[TEC] modifying Skins?

[Sledgehammer427]

hey all,
im a fan of making skins for my subs (always one for being the sore tumb)
anyone have any ideas where i can go to do this? i have Adobe paintshop, but i have absolutely no clue where to start.

gotta go, class is out in 5
Sledgehammer

[Digital_Trucker]

First of all, let me say that I am NO skinning expert. I'll leave that to Foo I do have plenty of experience in modifying skins from the Killflags mod.

The easiest way for me to tell you how to start is to download one that's already been modified and look at the files involved. Slip on over to battleflags.net and go to the download a boat section. Pick a class, then pick a boat, any boat (maybe look for one of the combo skins that will have both black for early war and weathered for late war) and download and extract it. In that JSGME compatible file structure you'll find the textures involved in skinning a boat. For instance, for a Balao, the ....\Data\Textures\TNormal\tex\NSS_BalaoTower_T01. dds file is the early war skin for the conning tower and the _T02.dds is for the late war. The .....\Data\Submarine\NSS_Balao\NSS_Balao_T01.dds is the body of the sub for early war and the _T02.dds is for the late war.

You'll need a dds plugin for Photoshop, or tools to convert to dds (links to these are available here. I use Photoshop and Paint.net (nice freebie graphics editor that handles .dds and .tga).

The only other texture that I have done any work with is the ....\Data\Submarine\NSS_Balao\NSS_Balao_O01.dds . I only modify this one to put markings on the hull of the sub (the texture really wasn't designed to do that, but you can put black markings on both sides of the hull without the mirroring effect that occurs if you use the actual skin textures). If you download one of the boats that I've put the SS numbers on the hull of, you'll see what I mean when you look at this texture)

Hope that gives you a good start