Need some help on skinning. *Bumped*

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 09:09 AM

Im just curious as to how you guys edit your skins. When you export a body package to edit. Do you edit it in .dds format in your photoshop? Or do you 1st save it as a .bmp and edit it in .bmp? And when you re-import it back into your editor, do you import it as a .bmp then re-compress it?

Im experiencing this problem where i edit it in.dds and after i save it back as dds, the colors pretty much bleed onto each other. And they also look degraded. Why is this?? Or am i doing this all wrong?

**Radiosity** · 10-13-2003, 09:42 AM

The simple answer is: Don't edit exported skins

Look on disk 3 of the game in the extras folder, in the skin art folder you'll find all the original skins in PNG format ready to go

Remember that a dds texture has already had compression applied to it which lowers the detail quite drastically compared to the original artwork, so decompressing, editing, and re-compressing again doesn't do a whole load of good to your texture.

You'll be best off saving all your edits as .tga 32bit. Some of the skins have transparency, so tga is necessary to preserve this.

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 09:58 AM

F*CK!!!!!

:cry: Ive been doing it all wrong all this time!!!! So much time wasted!!! I need a vacation.

Ill just have to start over again

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 10:09 AM

Before i go any further into re-skinning my characters. When i import my .tga, should i import it as masked, alpha, detailed hack or Generate MipMaps for the options?

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by DarkSaber

You'll be best off saving all your edits as .tga 32bit. Some of the skins have transparency, so tga is necessary to preserve this.

Is it safe to go back and edit in .tga? Or is it better to edit in .png format?

*edit* Is it better to save the .png to .tga as uncompressed or compressed from the painting program?

Note* Im using paintshop pro7 and that only saves 24bit max

But the .pngs' are all in 24bit! So i guess it would not matter.

Please help me out here. I need to make an improvement on these skins and i dont want to leave these unfinished.

**Radiosity** · 10-13-2003, 12:05 PM

1: Always leave Mipmaps ticked unless you're importing something like level preview images for a map for example (these are only used in the interface and don't require mipmapping). Characters, and other textures should always have mipmaps generated though. Detail Hack, ignore totally. And you'll only need to use the other 2 options if the skin requires it.

For example, if you were skinning Satin or Sapphire, you'd need to import the body skin as Masked and the face skin as Alpha, but this is the only character you need to worry about having a masked texture. For Remus, Blackjack, MrCrow, and other models that use transparency, just import the texture as Alpha. And for alpha textures like this, use DXT3 compression - DXT1 doesn't support alpha.

2: I always open the original and save it as a tga from the beginning, but you could save it as png and simply save another copy as tga when you want to import it. And don't worry, the textures that have an alpha channel will retain the alpha without any problems

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 05:47 PM

DarkSaber, i really appreciate the tips you have given me. Youve been a big help.

But im still unsure about the .png format saving it as .tga. I get an option to save it as compressed or uncompressed. What should i choose?

*edit* I was also told (i dont remeber who) that portraits are only required dxt1 compression. When i look at the portraits package, they are all in dxt5. Why is this?

**legacy-Doctor7** · 10-13-2003, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by Reversion
But im still unsure about the .png format saving it as .tga. I get an option to save it as compressed or uncompressed. What should i choose?

Doesn't matter. The compression used in .tga format is non-lossy, so it won't affect the image quality.

As for DXT compression, I always use 3 for everything. Portraits probably are better with 1, since they're never mapped onto polygons and don't get resized much. 5 is only needed for the extended alpha options, so if portraits have been saved with it, that's just laziness.

**Radiosity** · 10-13-2003, 07:15 PM

*Runs off to look at PSP7.......

Ok, just had a look at the settings I use, which are the defaults. 24bit compressed, which works fine for me so go with compressed

And DXT1 is the compression I use for all portrait pictures, simply because it provides the smallest filesize; Epic released a full game on cds and could therefore afford to be a bit more fussy about compression and details

We release stuff that requires a download by other users, many of whom are on 56k, so it's generally good to go with the slightly more lossy but speedier options like this.

