Operation Pettticoat Skinning Tutorial

[CaptainCox]

Operation Petticoat
Skinning Tutorial
by
Captain Cox
Painting the USS Sea Tiger...PINK!

Tools I use:

Photoshop CS3 (Beta) any PS version or "Painter" for example will do.

DDS Utilities
Download Link:http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_utilities.html

Do some basic research, websites, books or what have you. I will use this picture as an image for this skin.



Now you should of course know where the skins are in "Silent Hunter 4" before we start.
Submarine Hulls C:/Ubisoft/SH4/Data/Submarine/(Each Class has its own folder) NSS_Tambor, Nss_Porpoise etc. If you open one of those you will see this



Those are the files we can work with
Submarine Conning Towers and other Textures C:/Ubisoft/SH4/Data/Textures/TNormal (also TLowRes but we leave that for now)/tex/(look for "NSS" files) NSS_GatoTower_T02




OK now we are all set to go.
I will use a Gato skin as the Sea Tiger was a Gato, so I open Photoshop
and go to "File" go to "Open As" and set the file option to "D3D DDS" look for the file in "C:/Ubisoft/SH4/Data/Submarine/NSS_Gato/NSS_Gato_T02.dds




This is what the Original Texture looks like.
Now I will just mask the areas i will change (for this exercise) using the "Polygonal Lasso Tool"
you can also use "Paths" but this time I use the "Lasso"




As you can see only the "light Blue/Gray" areas are selected now.
I will also do this with the lower "light Blue/Gray" part.

Now we can work only in these areas without touching anything else.
OK, now for the color. In this case its pretty easy as the "Sea Tiger" was pink, I will use the "Hue/Saturation Tool" Image/Adjustments/Hue/Saturation. Tic "Colorize"




I adjust the slide bars until I found what I am looking for in terms of color.
As you can see the "Black" holes are now colored to. No problem, i will use the "Magic Wand Tool" to select only those areas.




(This SHOULD! be done using layers, i did it the dirty way for demo purposes)
And use a brush and some Black Paint to fix it




Now we do the same with the "Conning Tower"




We are ready to pack this in to "JSGME" format, but first we have to save.
File/Save As/D3D DDS/( In the formats window) DXT5 ARGB (Interpolated Alpha)
save to your desktop for now (or any place BUT NOT THE GAME FOLDERS!!!)

OK now you have 2 DDS files on your desktop...right?

Make a new folder on the desktop and call it whatever (in my case "Sea Tiger")
In that folder create another folder called "Data" in that one create TWO folders, one called "Submarine" and one called "Textures"

In the Submarine folder make another folder called (in my case "NSS_Gato") and drop your "Hull Skin in that in my case "NSS_Gato_T02"
In the "Textures" folder create another folder named "TNormal" and in that a folder called "tex" and drop your "Conning Tower" in that (in my case "NSS_GatoTower_T02")

Now drag your Mod in my case "Sea Tiger" to your MODS folder in the main SH4 directory (you must of course have installed JSGME prior to this!) activate the mod with JSGME and lets have a look in game what it look s like.




Needs some more work...like always but you get the picture.
Have fun skinning your subs now!


EDIT in case you wonder why it says "NSS_Pclass Tower" on the tower pic, its my mistake and was corrected before taking the screen shot :p

[Redwine]

Wonderful !!

[Splitter]

First off, thanks so much for this, i couldnt find a skinning tutorial anywhere

Now for the stupid question:

Why is there a NSS_gatotower_T01.dds and NSS_gatotower_T02.dds? What is the T01 of this used for since you only seem to be editting the T02.
Hope that made sense.

[CaptainCox]

Yea there are 2 types of boats, early version, and later version, the T01 is the early and the T02 later. You can see the difference here.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109782
Both are Tambor classes but look at the conning towers and you see the difference

[modisch]

CaptainCox,

Awesome guide. Makes it look a lot less daunting (although in no way diminishes my respect for the skinners out there). This goes very nicely with nvdrifter's post of useful tools.

(*yay community!*)

Splitter,

Subs have multiple conning towers. Two to three (maybe four?) per sub, depending on the time point in the war. They're also given as rewards in game. The early towers have much larger silhouettes and may not have the same range of AA gun emplacement options as late war towers. There are also text files that provide all of the performance/structural characteristics of the towers.

-m

[CaptainCox]

He he, well there is nothing more to it then your imagination and your skill with the software really. Of course digging up the Historical documents to make your skins as accurate as poss, but as for the craftsmanship...well, its all in the mouse really

[modisch]

Originally Posted by CaptainCox

but as for the craftsmanship...well, its all in the mouse really

And therein lies the rub. I have the artistic talent of a wet rock. God endowed me with excessive mathematical analytical skills, in exchange, I can barely sign my name or draw stick figures.

-m

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by modisch

CaptainCox,

Splitter,

Subs have multiple conning towers. Two to three (maybe four?) per sub, depending on the time point in the war. They're also given as rewards in game. The early towers have much larger silhouettes and may not have the same range of AA gun emplacement options as late war towers. There are also text files that provide all of the performance/structural characteristics of the towers.

-m

That explains it, thanks for the help

[Dowly]

I havent seen the movie, so I dont know. Is the whole sub pink? In that case, the easiest way would be to just make a new layer, fill it with pink and cut out the port holes. The game will do the rest.