Skinning Tips & Tutorials

[spydermann93]

Hey guys! I'm new here, but I really need some help. In  I've been trying to customize a character that is a variation of the Ant. When I look at the skin in the character creator, it looks great. But in the Rumble Room, it does not show. Instead, the Ant's original skin shows.

Any suggestions?

I'm guessing that the skin files are in .tga format.

In order for them to work, you have to convert them to .dds format.  Paint.NET is able to convert .tga to .dds.

[Cyber Burn]

Hey guys! I'm new here, but I really need some help. In  I've been trying to customize a character that is a variation of the Ant. When I look at the skin in the character creator, it looks great. But in the Rumble Room, it does not show. Instead, the Ant's original skin shows.

Any suggestions?

I'm guessing that the skin files are in .tga format.

In order for them to work, you have to convert them to .dds format.  Paint.NET is able to convert .tga to .dds.

Added point, when saving your files to (.DDS) format, under "Settings", make sure it says "A8R8G8B8". Somehow my settings got messed up, and all my skopes kept crashing CharacterTool2. Took me quite a while to figure out what happened and even longer to go back and fix everything.

[Ouflah]

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply! Sorry I didn't reply back as quickly! I had bookmarked the page-- didn't realize that someone had replied on the second page. Heh. 

Anyway, you are right! They are in .tga format. Didn't know that was a problem until now. And it just so happens I was editing the skins in Paint.NET, so that'll work out fine! All watch out for that A8R8G8B8 thing, too. Saving it right now-- we'll see how it goes.

EDIT: Well I was going to edit the results in right away, but my computer is telling me that there is "No CD-ROM Drive Found." I don't think it has to do with this, because my computer has had quite a few problems recently anyway. So... yeah. Ugh.

EDIT: Just for those of you who haven't seen the technical difficulties area-- my computer died, I got a new one, and I'm using steam.

[Ouflah]

(Sorry for the double post)

Alright guys, I'm working on some skins, and hopefully they'll be up here by the beginning of November. I've been posting recently in the technical difficulties area (because I've had some problems) but now that those are cleared up, I want a little insight on skinning techniques and what not.

My main interest: I'm making a robot character right now (in  ) and I'm using Male_Hulking. He's doing well, but I can't find the file to make him shiny. Is this possible? I've seen it on other characters in FF (such as the Ant) but the file just isn't there.

[Randomdays]

You might want to PM Cyber or V. Cyber just helped V with some shiny bits on the Blue Falcon he did in my requests thread.

I know you can also get a shiny effect just playing with the lighting numbers in nifscope. if you look at the Porky here... http://freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=55867.0

He was pretty shiny till I lowered some of his numbers down. There are 4 different lighting settings you can set with nifskope. I think the third was reflect. The higher the number, the more shiny I think. (0.0 - 1.0) Each lighting setting has three numbers which will also change color - you need to have all 3 numbers the same to stay a neutral color.

[Cyber Burn]

The "Male_Hulking" mesh that comes with  does not have the effects (Refl and Glow) enabled, however, there are a few options for you that do not require using Nifskope or any other mesh editing programs. Take a look at "Male_Hulking_Effects" and "Male_Hulking_Brute", both will take your "Male_Hulking" skin and have the effects (Refl and Glow) enabled.

"Male_Hulking_Effects": http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Freedomforcemesh6/

"Male_Hulking_Brute": http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Grenadiermeshes7/

When using these meshes though, make sure that you have included the following (.TGA) files in order to get the full benefit of the effects:

1.) "Male_Hulking.tga"

2.) "Male_Hulking_Glow.tga"

3.) "Male_Hulking_Lightmap.tga"

4.) "Male_Hulking_Refl.tga"

Hope this helps.

[Ouflah]

Thanks, but it's not working. I really like the effects one, but in character tool it looks like this:


And with the brute one (which I don't like as much for my skin) looks like this:


So, any help?

[Cyber Burn]

That is actually a pretty common occurrence with meshes in  . I don't completely remember the "Why" of it (I THINK it has something to do with the Video Card), but this occurs in most newer computers with newer operating systems. Some meshes will work fine, others will not. I hate to say it, but it's pretty much like a roll of the dice, you never know what you are going to get until it happens.

In my experience, this ONLY occurs in the Character Tool for  , and not in the game itself. Every time that I have seen this happen with a mesh in Character Tool for  , the mesh has been fine in the actual game. Also, I don't believe that this occurs at all in  .

[Ouflah]

I tried it out-- you were right.

In game, the skin looked fine. The melee idle was the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but it only occurs in the character menu. So he may look like an idiot when you are picking your characters, but at least he's reflective in-game.
Thanks!


EDIT: Actually, upon closer inspection, he does use the odd melee idle in the game. I'll keep the file, but I don't think I'll use it. The character looks fine not-shiny.

