Reskinning PCs

Hi,

I have decided to set up a short guide for creating a new skin for your characters. Instead of writing something here, I have made a downloadable ZIP archive including a textfile and all the skins and inventory icons for every clan and gender within the correct directory structure. So you don't have to search the archives to get the files.
Just download, unzip the archive somewhere, and get started.

Here's the download link:
http://www.filefront.com/17860891/skinguide.zip

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I was wondering if there was any way to get skins into 3ds max. I managed to unpack a lot of skeletal/animation files for 3ds max from VTMB but I am having trouble finding/using skins while in 3ds max. Any suggestions?
In the mean time I figured out how to change idle animations..... progress
except I have no idea how to pack them up again

I don't even know what 3ds max is...
But it sounds as if it is a tool for for the models, not for the skins. Afaik, the only model-tool that can get the model files back in a format, recognizable for bloodlines is Blender.

For skin editing, you have to extract the ttz files to tga, using the VPK Tools (texture tools part). Then photochop them, and save them in dds format. After that you can pack them back to ttz with VPK Tools. But you must have a valid .tth file by the same name in the directory.

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Thank you very much I can now mess with the skins too but the model tool makes my day. Mostly I am trying to mess with the models and their animations... Which will hopefully lead to editing cut-scenes. Is it possible to create completely new characters by changing the models so people don't have to reuse them. For example Protean 'shape the beast' would actually be possible since I hope to make a wolf or other model which can then be used. That is what I am spending most of the day doing, 'learning' 3ds max.

Sorry, can't help you with model tools in any way.
For the cutscenes, they are usually scripted animations, and camera frame descriptions on the maps. There is a whole file, containing nothing but "interesting places" animations in the archives. Interesting place animations is what makes most of the npc actions. There are things like dancing, different idle stances, smoking, drinking, playing cards...

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Childe of Malkav wrote:

Sorry, can't help you with model tools in any way.
For the cutscenes, they are usually scripted animations, and camera frame descriptions on the maps. There is a whole file, containing nothing but "interesting places" animations in the archives. Interesting place animations is what makes most of the npc actions. There are things like dancing, different idle stances, smoking, drinking, playing cards...

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By model tools I meant the ability to repack the models all the skill in the world woudn't help if they couldn't be repackaged.
didn't know about the interesting places, the PC also has special idle animations that are in the materials/models folder.

Thanks for this, I managed to use this guide and make my fav chr, Jeanette as my vampire with red hair and butt naked under her dress, took me awhile to figure out but the guild works great thanks for posting it

ShadowTek wrote:

... I managed to use this guide and make my fav chr, Jeanette as my vampire with red hair and butt naked under her dress...

Well ain't that cute?But it's WRONG!

Later Edit:

Claudia wrote:

Using a game to see naked asses is wrong

Also I used a quote from a cartoon "Two stupid dogs" been watching a lot when I was young on CN.

I haven't looked at the guide yet but what's wrong with it UncleCruncle?

Using a game to see naked asses is wrong

lol, yeah well.. Ive been having fun re-skinning allot, Ive been playing around re-skinning the roads and stuff. Im getting better at it, Im surprised nobody has build a hi-res mod re-skinning everything like in oblivion, looks allot easier to do in bloodlines as well once you figure it out.

I agree Shadowtek... someone REALLY needs to replace all the roads, walls, windows, etc... textures with high resolution variations. That would seriously breathe some new life into the game as well as some awesome eye candy.

Honestly it wouldn't be that hard to do once you know how to skin and use photoshop. I personally think it would be super fun to do but of course since I'm the author of TFN I have to support it with bug fixes and add more PC skins, so I'm kind've busy.

If you would like to begin working on some high quality reskins of the environments and they fit well into TFN, I'd love to include them. Interested?

I could try, how high in resolution should we go?

ShadowTek wrote:

I could try, how high in resolution should we go?

Double should work nicely. If it's 512, make it 1024, if it's 1024 then try 2048. Render it in game and see how it looks and if it looks really good and blows your hair back, then keep it. If you can't really notice a difference then double it again.

Ok, many seem to be 768 so I'll try 1536 first and see how they look..

ShadowTek wrote:

Ok, many seem to be 768 so I'll try 1536 first and see how they look..

That, most likely, isn't going to work. Most of the textures should be in sizes divisible by 2, ex 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, etc. Some of them might be say, 1024x512, but that would size up to 2048x1024 when re-sized.

Maxus Corvin wrote:

ShadowTek wrote:

Ok, many seem to be 768 so I'll try 1536 first and see how they look..

That, most likely, isn't going to work. Most of the textures should be in sizes divisible by 2, ex 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, etc. Some of them might be say, 1024x512, but that would size up to 2048x1024 when re-sized.

Maxus is right. Are you opening up the .tga files in photoshop? When viewing the file size they should be from 128 - 2048, divisible by 2. I've never seen a texture at 768 or 1536 before.

Hi, Yes I found that out lol, Ive been adjusting as I go, I think most textures would look better at 1024x1024 as many are 768 or 512, but we could go as high as 2048 but we don't wanna have halve the people not be able to run them.. but I'm taking it as I go, the hard part is getting to the area in game so I can see what the new textures look like, note in some cases, things will look allot different... but hopefully better.. I'm using free online textures (free for puplic use so theres no copyright issues) I find on the net, I'm only using huge ones then cutting/resizing down to what looks good, as increasing the size of a texture is never a good idea, better to find a good replacement or make a new one and then shrink it down, textures look allot better that way, I'm working on the streets at the moment.

You know as you guys hopefully know I'm a real person of no ill will as I'm a fan of you guys, if you turn on my ability to post links, I can post some images of things I'm making to see if you like them, so I can see if I'm on the right track...

All of that sounds good Shadow... one hint I would do is unpack all of the textures of the game into a folder so you don't have to hunt them down one at a time. It may help speed the process up.

I'm not sure how to turn on posting, I think it's determined by how many posts you make and I'm thinking you need 25 or more. I'll look around.

Ok, One question, with a normal install of the game I see many ttz files in the materials folder, but I have a feeling some may be packed somewhere else? If so can you tell me where/how to get to them, as that would make things allot easier to see all non-pc/npc textures (I'll leave that to you experts lol) as I'll just focus on the actual game world textures..

Ok, lets see if I can do this... here is a link to a rar file that has some tga street images I made, now I know that the street looks new, but it could be cool to add to one area for a different feel, also, if you like the old looking roads, Ive figured out how to make high res verstions of them, but it takes time, as like these I have to make them myself.. anyway let me know what you think..

filesonic.com/file/3941248274/streets.zip

add the www stuff

PS.. Its ok if you dont like them, I could simply make hi-res versions of the existing images..

Hi res reskins for the roads and walls and whatnot sounds good. But don't let the size of the mod get out of hands. I wouldn't want to have another 500 Megs of environment skins.
Or do it as an add on, like the reskin paks form Gothic Legionair, and the others you can get on PV.

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Ok will do, Also I figured out how to extract everything

Is it okay to post questions and ask for help here? I've been tearing my hair out over Heather Poe for a couple days now.

I managed to rename her 3rd ("sexy") model so that her normal and "goth" models would all be the same. I figured it would make more options available because there are several really nice VV skins that would suit her, but while the model(s) are fine, the textures are still being redirected to VV's normal textures. As in, literally: npc/unique/downtown/vv

I corrected the .vmt files and it still happens. I converted one skin to tga and viewed it in PS and it's the same as the one I chose and renamed in the first place. I have no idea why it keeps redirecting to VV.

I really hoped that matching her skin tone would be the biggest problem. .___.