| Skinning Q&A | |
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Sared - Retired  |
This thread is for all of you that know the basics, but need some help with some of the details. Post your questions here and either one of the other skinners (*cough, cough*) or myself will do our best to answer them! _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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Are the current tutorials concise and helpful?
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| Comments |
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Ruuk Haviser - Retired 
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This is gonna be a document that people link to thru the table of contents frame at the left hand side of yer screen. We're just using these threads to essentially manage the process and ask questions. The actual writing of the Holocron text is being done off-line. Each section is then shipped off to our primary editors, underhill (and now) Niten. After primary editing and formatting into the "Holocron format," (same paragraph layout, styles [MS Word-like styles], text case, underlining, etc.) the text then goes out to the others on the Holocron staff for secondary editing. After this is complete, then it gets send off to the "experts" for a final no/go call. We then put 'em all together, DJ does his magic, and *poof*... a Holocron! Hope this helps explain things.  -rh _______________ Back from the dead... |
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Sared - Retired 
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Holocron format?  _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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Ruuk Haviser - Retired
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Cewl, Sared. Just an FYI: you don't need to post this info on the threads just yet. Write them up in a text file first, and then send it off to underhill. He'll edit the thing and put it in the Holocron format, then ship it out for secondary editing by everyone on the Holocron staff.  Thanks for the help and the info! -rh _______________ Back from the dead... |
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Sared - Retired
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Okay, I have been putting this off for a while (yes, I AM a lazy SOB) so here it is, my first editing submission for the Holocron! Basic Skinning Knowledge 101 (In the biginning, there was a newbie...)  This will cover the absolout basics on the file types, associations, programs needed, and basic technique. (Not nessaceraly in that order). To start skinning (for any Q3 based game), you will need a basic set of tools. First off, a program that can manipulate and save JPEGs. Now before I go on, let me make a note on this; sometimes the author of the skin will save one or many of the images as .TGA (Targa) file. In some cases (such as the skin that goes on the Mara Jade model which uses one single .tga for the entire skin) this may be best, but in other cases, it is much more size-efficent to convert these to a jpeg. This can be done if you have either an image conversion program, a demo can be found at: http://www.flydragonsoft.com/software/gc2003.exe If you have a program such as Adobe Photoshop 7 or Corel Draw 9 then this should be a simple process. Enough ranting . Now, to actually access the .pk3 (hereafter refered to as a 'package file') you can use one of two programs. Winzip (a fairly recent version) the demo of which can be downloaded here: http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm or you can get a very useful (and free) program called Pakscape (which I prefer) which you can download here: http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?maldavria/pakscape/pakscape-011.zip Now, we are going to take a popular skin from jk2files and mess with it. Go to http://www.jk2files.com/file.info?ID=2505 and download the skin of Darth Maul. Yes, I know it may be sappy but it is a very simple and uncomplex skin to start with. Now here comes the big difference between pakscape and winzip when it comes to viewing package files; with winzip, you will view all the files in the package without a clear feeling of what file is in whitch folder. With Pakscape you will view four folders, (to view these if you only have winzip, unzip them all to a folder of your choice and make sure to keep them in thier subdirectories). You should see the folders: botfiles, models, scripts, sound; extract all these to a folder of your choosing. for right now, the only folder you should concern yourself with is the models folder. open the folder and go to the players/Maul_deluxe folder and you will see a group of files, for right now, only concern yourself with the JPEGs. Lets start by opening maul_torso.jpg. You will see a big black area around each portion of the skin, this I will refer to as the 'void'. Simply put, the void is the section of the JPEG that the model will not display. Some iimages have voids, others might not, but always remember that any wor you wish to be shown should be kept inside the void. The next step can be as simple or as complicated as you wish it to be. You can do something simple like draw your name on the torso, or do something like recoloring each and every tatoo. When you get better at graphic design then you can even design a whole new torso for the skin. Make what changes you wish, and save the image as a JPEG with the same name. Do this will as many of the images you want. In the end, edit the icon_default.jpg and make any changes you see fit. Now open up the folder that you extracted the images too and that you saved the images too. Boot up Pakscape and selecr File, then New. A box should pop up, drag the four folders containing your work into this box and select save. Now all you have to do is drop the package into your base folder and boot up the game with your skin. Well people, that about it for now. I am tired so I am wrapping this up as quickly as possible. Make any suggestions and this will be refined to become an even better tutorial!  _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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SirBizNatch - Student 
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yea, good thing theres none of those impeding death if you dont model situations. _______________ Personal body guard to teh 1337 Jacen Aratan! Midbie Council Memeber||Member of the Almighty FiZZsters |
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Sared - Retired
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Aww hell, I couldnt model to save my life... _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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SirBizNatch - Student
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thanx sared, and a sound tutorial would be great. im tryin ta start workin on SBN the skin(or jus a pirate skin).
