Guide: How to make your own skin?

[TobiichiOrigami 150]

Have you ever wondered to paint your vehicle with whatever you like? This guide will help you make your own unique vehicle skin.

To do this we also need a file 

PhotoShop(of course we need this)

The DDS plug-in:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_1JK1l5vQfz5Blfcuy8fyNUL0X1xnYjW/view?usp=sharing

DDSunsplit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MJSr6KtNsdwoOH5QfQAIu3f7S2mAppnX/view?usp=sharing

Unzip your game files.

You need to unzip the .pak file. So you can find the vehicle file you want in the mess of game files.

Find the vehicle you want. They are in unzipfile\objects\vehicles.  You can see the various vehicle type folders.

Take the Type 10 tank for example. You'll find lots of files, models, texture configurations and textures.

So first of all we're going to pull out these we need files in.MTL format.

we can on objects\vehicles\mbt\type10\textures\new to find Texture files for each part.

Take the turret for example.All we need is the AO files to do the work.

When we Unsplit the files we have a complete DDS. Then we first put these files (DDS,MTL) here. (just like the MOD setup method before)

Now it's time to edit the.MTL. Again, take the turret for example. We add another %CAMO_AS_COLOR to the position of the part we want to edit.（It allows the game to read the tile  directly,or other,It will work anyway.）

Then drop down to find this 

Change its path to that of your DDS file.(no need to change.tif) 

When you're done, open the game and make sure it works.

Now, look, the file has been read

Let's edit the DDS file, the texture of the AO file allows you to determine the location of the model, but this time we just simple coloring.

That's it!

Then let's coloring the other parts and putting them together.

Done!

If you don't want to add a bunch of camo_AS_colors to the MTL files for various parts, you can go to the Materials folder and find the MTL files for unique skins. They are usually edited（also DDS） and you just need to change the texture loading path.

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by TobiichiOrigami (see edit history)

[Arto 157]

How are your skins exactly the same colour in the game as on the textures?
Whenever I make a new texture it comes out much brighter and with less contrast in the game itself and i don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[tahax 104]

28 minutes ago, Arto said:

How are your skins exactly the same colour in the game as on the textures?
Whenever I make a new texture it comes out much brighter and with less contrast in the game itself and i don't know what I'm doing wrong.

this happens because of srgb, try in substance painter or smth like that

[TobiichiOrigami 150]

15 hours ago, Arto said:

How are your skins exactly the same colour in the game as on the textures?
Whenever I make a new texture it comes out much brighter and with less contrast in the game itself and i don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Because the game will do some of its own color adjustments. 

But it's too much trouble to delete code like this, So you can do this by adjusting the exposure and the grayscale factor.

I prefer -1 exposure and 0.6 grayscale.

Of course, there is also the possibility, as Tahax said, the color format's , so a lot of things still need to be studied.

[Mako 0]

I am very sorry but the I cannot unzip English.pak under localization which I followed every single step that you and other modder teach me on their guide article...Is there any solution for this? 

(the error message says 'english.pak can't be opened because it's not compressed file'. so does English_ui, English_xml. I used 7z and every other unzip program I have)

I did unsplit the dds files for the skin itself, however...which I am making a skin all thanks to you

Edited May 15 by Mako (see edit history)

[TobiichiOrigami 150]

On 5/15/2024 at 9:41 AM, Mako said:

I am very sorry but the I cannot unzip English.pak under localization which I followed every single step that you and other modder teach me on their guide article...Is there any solution for this? 

(the error message says 'english.pak can't be opened because it's not compressed file'. so does English_ui, English_xml. I used 7z and every other unzip program I have)

I did unsplit the dds files for the skin itself, however...which I am making a skin all thanks to you

First, thankyou for appreciation of my guide.

By the end of 2022 (if I remember correctly). English.pak (and other languages) are already locked in, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Maybe you can open it again in the future, but now you can only use the previous file.

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

currently trying to learn skinning AW myself, and i've ran into a slight issue
i have zero clue what's going on, but the DDSunsplit tool seems to only work with certain vehicles (so far the PLZ-05, M109, and AMX-40/50 work), and refuses to do anything with any other DDS files i try (i have all the plugins and such installed to the best of my knowledge)

Edited September 5 by ItsTheGhost87
edit (see edit history)

[Arto 157]

Looks like you didn't unpack textures_hi, where the remaining texture parts are kept.

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

5 hours ago, Arto said:

Looks like you didn't unpack textures_hi, where the remaining texture parts are kept.

yep that did the trick, thanks so much (thought i wouldn't need to unpack textures_hi since i assumed it was just optional higher quality versions of the UVs)

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

back again with another issue, this time: the .dds files don't align properly at all unlike what's shown in the image, and despite rotating and flipping said UVs i can never get them to line up
at this point i can't tell if AW is just cursing me or i'm being really dumb

[Arto 157]

2 hours ago, ItsTheGhost87 said:

back again with another issue, this time: the .dds files don't align properly at all unlike what's shown in the image, and despite rotating and flipping said UVs i can never get them to line up
at this point i can't tell if AW is just cursing me or i'm being really dumb

You'll wanna remove these variables in every material you work on.

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

3 hours ago, Arto said:

You'll wanna remove these variables in every material you work on.

yep it worked, once again thanks for the help man

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

back again for another issue AW has cursed upon me
something i noticed with the M41 that i *thought* i fixed seems to also happen with every skin i do:
whenever i add a layer to the .dds, add a color, etc. the colors go all inverted and i have to fiddle with hue, saturation, etc. in order to get it somewhat resembling right, so i was wondering if i did something wrong or if there's an easier way to fix this
(also, the colors are all fine and look right before i edit anything as seen with the cannon)

Edited September 8 by ItsTheGhost87 (see edit history)

[TobiichiOrigami 150]

7 hours ago, ItsTheGhost87 said:

back again for another issue AW has cursed upon me
something i noticed with the M41 that i *thought* i fixed seems to also happen with every skin i do:
whenever i add a layer to the .dds, add a color, etc. the colors go all inverted and i have to fiddle with hue, saturation, etc. in order to get it somewhat resembling right, so i was wondering if i did something wrong or if there's an easier way to fix this
(also, the colors are all fine and look right before i edit anything as seen with the cannon)

There are settings here, just delete them.

[ItsTheGhost87 9]

4 hours ago, TobiichiOrigami said:

There are settings here, just delete them.

unfortunately doesn't seem to work, tried deleting all the PublicParam settings in the .mtl (other than the hull which i already did to get the right UV orientation) and nothing's changed

[TobiichiOrigami 150]

18 hours ago, ItsTheGhost87 said:

unfortunately doesn't seem to work, tried deleting all the PublicParam settings in the .mtl (other than the hull which i already did to get the right UV orientation) and nothing's changed

I'm not sure, but I guess, i saw the red color changed to blue in the game, maybe is save.dds problem?