RaptorRed's Skinning Tutorial Using Winrez

1. Programs
There are a number of programs you need to be able to skin.

WinRez http://www.blackangel-software.com/Tools/WinRez.html
WinRez Drag and Drop DLL (if winrez wont let you drag and drop files) Dtx.zip
AVP2 Toolkit (update optional) http://www.sierra.com/file_list.do?gamePlatformId=2
Paint Program such as adobe photoshop, jasc paint shop pro, etc.. any paint program that supports pcx and or tga

Get and install all these programs, the avp2 toolkit will usually default install into your avp2 folder, and it will create a folder called Tools in there. That is where you will find Dedit.
2. Setting up project
Run Dedit.
Go to File/ New Project
Where it says Project0, change that to whatever name you want, helps if its the name of or descriptive of the skin.



You will get an error about not being able to find class nodule object.dll but ignore it and press ok.

Do NOT create a new world.
There will now be a new folder created in your
C:\Program Files\Fox\Aliens vs. Predator 2\Tools directory, in this case, called TutorialSkin

Go into it, then into the folder called Textures so that you are in
C:\Program Files\Fox\Aliens vs. Predator 2\Tools\TutorialSkin\Textures



3. Getting the files out of the game with Winrez and Dedit
Now run WinRez.
Go File/Open/ and find AVP2.rez in
C:\Program Files\Fox\Aliens vs. Predator 2\

For a basic skin, go to Skins/Characters/ then choose the species you want, for this tutorial I will get the standard predator.

The standard predator has 4 NPC or 3rd person texture files

predator_arms.DTX
predator_head.DTX
predator_legs.DTX
predator_torso.DTX

Select the files you want, and drag and drop them to the textures folder shown in the last step. If you get an error or WinRez won't let you drag and drop, then get the DLL in the programs section, and unzip it to the WinRez folder which should fix the problem.

There are 2 "parts" to a skin, first is the NPC (non player character) which is the character from 3rd person

The 2nd part is the HUD or heads up display. Basically what you see when you are that character, in first person. Hands and weapons.

The HUD textures are stored in WinRez under Skins/Weapons/ then the species, so for standard predator its

Skins/Weapons/Predator

pLeftHand_Pred.DTX
pRightHand_Pred.DTX


NPC

HUD

Now go back to Dedit, and reopen your project so it refreshes, it should have a quick link to it in the recent files section.

Go to the textures tab, and in the top box, click on Textures once and the 4 DTX files should show up in the 2nd box down.

Highlight them all, right click and choose Export as TGA. It asks if you want to save as PCX, hit yes, though it will save as TGA anyways. Now there are 4 TGA files in your textures folder. You can now open these in your paint program.ç



4. Creating the actual skin/texture
While I have had many people ask me how to actually draw the skin, I cannot answer this. This part of skinning is art. You must use your own creativity and knowledge for this. Search information on your paint program and how to make textures online. This part of skinning just takes practice to get good at.
With most of the textures, its trial and error, or recognization but ill put some basic markers for the predator textures. These are the NPC textures

Top Left predator_arms.DTX
Top Right predator_head.DTX
Bottom Left predator_legs.DTX
Bottom Right predator_torso.DTX

These are the 2 standard predator HUD textures.

Left pLeftHand_pred_pv.DTX
Right pRightHand_pred_pv.DTX

Aliens have 3 HUD textures each, except for predalien which only has 2.

There are only 2 human HUD hand textures in all,

mHands_White_pv.DTX and mHands_Black_pv.DTX

For multiplayer, all humans use the first one except Jones who uses the black hands.




Once you finish colouring/textureing these files to your liking, save them as pcx files. I save them as pcx because I get an error when attempting to re-import as tga. Save the files to the same textures folder.

Make sure they have the same name as when they were tga files, for example

pLeftHand_pred_pv.tga, save it as pLeftHand_pred_pv.pcx

5. Importing files back into Dedit and compression
Now go back to Dedit.
In the 2nd box, right click and choose Import PCX.

It will ask if you want to write over the existing, hit yes for each texture.

Now, most likely, you will see 2 of each texture in that box, just reopen the project again as shown in the picture on the far right.

Then click where it says textures in the the top box to have them show up in the 2nd.



Now for a very important part. If you do not follow this next step, you will have a skin that sometimes goes invisible in the game.

Highlight all the textures in the 2nd box, right click and choose texture properties.

Under the compression area, it will most likely be set to 32-bit.

You will want to switch this to the 8X compression as shown here.

Then just hit ok, it might take a minute to compress but you will know when its done. Now you can close Dedit and WinRez.

6. Creating your rez file
Ok for much of this part, you have to learn the file paths in AVP2.Rez. Its always handy to either write the paths down when you start, or have a second WinRez running with AVP2.Rez open in it. Each DTX file you have edited will now have to go in the same path in a NEW rez file.

In WinRez, go to File/ New/ Rez File.
Right click on the untitled, and insert empty folder.
Click where it says New Folder and right click, rename and call it Skins.
Right click again on Skins, and insert empty folder.
Right click on the New Folder, and rename to Characters.
Right click again on Characters, and insert empty folder.
Right click on the New Folder, and Predator.

You can create the folders in this way for whichever you need, this is set up for any predator NPC textures. If you want to add weapon or HUD skins as well to this rez, after you do that, right click on Skins again, insert empty folders and rename until you have Skins/Weapons/Predator.

Now click on the predator folder under Characters, go to your textures folder, and drag and drop the 4 NPC DTX files in to the predator folder in WinRez.


Do the same with the 2 HUD DTX files but put them into the predator folder under Weapons.



Now Save As.
Save it to the folder
C:\Program Files\Fox\Aliens vs. Predator 2\Custom

Call the rez whatever you want, but preferably the skin's name for future reference. And the smaller the name the better, don't go off with a huge long name, that will just take up room in the command line.





. Running your rez file in the game
You are now ready to test your skin in the game. Now most people by now SHOULD know how to use a skin, there are some out there who don't. I get asked this quite a bit still. So here it is....

First thing you do is to get the name of your rez. If you called saved it as, for example, TutorialSkin.Rez, thats what you need to know for the command line.

When you put the AVP2 cd in or run the game if it's already in, the splash screen comes up. Don't hurry off and hit play yet.

Go to Options.

First check off always specify these command-line parameters.

In the command line you type -rez Custom/skinname.rez

So in this case, its -rez Custom/tutorialskin.rez

Letter case does not matter here.

If you want to use multiple rez's at the same time, all you do is add a space between each one. There is a limit, but it's somewhere between 6 and 12, I think it has to do with character amount in the line rather than with actual amount of rez files. Then just hit ok, and play and your skins will now be in game.




8. Additional
By -=Raptor=-Jinzo

If anyone has any questions, justcontact me

email : espigasco@hotmail.com
msn : espigasco@hotmail.com