if anyone knew where i could find a tutorial on modeling that'd be great too. _______________ Personal body guard to teh 1337 Jacen Aratan! Midbie Council Memeber||Member of the Almighty FiZZsters |
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Sared - Retired
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Note: everything I am going to say will require pakscape. Search for it at jk2files.com.
SirBizNatch: First, create the sound. Wav recorder, whatever you have. Then convert it to an mp3 format. Now, using pakscape, crack open your assets1.pk3 and open the sound/chars folder and find the skin you want to add sounds to, from there go to the (modelnamehere)/misc folder. Here you will find all the pain, death, taunt, jump, roll sounds that you want. Take your custom sound and find the name you want to replace and name it that (pain75, taunt3 ect.) Now create a a couple folder-within-a-folders. make a sound/chars/nameofmodel/misc folder and place your mp3 there. Now take pakscape and create a new pk3 and drop the whole load in there. save it as a .pk3 (name doesnt matter) and drop it in your base folder. All this is kinda off the top of my head. If anyone want me to then I can write a more detailed tutorial about adding custom sounds. (with pictures too! )
Vaughn: I am afraid I dont know a lot about modeling, I can tell you that if you hunt around the milkshape site you can find GLM exporters and the such. Cant really do more than that for ya, sorry man.  _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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Vaughn - Student 
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ok, How do you export into GLM files in Milkshape or GMAX? Im trying to make a model, but when i edit or create one, i cant get it into the proper format for JK2. HOW??? _______________ When you become an actor, you become the person, and you dont act anymore. You just are. - Tyler HP, Taught by Mr G Simpson |
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SirBizNatch - Student 
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how do you add sounds then sared? like taunts and pain sounds? _______________ Personal body guard to teh 1337 Jacen Aratan! Midbie Council Memeber||Member of the Almighty FiZZsters |
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Sared - Retired 
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Crap, Aeth beat me to it... I can write up 1 or two basic tutorials. _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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Aeth S'kray - Retired 
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fizz: rename your model.pk3 to a model.zip or use packscape to open the pk3. then just search for sound/misc/taunt or something. in case you didnt know: pk3s are not much more than zips. you just put certain files into cetain locations (make sure the path stays the same). oh, and rename it to model.pk3 of course after your done.
klingt kompliziert? froag mich einfach noch e mol. _______________ Aeth S'kray *June 2002 +September 2003 |
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Cyb - Student 
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U going to write a skinning tutorial? I'd say u then first search for the tutorials there are allready coz there are some good ones out here and it would save u a lot of time as a skinning toturial would be quite big I'd say... _______________ ~~ Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none! ~~ |
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Ruuk Haviser - Retired 
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Jake's right...we weren't gonna worry about this at the present moment, but hey - if you want to jump on this thing, go for it!
-rh _______________ Back from the dead... This comment was edited by Ruuk Haviser on Apr 08 2003 02:46pm. |
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Jake Kainite - Student 
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Skinning, mapping, editing, all that kinda stuff wasn't gonna be in there to start with (I don't think) as 1/ No one had the skills, or enough skills to describe it 2/ It would take time away from doing the more essential sections.
If we've got someone from the outside doing it though, like in the background then I can't see that being a prob. Write up some basic tutorials for us then we'll let you know what we think. _______________ Apprenctice of Jedi Master Ascari (deceased) Descended from a line of great Jedi Will argue any point of view from any side
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Fizz of Belouve - Student 
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I want to get rid of some taunts of certain models. how do I do that ? _______________ One of the Belouve boys, founder of the mighty FiZZsters Midbie council #20 - Fizz - #1933 - Jan '03 - Aug '04 "Renfield, you idiot!" |
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Sared - Retired
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D@mmit! Is everyone here an expert in skinning or something? In any case, since nobody is claiming anything in this area then I declare myself head of the Skinning department of the Holocron! _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. This comment was edited by Sared on Apr 08 2003 05:49am. |
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Ruuk Haviser - Retired
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Good idea. Thanks for posting this.
-rh _______________ Back from the dead... |
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