This tutorial is suitable for :
Beginners
What you need:
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Basic knowledge : Shadermaps and art software
Some Art/imageediting software
Fragmotion
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Hey guys!
I somehow got myself into the situation where I promised to write another tutorial. Why did I do this??
Okay, here we go:
This tutorial will teach you how to make Modelpack 6 and 28 weapons shader ready. I've seen some of you use MP28 weapons with shaders regardless of the fact that it puts the weapontexture on the hands.
If you did this and didn't notice it, stop making games immediately!
The rest of you, enjoy:
Alright, so pay attention and hurry up! Go to the folder of the weapon you want to make ready. (its in your gamecore/guns folder in case you didn't know.) Export the gun, ammo (if present) and hand texture to your desktop. Make sure to save them in a format you can work with (like png or tga). If you dont have anything to convert a dds file with, download Irfan View! Hurry up!
Now open your artprogram. That is your gimp, paintshop, paint.net or photoshop. Make a new picture with the dimensions of 2048*1024. Import all the nice textures you just saved on your desktop and place them in the new picture you just created. Your result should look like this:
As you can see, I chose the MP6 Sporting 12 for this tutorial.
Save this file and make a normal and specular map of it. How you do this is not part of this tutorial, because it has been covered numerous times before and information about it can be found all over the internet. We are moving on:
Now
copy (you dont cut and paste) the HUD.x from your chosen guns folder and save it on your desktop. You open it with fragmotion.
Now, unless you are experienced with this software, you dont do anything but the things I tell you. You can screw up an animated model really fast in 3D software like this! Dont play around with the vertices or bones. Especially not if you dont know what these are.
There should be a menue on your right where you will select "Model". (the small red-outlined square)
Scroll down to materials. Delete them all (this isnt necessary as you could replace the texture in the materials but we will do it for convenience here.)
Hurry up!
Now you click on texture and delete everything here too. Now right click, new, texture.
Import the texture you just made here. Now rightclick on the texture and chose "create material using texture".
Now you direct your mousecursor to the upper left corner and select "edit, select all, all". Everything in your 3D preview windows should appear in a red color. Click on Model and select our newly created material. Rightclick and "assign to selection". Fast!
Good job!
Now you will chose the "select group" option in your tools menue. Thats also on the right side of your screen. Select the arms, the gun or whatever part of the gun you want to edit first.
Hurry up!
Click on "texture" at the upper left corner. Select "UV Mapper".
This will open a simple and convenient UV Mapper.
Keep in mind that once you screwed up your UVs, it can be a real pain in the backside to get them back to how they where. Dont mess around here,greenhorn.
On the bottom of the screen should be a dropdown menue where you can select the texture you want to work on.
Do it.
Now you probably already guessed what you will do. You will align your UV with the texture. This does not need to be pixel-perfect but should be done carefully! You can always check the 3D preview in fragmotion if you have done everything right. Once you are done with first group make sure to
deselect your selection in the UVMapper (click on an empty space. Make sure nothing is highlighted red) before you select a new group in your 3D preview. Repeat the process until all the UVs are done.
Your result should look like this:
You shouldnt need more than 10 to 15 minutes for this, greenhorn! Hurry up!
You can now export your gun as a .x file (the .dbo exporter never really worked for me). Make a security copy of the old HUD and replace it. Remove the old textures in your guns folder (to a security copy folder) and copy in the new ones. You can convert them to .dds files but you dont have to.
Set the new textures up in your gunspec file. (you can open it with notepad)
Not all shaders need you to note in the shader files aswell. This is often enough:
"textured = gun_d2.dds
effect = effectbank\weapon2.fx"
If you have trouble, not the other shadertextures:
"textured = gun_D.dds
texturen = gun_N.dds
textures = gun_S.dds
effect = effectbank\weapon.fx"
Replace .dds with your fileformat if you didnt convert to .dds.
Alright! Now test your gun!
Enjoy the funky and shiny shadorz
Good job, Greenhorn!
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