Sub skinning tutorial

[runningdeer]

Hi all...

I would like to learn how to make sub skins for SH4 v1.5...for any or all submarines in our game. Are there any good tutorials out there?

Thank you.

[ichso]

I was looking for something like this also but couldn't find any.

Later this day I could write my own experiences down for you, if you want to Since I played around with the sub textures a bit the last few days.

[runningdeer]

Originally Posted by ichso

I was looking for something like this also but couldn't find any.

Later this day I could write my own experiences down for you, if you want to Since I played around with the sub textures a bit the last few days.

Thank you. I searched here at subsim and googled but only found a skinning tutorial video that was really small and went rather fast, with no voice, just music.

I saw a post where 'Webster' suggested to a guy to dl and open some skins then reverse engineer them, I opened some skin files but not sure what to do next.

I would like to basically put decals and or insignias on at first, then maybe do more detailed skins. Hoping maybe then I could have a way to contribute to this site that I've gotten so much from.

Thanx again.

[ichso]

Which program are you using ?

I would suggest using gimp. It's a photoshop clone, just as good (for our purposes) and totally free, open source namely.
On top of that, there's a dds-plugin available for gimp. So you can just load those texture file into the graphics program and edit them right away, without some conversion by an additional program beforehand.

I'll give you the links first:
http://www.gimp.org
http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/ the dds plugin.

If you wanted to add a tower insignia, you could just load some texture file for the desired sub type into gimp. Better make a dedicated directory for all you works and don't edit the files in the game folders right away.
The path to the tower textures would be [sh4 install]\data\textures\tnormal\tex\NSS_GatoTower_T01.dds for instance.

One problem is, that is it not obvious where to put your changes as those texture files are only flat files and sh4 knows which areas to pick for texturizing which parts of a 3d model. But there is no description for us which areas within a texture are used for what.
Using a submarine body texture is a bit easier because the shape of the hull comes out clear in the texture file.

As you wrote you already looked into such a texture file. If you load one with already a conning tower emblem in it (from some modder created skin) then you see, where to put an emblem in the texture file (for the according sub type at least) to show up correctly in the game. Positioning can be a bit of playing around.

For instance, I wanted to edit the *upper* side of the fore depth rudders of a sargo class. It was quite hard to find which spot in the texture file was actually responsable for the colour of the depth rudders. So I colorized the sub skin all in rainbow colours and looked where the colours went in the game. I show you what I mean:
The texture with many coloured rectangles

and how it turned out in the game


That way you can learn where to put stuff in the texture file and where it is gonna show up on your actual submarine. This is not as big a problem for the conning towers because they lack the detail of the 3d model of the subs hull.

These are the most important things. The rest is just basic (or sometimes good) knowledge of your preferred graphics program.

Gimp and Photoshop both have the ability to let you draw in different layers. So when you load a texture into gimp, this will be the background layer. You can then create a new, transparent and empty layer for adding additional effects or details to the already existing skin without having to mess up the actual texture. Because layers can be switched on and off, moved, deleted or hidden. So they keep your work organized.

If you're about to draw shapes onto a texture, the path tool (in gimp) might become your best friend. For adding rust or weathered effects use different brush types and sizes and set the brushes to low opacity when drawing.

I know, there are just some very rough tips, more of an overview so far. The work with layers, brushes and paths are very basic stuff using graphic programs as gimp or photoshop and there are many tutorials around to help you with those aspects in general.

If you wanted to, I could also give you more of a step by step tutorial in adding a tower emblem rather than this list of tips like here.

And at last: just starting an playing around a bit makes you often learn the most. Let me know if this was any helpful or if I should go more into detail somewhere.

So far, i.

[runningdeer]

"ichso"...thank you vm for taking the time to make up such a detailed tutorial.



I found the instructions easy enough to understand and I'm excited about working with a new paint program. I've heard of 'GIMP' but haven't used it til now. I downloaded and installed it, but the installing the plugin might be a problem for me. I don't understand the readme that came with it. So I have to work on that before I can begin. I have always used 'Jasc paintshop pro 9'. Learning another might take some time in itself, but 'GIMP' looks cool.

Yeah, I want to start with placing an insignia on the coning tower first. Before working on other parts of a sub, like the rust etc.

That was a good idea coloring the sub like you did...looks like something out of the 1970's, looks like 'The Partridge' family submarine, lol. I understand though what you were showing me, I did wonder how one would know where to place markings after looking at some of the texture files of skinned subs.

I wonder about the 'high resolution' part. How would I know that my work would be in HR?

I'm excited about learning to do this, just need to get this plugin installed...thanx again for your help!

[ichso]

Glad to be of help .

The installation of the plug-in is very simple. If you are using Windows you should have downloaded the according version that only includes one executable file. And this one goes to:
[installation directory of gimp]\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins\

After just copying it there and (re)starting gimp, you can just load those dds files like any standard image file format. On loading a dds file the plugin will ask you whether or not to load mipmaps. I didn't load them, on saving you can just let it create new mipmaps.

If you loaded a texture and now want to edit an emblem onto it, you would do the following steps.
The top menu bar (of the image window) shows an option 'dialogs'. There you find the layer dialog - open it. You will notice that there's currently only one layer there - the background layer. In case of our sh4 texture it will be called 'main surface'. By right clicking onto a layer in this small window you get a whole lot of options. One important would be 'create new layer'.
Choose it and create a transparent layer. It will automatically be the same size as the image, but can also be resized if needed.

