reskinning/texturing help

[Jeff]

Hey guys, im looking to do some reskins using photoshop, i dont really know where to start. Is there a good tutorial for absolute n00bs and beginners anywhere not posted on this site, or one i just didnt see that is for people that have no idea what theyre doing? Any help would be appreciated.

[Drazin]

I think all the tutorials are written as if you already know how to use Fred Tetra's KT and such.

But, Maverick wrote an AWESOME tutorial with pictures and everything to help idiots like me get started. I know its in the Tutorials Stickies.

 

Basically what you have to do is load up Kotor Tool, Go to Erfs > TexturePacks > swpc_tex_tpa.erf (For PC usable stuff like heads and bodies, robes, armor, etc..)

There will be ALOT of stuff in here that you can double click on and if you have your image viewer set up properly you will see an Unwrapped picture of the models textures. Like if you peeled the map off a Globe. It takes awhile to understand what is what because alot of pieces are strewn about carelessly sometimes.

 

Anyways, Once you have the Texture you are looking for (Use something easy like Bao-Dur) you can extract the file as a .TGA and open it in a paint/art program like Photoshop. Simply do whatever artistic desires you want to it and save it as the same filename into your override folder for Kotor.

 

I mentioned Bao-Dur because he is easy to find and easy to see what is being recolored, how its stretched and where it is on his head. He was my first reskin when I made him into my Darth Maul look.

 

You can also opt to go into the swpc_tex_gui.erf and recolor the appropriate Icon or portrait as well. Makes it look a little more professional.

 

I hope this helps you, but if you are having trouble with Kotor Tool, definetly find Mavericks Tutorial on getting started. It practically installs it for you. Thats why Mav is my Hero.

[Jeff]

Thanks alot. When I used to try to reskin stuff the colors would appear all over the model not just where I wanted it to be. Hopefully that was because I wasn't using photoshop. Thanks for the input and ill definately look for mavs tutorial.

[General Kenobi]

If your having "alterations" show up on your character where they shouldn't it's most likely due to wrapping problems with the model. I'd recommend taking several screenshots of the robe or whatever item your starting with in-game first. Then open them up in pshop next to your .tga skin file your editing. That way you can see where the color goes or "ends" on a model when your doing your alterations from the screenshots.

Try keeping your "original" edited image as a .psd file with all the layers intact. and simply saving your file as a save as rather than a save. If you need to open up the edited .tga file and make changes or corrections it's much easier that way. You can then do a save as and save it as a .tga and load it in-game to see.

[T7nowhere]

A better to way to skin a model is to use gmax to aid you. This way you can see the texture on the model from every possible direction and you can also copy the UV map so that y ou can overlay it on the texture for skinning.

 

How to capture a models UV map to aid in skinning

 

You will also need these tools. Along with KT

 

Gmax Free 3d modeling app. Basically its a stipped down 3dsmax.

 

Nwmax This is a plug-in for gmax to allow you to import ascii.mdls.

 

MDLops This app is used to convert the game models to ascii.mdl

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally posted by T7nowhere

A better to way to skin a model is to use gmax to aid you. This way you can see the texture on the model from every possible direction and you can also copy the UV map so that y ou can overlay it on the texture for skinning.

Correction T7... it's the best way

 

After I started using this trick, I've never gone back to doing it the 'hard way'. I'm not into guess-work now that I know I can get a definite reference & visualization.

 

The saber skin maps I did for KotOR was done by using this method...

 

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143625

[Jeff]

Thanks for all your input guys this all helps a lot. I will definately start using tha gmax so i dont have to keep going into Kotor to see if its in the right place.