| Chapter 4
Getting the skin in-game. Taking screenshots. Making icons. In this chapter we will need; A text editor (notepad, wordpad, word etc) Important: If you've never installed one of the JO patches, and bought the game quite soon after release, the game won't recognise our .surf files and so surfaces we want to turn off or on won't change. Just get 1.04 (all of 1.03 is included in 1.04). This chapter 1. Getting the skin in-game. 1. Getting the skin in-game. .surf files The first thing we need to do is write our .surf files. They do the same thing as the .mvs files we used in modview to tell it what surfaces to hide and which ones to show. Jedi Outcast doesn't use modview's .mvs files, so we need to make files that do work. Open your model.mvs file that was created by modview in lesson 2 in a text editor (wordpad, word, notepad etc). The text will read as follows. The colours are added so you can easily see how the .mvs components are transferred to the .surf file.
loadmodelOur finished file needs to look like this;back up here: loadmodelSee what we did? - wrote surfOn and surfOff, and followed each by a set of " quotes and the names of the surfaces we want on and off respectively between those quotes. All the info (the correct names for each altered surface) was in the .mvs file.back up here: Save this file as model_default.surf. Then Save As model_blue.surf. Then Save As model_red.surf. The .surf filenames must match the .skin filenames. ie. model_red.skin uses model_red.surf to determine what surfaces to turn on or off. Of course if you want one of your teams colours to have different surfaces on or off to the others that's doable - the 3 skin variations don't need to have the same surf files. Make the changes in the .surf file. For example if you wanted your blue skin guy to have his left hand & wrist missing, this would be in the .mvs file;
{So this would be the contents of the model_blue.surf file;
surfOn "l_hand_cap_l_arm_off head_off head_face_off head_eyes_mouth_off"Paking the parts up When we trace the path of our /oldrepublicpilot/ directory from the base directory, we see the various subfolders clicked through are; /models/players/oldrepublicpilot/ We need to recreate this structure within our PK3 archive. The easiset way to do this is to make a new subdirectory off our GameData directory entitled /mods/, then make a new subdirectory off our Mods directory entitled /models/, and finally make a new subdirectory off our models directory entitled /players/. /GameData/mods/models/players/ Now go back and copy your /oldrepublicpilot/ folder from /base/models/players/oldrepublicpilot/ and paste it into /GameData/mods/models/players/ so you now have; /GameData/mods/models/players/oldrepublicpilot/, filled with all the .JPG, .skin, .surf, .glm files in it etc. Delete any non-JO files from this directory (eg. any photoshop / paintshop native files (.psd / .psp), the .mvs file etc. Now launch Pakscape. Open a new archive (file -> new) In your file viewer (My Computer) locate the directory C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\mods Drag the \models\ folder into Pakscape;
Expand out the folders in PAKscape and check all the files are there
-> Save As Change the file type to "Quake 3 pak (*.pk3)", name the file oldrepublicpilot.pk3 and save the .pk3 file to your \base\ directory.
Now the real fun begins! Launch Jedi Outcast. Start a MP game. Remember the icons havent been made as yet, so our skin will appear with a standard Prisoner icon, but its name will be "oldrepublicpilot".
Run around like an idiot. Check out your blue & red team variations. 2. Taking screenshots. In game (or from the main screen) open up the JO console (Shift + ~). Launch your favourite map in Developer mode; > devmap mapname where "mapname" is ffa_bespin Pick your OldRepublicPilot skin and start the level. Get your character with something cool in the background. pull down the console again > cg_thirdpersonangle 180 This brings the camera around 180 degrees so it's pointing at the front of your model. For a bit of an angle offset (ie. not directly head on) try different numbers between 90 & 270 > cg_thirdpersonrange 75 This alters the distance between the camera & the player. Try values between 50 and 150. > cg_thirdpersonpitchoffset -10 alters the vertical angle of the camera.
Take lots of screenshots. Get in close for some good shots of the model's face, for all 3 team colour variations.
Examine your screenies in your graphics program. Hopefully you have some good head / shoulder shots. If no, go back and try again! Open up your 3 icon files from /GameData/mods/models/players/ Copy & paste a good shot of your Red Skin into the red icon, the Blue skin into the Blue icon, and your default skin into your Default icon.
Save as a .jpg with 85% quality / 15% compression. A trick is to find these two files; mp_rebel_symbol.tga Use PAKscape to locate them in assets0.pk3 and copy and paste them into your art program. In assets0.pk3, they're located at; /textures/decals/
Recolour & resize & paste this Imperial Logo & Rebel Logo into your icon image so your team icons follow the same conventions as the raven made ones. You can colour & blur it, then paste it in again to get the fuzzy glow effect as seen in the Raven icons.
Now rePAK the folder, just as we did earlier. Re-enter JO -> your new icons should now be visible.
Maybe take some more screenies so your icon in the top right corner matches your model. It's good to cut and paste your model from various angles and in several poses and carrying different weapons into your 2 screenshots. Be sure to show off your team colour variations too. Remember it's the quality of these screenies on the download page (one on jediknightii.net, two on massassi.net) that will be the difference between someone DLing or passing over your skin in 95% of the cases. The screenies are the best advertisement for your work there is, so take the time to make your skin look as interesting and appealing as possible in the screenshots! eg. Take a look at my AT-AT Driver's screenshots from the Download page at Massassi.net;
OK. That's it for this lesson. The next lesson should be the final one and will cover; Readme file http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=8874551
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