Skinning Tutorial (Special FX): Transperency/Holes and Glowing, and the cool thingy
by: jackmix69
Special Effects can take your skinning up to the next level! Read through and you will find out how to add 3 really neat effects, How to add Transperency/Holes and how to make your creature glow. Yes, you can do red eyes, and yes you can make a "ghost" creature. This is a very user-friendly tutorial and will walk you through the effects with ease! Happy skinning, and read on! Lets start with Transperency....
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Transperency
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What you need: A freeware (no trial) program called GIMP, google GIMP download or something to find a link for it. Also, a DDS Plugin for GIMP you need Unstuff It or preferably DeStuff It!
Link to download gimp and destuff:
http://www.1morerun.net/1MoreRun/Tools.html
Use DeStuff It to extract the data-everything and it puts files in a folder called Data-Everything
Step One: Now, for transperency, open a file we are going to use....go to your Data-Everything folder\ctr\bwolf and open our soon to be ghost creature, open t_wolf_base_d with GIMP.
Step Two: When it's done loading, select the eraser tool and you will see a slider that says Opacity. For a ghost, set that to 65% for example. Select the biggest circle brush and cover the entire thing and you will notice these weird checkers. Dont worry about those, that is the background image and can be ignored.
PS: (be sure to do it all in one go, keep the mouse button down the whole time until it is completly covered, otherwise it will overlap!)
Step Three: When you have covered the whole thing entirly go to file and hit SAVE AS NOT SAVE!
Step Four: When it comes up, set compression to DXT5 and save it on the desktop. If something pops up ignore it, just hit ok. Then quit when it's done saving, and you will see your ghost skin on the desktop called t_wolf_base_d.
Step Five: Go to your game directory\data\ctr\bwolf and place your t_wolf_base_d from your desktop and cut\paste into that folder, or just copy and paste it and delete the one on the desktop. Next time you go in game, It is now a ghost! The Neutral wolf should be a ghost if you did it right.
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NEAT FEATURE
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Now, the really cool thing about Transperency is you can literally make holes in your creature! Set the opacity to 100% for this effect. Great for zombies. Keep in mind that bw2's skins are mirrored, so for a hole in the stomach make a half circle in the belly, but you must put that on the back as well! If you edit a t_strand file with 100% opacity you can make no fur!
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Now, I am going to talk about glowing. It is highly recommended that you do transperency first if you are new to skinning. If not, then just read along then....
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Glowing (thanks DUTTA)
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Glowing is a hard skill to learn if you are new at skinning. But I will teach you nonetheless.
Okay, the way I do it is with Photoshop CS 8.0 but will work with anything.
For a creature to glow, for example
Edit the t_(creaturename)_(alignment)_s by adding whatever you would like to glow. If you want his chest to glow white with a circle on it, open that file and add a half of a white circle on the center of his chest. Then edit the t_(creaturename)_(alignment)_d and put a white 1\2 circle at the very same space
(the _b-file determines how much that area should glow, this file only reads how white or black that area is. More white means more glow, more black means less glow).
Install the Skin, and go in game when you do that he should glow
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Cool thingy (it's good for making "unnatural" creatures, like golems or elementals)
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Now, Im gonna talk about taking an image (i.e. grass) and applying it to a creature with stripes still intact. You will need along with GIMP....(thanks to you 1morerun for teaching this to me)
a 512x512 texture (can be .bmp .jpg .dds .png etc.)
and copy and paste this link into internet explorer
http://www.1morerun.net/1MoreRun/CreatureOverlay.zip (Thanks 1morerun)
Download that, and extract it somewhere
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Now, open up your 512x512 texture
Select Open Image as Layer under File
Select a t_(creaturename)_trans and it will plop the teeth\stripes\whatever on the thing
Go to Image, flatten image, then go to Layers Transperency Add Alpha Channel
Hit save as, Select compression DXT5, and save as .dds, then install the skin
Have fun :-)
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Recommended Skinners (If you have any questions, ask these people)
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If you have furthur questions, ask the following people via PM at the bw2 forums or me at kays forums (also at bw2 forums)
jackmix69: That's me, I would be happy to answer any questions, just ask. Ask about anything. But keep modding questions down to a minimum, im pretty rusty....
1MoreRun: A friendly person who would be happy to help, ask a question and he will get back to you. Ask about anything.
BlueScreen_OfDeath: He would also be happy to help. Ask about anything, he specialises in Loading Screens\Startup Logos, and has completed his first skin, with plenty more old ones being revamped and will be released.
![Evil [Evil]](/Emoticons/evil.gif)
Lion911: Yet another person who would be glad to help, he has made many skins, and has some neat ones out. Ask about anything.
FireTigeris: She would be glad to answer any creature skinning questions. She is a very good skinner with some neat ideas.
The_Mystic_Man: He just got into skinning, so if you have any simple skinning questions ask him. I see some serious talent in him. His cat pack at kayssplace.com is pretty good :-)
DUTTA: He adds glows to skins, ask him about glowing if you have furthur questions about glowing.
Also, be sure to visit
kayssplace.com or
bw2files.com for some skins! I hope this tutorial proves useful to you! If u have questions about this PM me.