Mods and Customization

[Wapeksas]

Hello all.Does somebody know what programs can be used to create Tribes 2 skins?Please post them here.Thanks

[Eolk]

The few skinners I knew used photoshop Photoshop.

You might be able to find some other stuff here.

[Farrgo]

I have the programs needed to make the skins, but some of the png files appear much lighter in the editing program than they do in the game.

I tried it with 3 different programs, so it's not just that one specific editor.
What is this? It it suppose to happen?

Here is an example:

[Mruballos]

That's how it suppose to come out. Anyway Farrgo what programs did you use?

[Farrgo]

I use the The Gimp for all my editing.
I tested the image in Eye of Gnome and MS Paint.

How are you suppose to edit it if that is the was it shows up?

[darkzigger]

the alpha is used as specular and is the png together with the base texture, i havent found any tool or filter for photoshop that would let me split them except for a tool which im using for the gta series

http://www.gtatools.com/filedb/action.php?action=file&id=16

you can import the png in there and then export the texture and alpha seperately as bmp, tga or png, and once you edited them both you can import them back in and export as png and it will merge them together..

maybe you can find something else on google, "split .png" or whatever

[Farrgo]

Well, that might work, but how do you open the .png images in it?
It will only let you open .txd files

And I tried removing the alpha channel in GIMP, and all it does is make the entire image pure white.

[darkzigger]

go file/new and choose 32bit, then you can import your png and export as bmp or whatever..

you can switch between texture and alpha at the bottom, unless you use "export all as", then it should export both anyway.
actually i think you only need this tool to split the two, saving as png from GIMP once youre done should work well, as long as you have both, your texture and alpha loaded in gimp while saving the png.

[Krash]

In order to use Photoshop effectively to view the skins and alpha channels as they were meant to be edited, you'll need the old png plugin.  The default plugin uses the channel for transparency, resulting in the lighter image you see there.

[Farrgo]

Thanks Dark, that worked 

ok, that makes sence Krash, that must have been what GIMP is doing too.

[Wapeksas]

How do you edit player skin files if they are in vl2. format.I mean how do you open them? you cant with Gimp

[Turkeh]

The .vl2 files are actually zip files with a different extension.

[Farrgo]

Yes, I use this tool:
http://www.elberethzone.net/lang-en/dup-download.html
It supports a lot of other games too, like GTA.

But you can use anything: WinRAR, WinZIP, etc.

[Sythe]

7-zip.org is another item.

[Dayuppy]

I use Pakscape for opening my archives. It doesn't have an option to open vl2 in the drop down but it will open it just fine. You can also save in vl2 by choosing zip and just renaming the extension to vl2. I first got Pakscape so I could edit Call of Duty (CoD) and United Offensive (CoDUO) it says is opens .Pak and .PK3 files which are supposedly from Quake or something. This tool opens much more than it claims to open. Very nice and simple interface also.

                                                Dayuppy