Creating Vengeance Art Q&A

Just a small petetion for all the players skins/models to be released. Having a model and a hard copy of the normal map really helps so you can edit out areas you changed by hand if needed.

The art guide was very nice btw thanks!

Create a custom Character Skin.

[...]
-Go to the Class browser and find "gameplay.skininfo", right-click it and
[...]


I can find "gameplay" but not "skininfo" anywhere in the browser.
I can find skininfo.uc in the source folder but can only open pkg.

Could it be because i have the MP demo?

In the class browser there is a little button that will expand the gameplay .pkg file. Click the butto and you should be able to find the skininfo.


I can find "gameplay" but not "skininfo" anywhere in the browser.
I can find skininfo.uc in the source folder but can only open pkg.

Could it be because i have the MP demo?

In the class browser there is a little button that will expand the gameplay .pkg file. Click the butto and you should be able to find the skininfo.

Yes I just pressed the "show unplaceble" button and there it is :P
I didn't thought I had to press it.

hehe me neither. It took me quite a while to figure it out =/ I wish the tutorial was a little more detailed.

Strez did you check out if the weapon skins/icons will pass CRC? If they don't this should be fixed soon.

I followed the steps to put skins in a pkg and see them in game, but that doesn't work.
Also my skinpak is about 3 megs big, and I see that the other skinpacks are about 1kb.
I have made a custom phoenix light body skin so I put all phoenix light skins into my custom pack, that's probably wrong I guess.

Some further questions:

Which files must contain the custom skin pack (content/skins and content/art?)?

I have read something about 2 packs, so one in content/skins and add your skin to the content/art/lightarmor.pkg

Could it be because i have the MP demo?

Yes.

Unfortunatly not, that format is created in the editor, cannot be exported or edited once created.

we import the normal maps as TGAs and then compress them to DXT5N

Is there any change for a Dev release of the all the normal maps? Without them it basically means that if we try to make a skin, we either have it look really funny (using the default norm maps in the game), or totally flat (no normal maps). I know there's a pack with a few of them, but it would be nice to be able to have all of them.

I guess that's VU's decision, though isn't it?

It'd also be nice to get the normal maps for the first person arms too.

I can find "gameplay" but not "skininfo" anywhere in the browser.
I can find skininfo.uc in the source folder but can only open pkg.

Could it be because i have the MP demo?

make sure the second circle icon at the top of the class browser is pressed, this allows "unplacable" classes to be viewed in the list

I followed the steps to put skins in a pkg and see them in game, but that doesn't work.
Also my skinpak is about 3 megs big, and I see that the other skinpacks are about 1kb.
I have made a custom phoenix light body skin so I put all phoenix light skins into my custom pack, that's probably wrong I guess.

Some further questions:

Which files must contain the custom skin pack (content/skins and content/art?)?

I have read something about 2 packs, so one in content/skins and add your skin to the content/art/lightarmor.pkg


the other skin packages are small because they only contain the skin class and no art, that art is all in the LightArmour.pkg

yours 3 megs sounds about right for a skin , Normal map and shader. Did you remmeber to compress the Normal Map to DXT5N? this make a big memory usage difference

Is there any change for a Dev release of the all the normal maps? Without them it basically means that if we try to make a skin, we either have it look really funny (using the default norm maps in the game), or totally flat (no normal maps). I know there's a pack with a few of them, but it would be nice to be able to have all of them.

I guess that's VU's decision, though isn't it?

It'd also be nice to get the normal maps for the first person arms too.

I'm looking into this for you guys..

I'm looking into this for you guys..

:D

On a side note, a stupid workaround for now is that you can do a print screen inside the editor on normal maps that are 512x512, then stick it in Photoshop. I managed to get a normal map in tga for the Pheonix FP Hands shader going so I could give one reflections (I guess UE2.0 doesn't let you use DXT5N for Cube Maps). And if you have one of those huge-assed screens that runs your desktop in 1600x1200, you can take a shot of a 1024x1024 body texture.

Also, looking around, I don't think this is possible in the Unreal Engine, but is it possible to make a Cube Map that will work like a mirror?

The way that Cube Maps work in UE2.0, as I understand it, is that each side of the cube is assigned to an actual texture, and can't change dynamically. The way you do cube maps generically for a player model or weapon, is to just assign each side of the cube to a generic texture (FX.ChromeSoftRef for example). Is this correct?

the other skin packages are small because they only contain the skin class and no art, that art is all in the LightArmour.pkg

yours 3 megs sounds about right for a skin , Normal map and shader. Did you remmeber to compress the Normal Map to DXT5N? this make a big memory usage difference

It still doesn't show in game, although when I choose another skin I see that the headskin is different than standard, and I havn't downloaded a headskin.
It seems that that's my body skin.

Here's what I have now:

- My skin name is "lightarmor_custom1.pkg"
- It's located in content/skins.
- It contains: body texture,normal,shader,lum , and the same for head.
- I saved the class as the same name in same directory as my pack that contains the skin (lightarmor_custom1.pkg)
- The class (lightarmor_custom1.light armor_custom1) contains "SkeletalMesh'LightArmour. PhoenixLight'" @ ApplicableMesh

I'm looking into this for you guys..

Not to one-up you... but Nvidia has tools for making bumpmaps. I can't link while at work, but it's in the title of the #skinning channel. I can vouch for it's functionability.

I'm looking into this for you guys..

is a full SDK pack for all player(+ julia) and weapon max files and wireframe maps possible? :)

Quick question can hud elements be aligned to their containers? If so how.

I just downloaded the 3d studio max 7 trial. How do you make it so the skin displays properly in 3d studio max, with the skin on it and all?
.

I have another question. The reticles seem to be controlled in the weapons.ini file in program/bin, but the file isn't there by default. Is there some way we can tell what .ini files we can make that will be supported by the engine for mods like the reticles being changed, and if so where would we look?

It seems to me we should be able to change the weapon icons in the hud through a similar ini file like that or some setting that isn't default in the tribesHUD.ini but if we knew what it was we could change it. The weapon icons aren't located in the weapons.pkg they're located in the HUDS.pkg which one would assume we could change. Along with the friend/foe IFF's of which I'd love to be able to change as well.

Is it possible to get an answer on this?

I have one: Will a gmax exporter pack ever be released? And: Will Maya:PLE work with T:V?