Custom player skins for CS:S questions.

[Foo]

On this server we play on, there is a couple of custom skins for the players. I want to take those and make new ones from them.
I am guessing that that will be the easiest way to do it.

I have searched for a couple of weeks now on what tools to use and how to go about using them.

I have a couple of questions about what needs to be done, why it needs to be done and how I can correct the mistakes I am making.

What I do is take a .vtf file and use vtfedit to export the graphic picture of the player's skin into a targa format. I then use adobe to edit the graphic to make the player look how I want. I then import the graphic back into the vtf through vtfedit.

Now, what I want to do is make this a seperate folder on the server so that I can choose that skin. I can get a new skin to work if I let it overide by copying into the original folder. But I don't want to lose my old skin, I want to make new custom skins to be chosen by players.

I think what needs to happen is for certain files to be decompiled in order to recompile then with different paths as to where to point to certain files for skins. I am guessing that that's the only thing I need to figure out how to do to make these skins become chooseable.

If this is anywhere in the ballpark of being right, and I am really afraid I may not even be close, but if its so so, then I am needing to understand why when I use mdldecompiler to decompile and then the compile toolkit to recompile, why the names of the files aren't correct.

If someone could explain whats going on with these things, I would appreciate it.

THe tools I have tried to use:
mdldecompiler.05 - seems useful
gcfscape141 - doesn't seem useful for what I am trying to do
HL2 Compile Toolkit v121b - seems useful
guistudiomdl_2.0.1 - doesn't seem useful for what I am trying to do

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[63]

There is a vtf exporter/viewer plugin for photoshop, google it and you can skip the vtfedit process.

 

[Foo]

Yes, I have seen the plugin, unfortunately, there was no support for photoshop above photoshop 7.

The vtf process is no big deal really. Works just fine. It's the matter of making the custom skins work properly. I believe there are paths to files that need to be updated when creating new skin folders. The vmt file has this readily viewable. But I am afraid there is a little more to it because even if I edit those paths, all the models when selected in-game will still point to the original version of the skin rather than the new folder and new skin.
Or so this is what I am thinking, and that decompiling and recompiling should fix this. I am hoping to get this cleared up by an experienced skinner.

 

[Foo]

Thank you for your reply. I knew I wasn't providing enough information.
The server is using the mani mod. There currently are custom skins being used by players.
The problem is that the admin that set these up are gone. Our new admin wants to make more custom skins available for the players.
What we would like to do is just take existing models, modify the texture's look by using vtfedit and then photoshop and then making a new directory for the skin.
I believe then all I have to do is change the path that the vmt's point to for that newly skinned model. Pretty much just using all the other files for each model and creating a new folder with it's new name.
This seems to be what the old admin did. Took a model's files (vtf/vmt folder and then the model folder with vxt and such and copied them to new folders. Then it seems all he did was edit the skin by the above mentioned technique and then changed the paths in the vmt file.
Does this seem like how it should be done and should work?
Thanks again in advance.

 

[L. Duke]

Here's how:
http://www.lduke.com/plugins/modelchanger/tutorial/index.html