| Jedi Outcast Skinning for
Newbies By jp-30  Chapter One: Tools and Preparation What you need:
A copy of Jedi Outcast installed on your PC. If you don't have this game, go buy it at any half decent computer game dealer. Modview Get this in JK2 Editing Tools (4 MB), or you may be able to find modview 2.1 on its own if you search the web. An unzipping program We'll need Pakscape for packing up the skin at the end, so get this now and use it for the unzipping process too. Download (106k) or here Pakscape_new.zip. A good art / paint program (not needed this week). If you don't have one you can download a free trial of Jasc Paint Shop Pro here. Glossary Model or Mesh - a 3d representation of an object. In this case "model" refers to a 3d representation of a humanoid. These models are seen in game as your player character and as enemies.  Skin - images that are wrapped over a model to give it clothes, flesh, a face etc.  Skinning - the process of creating a skin for a model. Editing - customising a game. It can be making new models, skins, maps, animations, behaviours etc. Introduction Jedi Outcast uses a special archive called a pk3 file to hold all the game data. If you've downloaded any models, skins or levels you may already be familiar with the file type. The best way to get into skinning is to alter an existing skin. Once you get better at skinning you can make the skin files from scratch. It's wise to use a model that is supplied with the game, rather than skinning a model made by a member of the editing community. You don't need permission to edit one of the models / skins that come with Jedi Outcast. If you wish to alter someone elses work, it always pays to ask their permission (or check the readme file, as sometimes permission is given in there to all who wish to adapt the work). 1. Getting Started: Unpacking assets0.pk3 Unpacking the JO players. There are several ways to do this, and if you're familiar with unzipping there are probably easier ways to do the following. So long as you can get to step 2, feel free to do it any way you're comfortable with. OK, so lets take a look at the models and skins that are supplied in Jedi Outcast. Make a subdirectory off C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\ called models C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\models Launch your UNZIPPING program. I suggest using pakscape, as you'll need to be familiar with this program later when you complile your skin. Click "open" (in the file menu, or the open folder icon) Click through your directory structure until you get to this directory; C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\ Find the file assets0.pk3 double click "assets0.pk3" You should see something like this; It's all the folders that are packed inside "assets0.pk3"  We need to extract some of them. In the left window, single click the "models" directory The contents of the "models" directory will open up in the right window. Right click on the "players" directory in the right window. A menu will pop up. Put your mouse over "object" and from the submenu select "export"  A "browse for folder" box will appear. Click through to C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\models click OK. Your hard drive while whirr away for a while as several hundred files are exported from the pk3 archive into your \models\ directory. You can now close up PakScape. You won't need it again until your skin is finished. 2. Examining the models Now we can have a good look at all the models we just extracted using the modview utility. Hint: make a desktop shortcut to C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\models\players\  3. Modview Locate where you installed Modview and launch it. Click "open". It will probably default to your "my documents" directory. Click the "up one directory icon".  You should now be at the desktop. Find the "players" shortcut. Double click it to take you straight to the directory you just extracted from the assets0.pk3 archive. You will now see all the names of the in game characters.  _humanoidThese are all the characters, npc's (non-player characters) and enemies for the game. For the purposes of skinning, we need only concern ourselves with the humanoid models (but feel free to use Modview to examine the others if you like); Models fit for reskinning to create a customised MP character; bespin_cop 4. Decide what you intend to create A very important step this. There's not much point in aimlessly mucking around with a skin oping that you'll miraculously end up with some amazing new skin. You need some sort of idea to begin with. The best idea is to examine all the models so you understand what the limits are. There's no point wanting to make a female skin with long hair and a skirt, when there are no models with that shape. As I've said before, you can also reskin others custom models, but check the readme to see if permission is automatically granted. If not, drop the creator an email and ask if you can reskin the model. In my experience, they don't often bother to write back. Of course there's nothing stopping you from reskinning the custom model and just keeping it for your own (and your friends) use. Just don't submit it for public download to one of the many Jedi Knight editing sites (massassi, jediknightii.net, jk2files) For our first attempt at skinning we'll choose a pretty "standard" model. I'm going to model the skin on the guy from the early Knights of the Old Republic screenshots, as he looks pretty simple and is a good place as any to start. Gather up some good images of your intended character from books, cards or the internet.   