[Cyber Burn]

Sorry, I just saw this, what mesh are you using that has the problem "Melee_Idle"? It may be able to be swapped out for another one.

I don't want to threadjack the "TnT" thread, so you could either PM me regarding this, or post in another thread.

You might want to PM Cyber or V. Cyber just helped V with some shiny bits on the Blue Falcon he did in my requests thread.

I'm sorry that I missed this comment, all credit goes straight to Hoss20 for the effects being added to the "Blue_Falcon" skope. He's been bailing me out left and right with this on a number of my skopes.

[Cyber Burn]

Does anyone happen to have the Gryphon's Skinning Tutorials with the pictures saved? I have 2 Skinning Tutorials by him, but neither one has the images saved.

Also, looking on the FR Wiki, there is a Skinning Tutorial for making capes, but it doesn't have the images to go with it. Would anyone happen to have that one as well?

Thank you in advance for any help I can get.

[Cyber Burn]

Adding to the Skinning Tutorial Pool, here is the link to the Skinning Tutorial by AndrewGD:

http://www.imaginationispower.com/images/game/tutorial/index.html

[Cyber Burn]

I wasn't sure if I should put this here of in the FX section, so if it needs to be moved, please do so.

Basically, I am looking for a Tutorial on how to create Particle Emitters, for both Skopes and FX. the ones that I've done from scratch are terrible, and the re-colors don't turn out the way I want them to.

Here's an FX from in-game:


Here's a re-colored FX:


And Here's an original (Yeas, I know it's horrible):


As I've said before, I'm not an artist, but I like trying to learn new things. I have both GIMP and Paint.Net. I don't really know all the tools, as I've pretty much just stuck to what I've needed, but I'd like to expand my knowledge base. Basically, the color scheme doesn't matter for right now, it's the technique that I would like to learn. If anyone has any advice, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

[Cyber Burn]

Hey guys, would anyone be willing to make a couple of Mini-Tutorials?

For the first one, I can't Skin the Mesh "Extras" (Belts, Weapons, Capes, Etc.) to save my life. Would anyone happen to have some "Tips and Tricks" that they would be willing to share?

And for the second, I would really like to learn how to make a decent Portrait for my original Skins. Currently, I just take a screen shot of the Character Tool and crop it to be the right size. It kind of leaves me with boring Portraits. I'd be very interested in learning how to make something a little more solid, maybe something more fitting of being in the Freedom Force Universe. Would anyone be willing to post some advice on the subject?

Thank you in advance to anyone who is able to help out.

[Tomato]

I don't really have time right this second to make tutorials, but I can run through some real quick things to help with portraits... For me, I always use simple circle gradients as the backdrop for the portrait (you can look at any of my skins to see what I mean) and then I'll take a large picture of the head (usually facing slightly to my left, but I've done the reverse for villains on occasion) and shrink it down to the appropriate size for the portrait. I'll then spend a bit of time adjusting the sharpness of it so that it pops against the background, and occasionally I've added a subtle shadow or glow as well.

As an example:

[Cyber Burn]

Thanks for replying 'Mato, Laughing paradox gave me a mini-tutorial for something else which I was able to apply to my Portraits, but I would still love some tips on Skinning the "Extras" of a Mesh.

As for my Portraits, here's a comparison of my old way versus my new way using LP's instructions:

         

But again, if anyone has advice on how to Skin Weapons, Capes, Belts, Etc., I would be a very eager Student. 

[Deaths Jester]

This is more for the artist's amongst us but I thought these two tutorials might help someone out some (both are on my 4shared page).

How to Paint Blonde Hair by Anne Pogoda

Painting faces by Nykolai Alexsande]

[Deaths Jester]

...because someone will sooner or latter want to see more tutorials posted here...or want to see my collection of tutorials or some such thing...

Painting Hair in Photoshop

Painting Hair

Low Polygon Hair Texturing by Ben Mathis

Note: I don't use any of these methods because I paint in Painter...

Painting Lips

Painting Armour - Metal by Daaken

Painting Armour - Leather by Daaken

There are more..but this should keep you blokes happy for a bit.

[Deaths Jester]

Following on the previous, here's some more stuff...

Drawing the Human Eye

Painting Fur - I don't use this method but some one here might find it useful

Okay, that's about it for now.  Doubtful if I post anymore for awhile, cause really..who's even looking at this stuff? Eh...

[daglob]

Me.

[Cyber Burn]

Me too!!! 

[Deaths Jester]

Okay....

[WyldFyre]

Me three!

[Deaths Jester]

Someone might find this useful...

How to Digitally Paint Hair by Serge Birault

You guys might also want to look around the Muddy Colours site, there are a few interesting things that might be translatable to FF.

[Cyber Burn]

Will definitely check this out, thanks for posting this DJ! 

[Deaths Jester]

Compilation of a few tutorials I've posted earlier...

here....

[eluvium]

I requested access