Skins: I love the idea but ...help?

[Haakan]

Happy new year everybody and guys, XWAU team, you're awesome. We're about to consider official use of your work on Emperors Hammer I hope we use your work to fly our custom missions.


Alright. I liked very much the concept so JeremyaFr thanks for this!!!!

However...I'm trying to get this to work on a sample mission and I'm failing. I have so many questions... is there any chances we get a tutorial or something? I tried the sample texture on an XWing but didnt work...trying extracting a model's texture and editing it and still nothing. Please if anybody has the time to advise I'd be in debt. Thanks for your time!

[Ace Antilles]

This is the best I can give you right now.
You need to edit the Mission INI or make a new txt file.

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated the 32bpp hook.

There is a new feature: Skins.
With skins, you can customize the appearance of the 3d models.

Suppose that the craft is "FlightModels\[Model].opt".
To create a skin named "[Skin1]", create a folder named "FlightModels\Skins\[Model]\[Skin1]\".
To replace a texture, place it in the skins folder with the same name and dimensions of the original texture.
The supported image formats are bmp, png, jpg. Use the png format to get transparency.
See "Skins\XWing\Default\Tex00033.png" for an example for the vanilla X-Wing.

Suppose that the mission is "[MissionDir]\[Mission].tie".
To define a skin for a craft, create a file named "[MissionDir]\[Mission]_Skins.txt" or create a section named "[Skins]" in "[MissionDir]\[Mission].ini".
The format is
CraftOptName = SkinNameA, SkinNameB
CraftOptName_fg_# = SkinName1, SkinName2, SkinName3
# in CraftOptName_fg_# is an integer for the opt color marking index, starting at 0.
The default SkinName is "Default".
See "Skins.txt"

[Haakan]

alright let me try again and if it doesnt work, lets ask JeremyaFr. I can't wait to get those to work!

[Vince T]

OK here's a more hands-on demo:
I've made a test mission to test out my various custom opt remakes as well as new hook functions.

The focus here lies on the4 Principal--class Freighters, each having a different FG Color.

Skins1.jpg

The OPT itself has no FG colors, instead I've added a bunch of basic skins - red, gold, blue & green. Note that the Skins-folder must have the same exact name as the OPT itself.
The textures themselves don't need the OPT name in them. Basically the way they are displayed when you open the OPT in OPT Editor, so Skins\OPTName\TEX00***.png

Skins2.png

Now, to use the skins you need to call the respective OPT name in combination with the FGColor number, which is 0-basaed, i.e. counting up 0, 1, 2, 3... instead of 1, 2, 3, 4...

Code: Select all

;1b8m1Test.ini

[Skins]
PrincipalFreighter_fg_0 = Red
PrincipalFreighter_fg_1 = Gold
PrincipalFreighter_fg_2 = Blue
PrincipalFreighter_fg_3 = Green
[/codeu

[Bman]

.

[Vince T]

Edit: @Haakan, the above are the actual *.png files not subfolders.

Er no, those ARE subfolders containing the PNG files.

[Bman]

Ahh I thought so but then misread. So index FG 0 points to \Red subfolder "[Skins1]" which contains the *.png file(s) that dynamically replace default texture(s) baked into the model. Do you have just one default texture for each mesh/face group baked into the model ? That will reduce .opt sizes tremendously, and should improve performance, at least marginally. If more than 4 subfolders say up to 127 max will still require use of the xwa_hook_mission_tie.

[Vince T]

Going forward yeah that's the plan. Like I said I'll be reworking the Victory SDs removing the FG colors from the OPT and converting them to skins,so the opt will only have default gray textures. This should cut down filesize from 70 to 17 MB.