    I would recommend keeping the parts of the same skin with the same _xx name, to keep things organised. For instance, having all the default textures as _a1, blue as _b1, red as _c1, etc.

     

    So now that your .skin files are made, you'll need to make icons. Get screenshots of the parts of the skin that is are shown on the .skin file so you know what it is ingame, and save them in the exact same way as the .skin files, but add icon_ to the front of the filename, and save them as .jpg

    The filenames of the icons HAS to match up with its corresponding .skin file (E.g. head_a1.skin goes with icon_head_a1.jpg)

     

    Nearly finished now, all you need to do now is add the playerchoice.txt file. For the sake of this tutorial** and for doing this for the first time, make a new txt document called playerchoice.txt, and have the following in it:

    *white

    {

    setcvar ui_char_color_red 255

    setcvar ui_char_color_green 255

    setcvar ui_char_color_blue 255

    }

    Once you have done that, you can pak up your pk3, put it ingame, and if it has been done properly, you should now see your skin ingame in the species menu with all the customisable parts:

    Screenshot%202014-04-26%2014.07.35.png

    You may notice that it has no name in the menu, to fix this, go to assets0, and go to strings\English***\MENUS.str, and extract it from the pk3. You should see this when you open it:

    Screenshot%202014-04-26%2014.32.59.png

     

    Now copy this:

    REFERENCE MODEL_NAME

    NOTES "For character menu"

    LANG_ENGLISH "Skin name"

    Change MODEL_NAME to the name of you skin's folder name within the models\players folder (eg, reborn, imperial_worker, jedi_kdm, etc).

    Change "Skin Name" to what you you want the name to appear as in the menu. Keep the quotations to avoid badness happening.

     

    Now put it just after these lines (it's right at the top below the //comment lines):

    VERSION "1"

    CONFIG "W:\bin\stringed.cfg"

    FILENOTES ""

    Change MODEL_NAME to the name of you skin's folder name within the models\players folder (eg, reborn, imperial_worker, jedi_kdm, etc).

    Change "Skin Name" to what you you want the name to appear as in the menu. Keep the quotations to avoid badness happening.

     

     

    * I made a tutorial on how to do this found here, but there are plenty of others out there which can tell you how too.

    ** You would have probably noticed that the default skin have multiple colours to choose from in the menu, how to do that will be covered in later tutorial, along with how to add RGB to skins.

    *** If you play your game in a different language, then select the folder of language you use for your game.

    Omicron's Skinning Tutorial #1

    in Skinning

    Posted

    This tutorial I originally wrote for the tutorials section in my clan, but I decided to upload it here so others could benefit from it too. Original topic link:

    http://thejawaclan.com/topic/34109-jawa-arts-omicrons-skinning-tutorial-1/

     

    Skinning Tutorial #1 - Getting your first skin ingame

     

    To start off, you are going to need some software before you can even think about start making a skin. Links will be provided at the bottom, so here are the essentials you'll need:

    • A graphics program of some sort, to make/edit your textures
    • A text editor, like notepad
    • Pakscape, to open and make pk3 files
    • Modview, to view your skin without having to load up JKA each time.
    • Patience, as sometimes, things just don't work out icon_razz.gif
    So, first thing you'll need to do is make a folder somewhere on your computer called base, inside that make a folder called models, and inside, that make a folder called players. Now, go to your JKA base folder, located at:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy\GameData\base
    And open up assets1.pk3 with Pakscape, you should see something like this:

    Screenshot%202014-02-20%2009.11.56.png

    Open the models folder in it, then players, and you should see this:

    Screenshot%202014-02-20%2009.13.59.png

    Copy the _humanoid folder into the "players" directory you made, along with the folder of the character you desire to reskin, for this example, I'll be doing the rebel_pilot.

    Now, go to the rebel_pilot folder you just copied over, and open up model.glm with Modview, you should see this:

    Screenshot%202014-02-20%2009.30.20.png

     

    (Small note, if you get this error, then just press OK, and likewise for this error, just press No, unless you don't mind it popping up every time you refresh the textures.)