The very convenient thing about layers now is, all the drawing, adding or whatever goes on a newly created layer (or even more than one later on). By clicking on the eye symbol besides it, you can switch a layer off and on.
How it might look this far:

There are actually 2 'main surface' layers here, but that's just something of my previous work.
If you now save this state of the file in the gimp file format (.xcf) every layer with all it's set options will be stored as is. This allows you to simply continue your editing later on or, even more importantly, lets you use previous work easily for newer projects.

If you have multiple images already opened with gimp, you can use select tool and just copy&paste stuff between those images. Also very useful yet nothing very special .

When you want to save your work as an dds file again though, you have to do some stuff beforehand. First, you can only save an image as an dds file with this plugin if the image has only one single layer. So you should save your work as an .xcf file (just for having it saved) and then do the following.
Activate all layers that contain stuff that is supposed to be on your final texture. Then you right-click any one of those layers in the layer window and select the option 'merge visible layers'. Then all those currently visible layers become a single one that contains everything that was visible when you did that. All layers that weren't visible still remain. (I often have a lot of layers with temporary work around). Before you can now save as an dds file you gotta delete all these unused layers first. Then you have only one layer left that contains everything the texture should contain.
One thing that still might happen if the layers got moved up/down, left or right during editing, or if they weren't the same size before is that you see a thin, yellow dotted line around your image that contains an area larger or smaller than your texture image. This only shows the layer boundaries, but which have to be exactly the same size as the overall image for the dds saving to work. (actually not the saving itself but for the usage of a compression algorithm).
You can establish the right layer size by right clicking on your single remaining layer and choosing 'layer to image size'.
Save it as an dds file and the plugin will present you a dialog where you can have it generate the mipmaps again and choose a compression algorithm - sh4 uses the dx1 type.

That should be the meanest pitfalls you shouldn't fall into anymore now.
I hope you have fun editing and we see your work here soon

[runningdeer]

Ok...got the plugin installed, thanx.

I just need to familiarize myself with the program, then I'm off and running. I also need to find a skin to use a a template, one that won't get me into hot water with the original creator. Just for practice.

Ya know...you just made one helluva skins tutorial. Subsim could make 'sticky' of of it.
it will help many people like myself, no doubt. You deserve credit and kudos for writing such a useful tutorial.

thanx bro...

[runningdeer]

Here's my first skin...just a test.

[ichso]

Nice choice. You might wanna flip it so that she can see where you are sailing with her

[runningdeer]

Doy...thnx.

[runningdeer]

Well...GIMP is a useful program and I'm now able to place images and numbers on subs. But I'm having trouble placing numbers on one side without having them repeat on the other side going backwards. Images seem to be fine. Also I need to figure out how to place numbers or images on one side and not have them duplicated on the other. Because sometimes I want to place a marking only on one side.

I would like to make skins based on particular subs, using actual hull numbers, insignias, etc...even though that might not be historically accurate to place numbers and images on them.

Thanx.

[ichso]

The number issue puzzled me once too. And when I finally had figured it out how to do this I realized that no boat had it's number on it's hull during war time.

But the behaviour when adding images or numbers is the same in the game, the part of the stuff you added that is facing up front will also face up front in the game - on both sides of the boat.
The problem is that numbers would have to face to the rear on the left side or otherwise they're mirrored.
If you watch those NSS_[bla]_O01.dds texture, you will see also parts of the hull of the according sub. And in this file you will see the left side of the boat as well as the right one which you can use to add the number on both sides in the right way. This works on the towers too, there are also such ..._O0x.dds files.

[runningdeer]

Originally Posted by ichso

The number issue puzzled me once too. And when I finally had figured it out how to do this I realized that no boat had it's number on it's hull during war time.

But the behaviour when adding images or numbers is the same in the game, the part of the stuff you added that is facing up front will also face up front in the game - on both sides of the boat.
The problem is that numbers would have to face to the rear on the left side or otherwise they're mirrored.
If you watch those NSS_[bla]_O01.dds texture, you will see also parts of the hull of the according sub. And in this file you will see the left side of the boat as well as the right one which you can use to add the number on both sides in the right way. This works on the towers too, there are also such ..._O0x.dds files.

Thanx...although I may well be more confused now, lol...at least I know that its possible. I'll have to take the info you gave me and try to figure it out.

[runningdeer]

ichso...well I opened NSS_balao_O01.dds texture and found the parts of the tower to place numbers/images...but when I view in-game whatever I've placed there is transparent, like the file is when I add something to it.

I've tried "add new layer" to the transparent NSS_[bla]_O01.dds texture but then parts of the tower in-game are blacked out.

I'm close to getting it right but I'm currently at a loss. If you can understand where I'm coming from could you please instruct me just a bit more?

Thank you for your time.

[ichso]

Hi runningdeer,
I also searched this issue on these boards and someone wrote that you can use the ..._O01.dds files to add numbers facing in the desired way but those files don't do any actual texturing but only show the areas to be textures (or something like this).

So you basically only can add white numbers because you only can leave out parts of those files by marking them with your number and those parts will be left untextured and will appear white in the game (or was it black?). So they are only really useful when the contrast to the rest of the hull is good enough.

I think it is okay when you use it for numbers as those aren't that detailed anyway. I didn't try it myself because soon after I read this I decided to go with a emblem and paint scheme only

EDIT: Here's a skin that actually uses numbers on the bow of the sub and they even show up correctly in the game. You might use this for comparison.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=133038