Skinning vehi and weap., w/out photoshop, much easier

[fattwam]

Skinning vehi and weap., w/out photoshop, much easier

 

This version of skinning is EXTREMELY simple.

 

(sry, no pics)

 

needed programs

 

dothalo (any version should work)

DXTBmp (bitmap editor)

MS Paint

Halo2IB (bitmap internalizer)

 

if you dont have H2IB you can probably find it somewhere on this site.

you can also google DXTBmp and come across it. it is mainly used to edit things on flight simulator, so you might find it on some flying video game site

 

you also need

 

shared.map

mainmenu.map

 

in the same folder as the map you want to skin

 

open up dothalo, and open the map you want to skin.

click on the bitm tag.

 

you have a very wide variety of things to chose from.

 

my personal favorite thing to skin is the warthog.

 

it is under objects/vehicles/warthog/warthog_standard or something like that.

 

this is only the main body of the warthog, the tires are obviously under objects/vehicles/warthog/tires

 

avoid bitmaps that have "_bump" at the end. they will do you no good

 

click whichever thing you want to skin, and click "extract bitmap"

now, this is VERY IMPORTANT.

 

near the top of the window that has the bitmap preview in it, will be either DXT1, DXT3, or DXT5, or something along those lines, maybe 2 of them connected with a "/"

Remember what the skin's DXT number is. you will need it to resave your skin

 

save it wherever you want, but MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CLEAN FOLDER OF SKINS

 

if you screw up, it is a pain in the neck to find the original skin. it may even be impossible

 

ok, so what you do now, after having saved the original skin, is that you open DXTBmp, and open that skin you saved.

 

now, near the bottom of the screen, you should see a small picture of a landscape with an arrow pointing down.

 

click it.

 

this will put this skin into MS Paint.

 

now, you can color anything you want. don't worry too much about detail, because when you inject your skin, it will re-texture it for you.

 

once you are done here, click the red x (don't worry about saving, it will prompt you after you close the window)

 

when prompted to save "norm" click yes.

 

now, ahhhh crap! your skin is gone.

 

no.

 

go to the top, and click image, and then reload after edit.

 

tada!

 

skins are back.

 

now what you want to do is say file, save as, and save it with a different name, so you have both the new, and original skins. make sure you select the correct file type! (the one you remembered from dothalo)

 

after saving, you go back into dothalo, click inject bitmap on that same skin, in the same map, and find the skin you made.

 

after injecting it, your new skin should come out, textured, on the little preview box.

 

yay!

 

now you have to internalize it.

 

open up Halo2IB

 

open the map you made the skin for.

 

locate the skin you made.

 

now, here is where you need shared.map

 

when you say internalize, you will need to doubleclick on shared.map.

 

it will go through a process, and then have a popup saying something about adding bits.

 

just click ok.

 

now, resign it, ftp, and enjoy!

[Foil]

I Have a Resigner But Whats An FTP?

[SmokiestGrunl]

I Have a Resigner But Whats An FTP?

 

FTP stands for file transfer protocol. If you are modding an xbox you should already know how to do this. If you are modding on the xbox 360 you need to open up explorer360 or what ever program you use.