    Some basic navigation tips in Modview:

    • Hold down left-click and moving your mouse rotates the model
    • Hold down right-click and moving your mouse forwards or backgrounds will zoom in and out of the model
    • Hold down alt + left-click and moving your mouse will move where the model is on the scene
    Now open the model_default.skin with notepad, and you should see something like this:

    hips,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legs.tga

hips_torso,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

torso,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

torso_l_shoulder,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

torso_r_shoulder,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

torso_cap_head_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

torso_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

torso_cap_l_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

torso_cap_r_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

head,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_head.tga

head_teeth,models/players/rebel_pilot/teeth.tga

head_face,models/players/rebel_pilot/face.tga

head_helmet,models/players/rebel_pilot/helmet_chinstrap.tga

head_goggles,models/players/rebel_pilot/googles.tga

r_arm,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

r_arm_cap_r_hand_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

r_arm_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

r_hand,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_hand.tga

r_hand_inner_glove,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_hand.tga

l_arm,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_torso.tga

l_arm_cap_l_hand_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

l_arm_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

l_hand,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_hand.tga

l_hand_inner_glove,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_hand.tga

torso_frontpack,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_head.tga

hips_cap_l_leg_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

hips_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

hips_cap_r_leg_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

l_leg,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_boots.tga

l_leg_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga

l_leg_boot_pipe8,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe7,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe6,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe5,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe4,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe3,models/players/trandoshan/foot.tga

l_leg_boot_pipe2,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

l_leg_boot_pipe1,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_legguard.jpg

r_leg,models/players/rebel_pilot/rebel_pilot_boot_right.tga

r_leg_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga
    This is basically showing you which textures go on which parts of the model, for now, we are interested in editing the torso, so you find the lines which reference the torso, and look at what texture they point to (this isn't necessary, as you can usually look at the textures and work out where they are on the model), and we find it's pointing to rebel_pilot_torso.tga. The image itself itself a .tga, but the .tga is most commonly used as the extension in the .skin files.

    Now for the fun part, doing the skinning! Animation%2050.gif

    Open up the rebel_pilot_torso texture with the image editing software of your choice, and you should see this. For a first skin, you'll most likely want to do something simple, like adding a few colours, changing the hue, adding a logo, etc. Once you have edited the texture, you'll need to save it, but a few notes when doing so:

    • When you save/export the texture, you'll need to turn progressive OFF if it's a jpg
    • If you don't know how to do that, then this should help
    So, you have made your texture and it has replaced the rebel_pilot_torso texture, now to make Modview recognise the change. Go to the teskbar in Modview, and press the circled button marked as TEX:

    Screenshot%202014-02-20%2009.57.36.png

    If it works, then your textures will have refreshed, and it should see your edited texture on it!

    Screenshot%202014-02-20%2010.04.57.png

    Now to make it its own separate species to the rebel_pilot. Close Modview, and open up model_default.skin again, you'll notice that all the directory's say:

    models/players/rebel_pilot/
    but a few say:

    models/players/stormtrooper/
    Leave the stormtrooper ones alone, as they are the base caps (caps are the burn marks you see when your character gets chopped in half or something, just leave them as they are in the .skin file,) and change 'rebel_pilot' to whatever you want your skin's name to be. Do the same for model_red and model_blue, as they are team skins. Once you have done that, rename the rebel_pilot folder to the name you called your skin in the .skin files.

    Now for the icons. You'll want your skin you be recognisable from the menu with your icons, so you could go for your own flashy design, or if you want the JKA icon style, I would highly recommend downloading these icon backgrounds done by Ruxith. Whatever you go for, the dimensions of them HAVE to be to the power of two on the x and y axis, most people go for 128x128 or 256x256 px. (The base icons are 128x128.) One thing which is vital, is that the icons have to match up with the skin files in their names. Eg, model_default.skin goes with icon_default.jpg, model_red goes with icon_red.jpg, etc.

     

    Once you have done all that, open up Pakscape, go to File -> New, and you should see a blank window appear within Pakscape. Drag your models folder into it, and within Pakscape, go to your players folder (should still be in the models folder), delete the _humanoid folder and its contents. Now save your pk3, by going to File -> Save, and give it any name you like, except the name of one of the base assets (assets0-3), and change the file type to Quake 3 pak (pk3).

    Now put your pk3 in your base folder, boot up JKA, and if everything has been done correctly, it should be in your menu, and work ingame.

    If this has worked for you, then congratulations, you have successfully put your own custom skin into JKA!

     

    Just a few notes:

    • All textures in the game (model textures, icons, gfx images, etc) all HAVE to be to the power of two on the x and y axis. (2, 4, 8...128, 256, 512, 1024, etc)
    • You don't actually need Pakscape to make pk3's, it's just a fairly common way to do it. A pk3 is just a renamed .zip file effectively, so you could when making you pk3, make a zip file, put your contents in it, then change the extension from .zip to .pk3.
    • Never modify the assets and put your own skins directly in them; make your own pk3s.
    Links:

    Paint.NET (free):

    http://www.getpaint.net/

     

    GIMP (free):

    http://www.gimp.org/

     

    Photoshop (costs £££, but has a 30 day trial):

    Trial version:

    https://creative.ado...ducts/photoshop

     

    Pakscape:

    http://jkhub.org/fil...le/89-pakscape/

     

    Modview:

    http://jkhub.org/fil...ile/90-modview/

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