Skinning with Prophet

[iBotPeaches]

Prey

http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-584.gif

 

You will need

[*]Prophet[/*:m:27zmk1m0]

[*]WinResigner http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-585.gif [/*:m:27zmk1m0]

1. Set up WinResigner (it tells you how too in the same post you download it from, linked above^^)

 

2. Open up a map in Prophet, navigate to the texture you wish to change, and click it; bringing up the Shader Edit Panel:

 

http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-586.gif

 

The Shader Edit Panel can look a bit daunting at first, so I'll go through it bit by bit and you'll get it in no time http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-587.gif

 

First of all we have a combobox, which contains the paths of all theshader tags within the map. The currently selected one will be the onein use by the currently selected object. If you were to change theshader, the info would be immediately saved to the map file, and thechanges would take effect in the editor as well.

 

Secondly, we have another combobox. This time containing thetextures contained within the selected shader. But instead of the pathsbeing listed, you will see the functioninstead. There are four functions that Prophet will recognise: "Main","Bump Map", "Detail Map", and "Cube map". Everything else will belisted as "Unknown". By default the selected texture will be the maintexture, but feel free to change that without worry: nothing will besaved to the map, instead only the panel will change to display the newfunction's info.

 

Speaking of info http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-588.gif..Note that the bitmap tag is displayed in yet another combobox. Thiscombobox contains all the bitmap tag paths. Changing the selection willre-link the current shader to the new bitmap, and again the changeswill be saved to the map file and immediately seen in the viewer.

 

And finally we have the "Import", "Export", and "Internalise" buttons.

 

Firstly the Internalise button will do just that, internalise. ifyour texture is in one of the external maps, it'll simply copy it intothe current map, else...the button won't be enabled ;x

 

The Export button is again, simple. Just click it and extract thetexture to a file somewhere. Note though that not all the bitmapformats used in Halo2 are supported by Prophet, and so you may end upwith corrupt files. It is a very rare case though to get such a formatin use by the BSP, so no worries http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-587.gif

 

Finally the Inject button, 'tis slightly more complex. The best way toexplain it would to go through the whole process, so here's how toproperly export, edit, and import a texture:

 

[*]Export the texture, preferably as a DDS.

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[*]Open the texture up in an image editor. Make sure to open only the 1st mipmap. (For this example I will be assuming you have Photoshop, along with the D3DXTextureFormat Plugin).

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[*]Once you're done your editing/resizing. Save the texture as aDDS file. But take note: you need to save in the same format as thetexture was originally, with the same amount of mipmaps as originally(if you didn't resize the texture that is. If you did resize thetexture, then just save with as many mipmaps as you can (meaning thelast has a width or height of less than 2). You can get the originaltexture's format and mipmap count from the info visible on the ShaderEdit Panel. Also you may want to include a '1' somewhere in thefilename.

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[*]Now close the texture, but not photoshop yet. take a look at the 'Levels of detail' value visible on the Shader Edit Panel. That's the amount of textures we need. In the above pic it says 3, so:

 

[*]First of all goto File -> Open Recent, and select thetexture you just closed (will be the first in the list). Now select thetexture's 2nd mipmap level inthe dialog and open it. Now save the texture, preferably with a '2' inthe filename. Note that you need to keep it in the same format again,and the mipmap count has to be the same as the last texture's, orlower.

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[*]Close the texture. Now repeat the process, only this time openup the texture you just closed, not the texture we opened before. Againselect the 2nd mipmap level, and save again, preferably with a '3' inthe name this time.[/*:m:27zmk1m0]

[*]Now click the Import button in Prophet. It will first ask forLOD1, so select the file that has the '1' in it's name. It will thenask for LOD2, so select the '2' file, and finally the '3' file.

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[*]And finally just before you ftp, right-click the map file and hit resign. All done http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-588.gif[/*:m:27zmk1m0]

Some things you need to realise about the injection process:

[*]If you press cancel onone of the LOD dialogs, the LOD texture will not be touched in the mapfile. But this will mean that in-game if you move far enough away fromthe texture then that LOD will come into play...ruining the experience.

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[*]If the texture you re injecting is bigger or smaller than the original texture, andthe original texture is located within an external map: the new texturewill be instead injected into the current map, and the pointers fixed.I though this to be a more preferable route to take than to shifteverything in one of the external maps, as that would have meant noclean map would have ever worked 100% with that external map. Hope youagree http://www.ibotmodz.net/forum/uploads/remoteimages1/2686-588.gif[/*:m:27zmk1m0]

..and taht's itt