Now we need to find a suitable model. So in modview, let's take a look at the male characters who have a similar shape to the KOTOR guy; Click on open - directory up from "my documents" to "desktop". Double click on "players". Double click on "bespin_cop". One file will appear in the box "model.glm". Double click on it to open the model in modview. It may take a little while to load. Here are my quick notes on each potential skin we could use to make our KOTOR guy; bespin_cop - no good, wearing a hat. No-one has a holster except Lando and Kyle. We can rule Lando out due to the hair. Kyle has a beard that can't be turned off but does have a good holster. The prisoner doesn't have a holster, but it does have a beard that can be removed. Weighing up all the options, including the fact that the prisoner's clothes are already similar to what we're wanting to create we will choose to continue skinning the Prisoner model. 5. Familiarising yourself with Modview Open the prisoner in modview.  Play around with the program to familiarise yourself with it. Here are some things to try; Adjusting the view. Click in the model window. Hold down your mouse left-button and move the mouse. The model will rotate. Hold the right-mouse button. Move the mouse up and down to zoom in and out. Hold down your "ALT" button and move the mouse to move the model's position. Highlighting body parts. In the left window expand "model.glm" by clicking the [+"> to the left of it. A subdirectory will open up; SurfacesWe can ignore Tag Surfaces and Bones, as they don't come into play when it comes to skinning. Expand "Surfaces" Expand "//////// stupidtriangle" Expand "hips" Expand everything that can be expanded (torso, l_leg, r_leg, r_arm, l_arm, r_hand, l_hand, head, ////////head_off, l_leg, r_leg) Single click on "hips" - the hips area of the model will highlight.  Use your down arrow on your keyboard to cycle through the various body parts. Some highlight like the hips, and some (that are marked with an *) just give a set of axes. You can ignore the ones marked with an *. You can turn parts of the model on or off. For example if altering Jan, as you can turn off her goggles, chaps, belt and pockets. Anything with "////////" before the name is presently turned off. You can turn off all body parts, but there's no point if it leaves a hole in the model. Have a play. Right-click "hips_torso" (near the top). In the popup menu click "Set Staus: OFF". Then click on "torso_l_shoulder". Notice the belt is now gone, and there's a gap in the model. Some models will allow you to turn off the belt, and there will still be torso underneath. This model is no good for that. Luckily our KOTOR guy has a belt anyway. Turn the belt back on by right clicking "hips_torso" again. In the popup menu click "Set Staus: ON". Try the above again for r_hand_wrist or l_hand wrist. Notice that when you turn the sleeve wrist off, there's still arm underneath. There is a slight gap beween the end of the flesh and the start of the sleeve unfortunately, but it illustrates how certain mesh parts can be put over other parts. So, our guy has a beard, but the pictures we're working from do not. This Prisoner model has two different faces we can choose from by turning on and off a couple of surfaces. Scroll down to the "head" parts; Turn off "head_face"  Turn off "head_face_mouth" Turn on "////////head_face_off" Turn on "////////head_face_mouth_off" The prisoner should now look like this;  Play with other models and turn surfaces on or off. Good things to turn off are belts, pockets, holsters, collars etc. Close up the surfaces by going back to the top and clicking on the [-"> by "Surfaces" 6. View the Teams Skins Expand "Skins Available" Double click on "blue". Look at the team colours. Try again for "red". When you've had a look, put it back to "default".  Close up the alternate skins by clicking on the [-"> by "Skins available" 7. View the Animations Expand "Sequences (From animation.cfg)" Hundreds of animation sequences will drop down. Double click on any of them.  The model will move to frame one of that sequence. Click on the "video player" type buttons at the top menubar to view the animation, rewind it, speed it up, slow it down etc. Double click other sequence names to view them. 8. View other bits and bobs Click on "view" in the top menu. Turn various things on and off to see variations in the model window. eg. click on "...as wireframe" to see the mesh without the skin. click on LOD 1, LOD 2, LOD 3 to see the 3 "levels of Details". Play around. It's the best way to familiarise yourself with the program. 9. Summary OK, so we've extracted files from assetts0.pk3, and looked at several models using modview. We've turned surfaces on and off, looked at team colour variations and examined some animation sequences. Next time we'll start actually altering the prisoner model and repainting / recolouring the images that make up the skin. To discuss anything in this tutorial, or to seek further clarification of any points within (or to get a sneak preview of the next chapter), please visit the thread; http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=8874551 jp-30 ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== |
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