Generally DXT1 will stand you in good stead for most situations, but the main exceptions are: Transparent textures/ skins, as I mentioned before, DXT1 doesn't support it; Textures with some really strong constrasting colours, as DXT1 will really make your textures go bad in this situation; Extremely detailed textures, which will also tend to look 'smudged' and awful with DXT1. Otherwise, it's mostly good

Have a look at the 2 UDN pages on Texture specs for more detailed info:

http://udn.epicgames.com/pub/Content...pecifications/
http://udn.epicgames.com/pub/Content/TextureComparison/

One other thing - after importing your skins into Ued, right click both the body and face skins (and team skins) and go to the properties. Under the texture heading you'll see a setting for LODSet; change it from LODSet_World to LODSet_PlayerSkin. This'll mean your character's details will be affected by the proper character detail settings in-game (they'd be affected by Texture detail rather than character detail). Oh, and don't forget to uncheck the box for mipmaps when you import the portrait image

Also, with the portrait, do as you've done with the skins, but change it to LODSet_Interface so that the texture always displays at full detail in the menus.

Sorry for the ramble

Hope that helps,

DS

**Emmet Otter** · 10-13-2003, 07:23 PM

Thanx guys! Ive learned alot by your replies. Now i can go and start to re-work these skins that ive started.

Edit* And thanx for the links DarkSaber.

**Radiosity** · 10-13-2003, 08:45 PM

No problem

**Emmet Otter** · 10-14-2003, 08:52 AM

EDIT

**Emmet Otter** · 10-15-2003, 12:15 AM

I need some help on this problem that im having now. Ive completed redoing my skin and saved it as 24bit compressed .tga.(Its the blackjack body) I go into my editor and open my skin package, import it in with alpha, and mipmap checked. Now it looks just good at the moment at RGBA8. But.......once i compress it at dxt3, some of the colors gets "blocky". and colour runs. I re-imported it and tried it at dxt5, no luck. Then ive tried to just import it at mipmap checked and with dxt3 compression. Still looks "blocky" and colour runs. Then tried mipmap at dxt5 with no luck either!!

I just dont get it!!! Heres some
screenshots .

The 1st shot is just an overall glance of the skin at RGBA8.

The 2nd shot is a close-up of the RGBA8 just to show that it looks good.

The 3rd shot is after i compressed it to DXT3. As you can see the edges runs and alot of the areas just get blocky.

Please can someone help me here.

**legacy--Loric-** · 10-15-2003, 12:34 AM

If you don't want to compromise on visual quality, save your skins in
24b .tga when they don't have any alpha layer
32b .tga when they have an alpha layer

I've never even bothered checking the "compress (RLE)" option in Photoshop, when saving in tga format. I'm not sure it would change anything since the texture gets converted in UnrealEd afterwards anyway.

Then compress the textures in DTX5 in UnrealEd.

That's the best quality you can get.

But you won't be able to have both quality (ie non-blocky looking textures) and save bandwidth at the same time.

**Emmet Otter** · 10-15-2003, 12:42 AM

*edit* OK........I understand now thats its normal for some degradation to occur when compressing.

But i wanna ask just one final question left to anyone that reads this......Is it ok to just save a bodyskin at RGBA8 and not compress it? I know the texture file size will be larger, but will it affect gameplay as for performance? And if so......by how much around in your estimation?

**legacy--Loric-** · 10-15-2003, 01:37 PM

Leaving it in RGBA8 will eat up graphic memory. It will cause a bit more lag when the player connects or when he shows up on screen for the first time.
But the filesize would really be far too large with RGBA8 textures.
You really should try the DXT5 compression.

**Emmet Otter** · 10-15-2003, 02:30 PM

Thanx for the tip loric. I will compress it to dxt5. I dont want anyone to suffer the lag or 56k'ers struggling to download the big file size.

But damn!! RGBA8 looks sooo good. Oh well........ill just have to deal without it. Again, thanx