Reskinning Parts

[XLjedi]

Taking a step back from the "Basic Parts" tutorial which makes the assumption that I wish to add new parts...

Is anyone else doing anything with just painting the existing parts by modifying the .dde texture files?

It seems apparent to me that I'm coloring something (a texture file) maybe not meant to be colored?  ...and wondering if I'm taking the wrong approach or if this is frowned upon as infringing on other people's work?  I like to work with the stock parts... but had this idea for a cute Green Cherubs flight team and just had to paint them accordingly.

I would like to release a mod for my Green Cherubs flight team which is basically just repainting the stock parts, but I also don't want to offend the Squad devs and/or original authors (PorkJet, NovaSilisko) by releasing a mod that is just their parts with a painted .dde file. 

Any thoughts?   I have not tried to reverse-engineer my way back thru Unity by attempting to reload a .mu file, not even sure if that's possible?  Anyone know if the underlying parts already allow for a base color layer?  ...if I could get the mesh outline of the part file that would be wonderful.

My preference would be to have a clean color map layer for livery and leave the texture file either untouched or maybe polished up a bit for a glossier airshow finish.

This is basically what I'm doing:

 

 

[wasml]

I haven't looked at this mod closely but I think Ven is doing something like you describe

 

[Benjamin Kerman]

I personally have released a mod that at the moment uses stock parts and textures with new cfg files. It appears that @Ven is doing a similar thing with editing the dds files and releasing them as new parts. 

[XLjedi]

17 hours ago, wasml said:

I haven't looked at this mod closely but I think Ven is doing something like you describe

 

This looks promising!  ...I can't get to the linked files at the moment, but will check them out this evening.

[Randazzo]

The approach Ven takes has always struck me as prohibitively complex. I don't think I could manage to keep everything sorted the way he does, and I would suggest something much simpler to start out with.

If you're only swapping textures, that could be done with Module Manager patches. The only issue that comes to mind is that you might run into parts using the "mesh = something.mu" line, which would have to be deleted and replaced with a full MODEL node.

You can familiarize yourself with some of the basics of Module Manager here: https://github.com/sarbian/ModuleManager/wiki

And some potentially applicable threads:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/155956-solved-model-does-not-exist/

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/154008-solved-all-models-are-the-same/

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/143324-need-a-tiny-bit-of-help-getting-started/

Those are threads I can find easily in my own history, there are more out there if you're willing to dig through the mud.

P.S. I'm not saying you can't do things like Ven, just that his level would be an endgoal rather than a starting point.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Randazzo

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi, of course module manager is the way to go especially in the beginning,  a nice easy to follow example has just been released that does pretty much the same as you'd like to do, but in decidedly un stockalike paint scheme.  In fact it'd be pretty much replace the included textures with your updated ones change a texture name or 244 and off you go

 

[XLjedi]

I'll look into the various methods... 

As you can see from my referenced thread, I already went down the path of repainting the texture files, so that's fairly basic and I've built and skinned models for other games before, so not starting entirely at ground zero.  So far, I only went the extra step of duplicating the stock parts and modifying the associated config files so my green parts showed up seperately from the stock unpainted parts.  

Ven was nice enough to make all his .blend part files and .xcf files for the textures available.  I may dig through these a bit and see if the stockalike approach would warrant repainting the parts.  Nice thing about having the .blend files is I can unzip them in different ways if needed.  Not all of the stock parts would easily lend themselves to a single racing stripe for instance.

These are all very helpful comments...  I'll definitely take a look at mod manager to see what all it does exactly.

Edited April 18, 2017 by XLjedi

[dboi88]

On 4/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, XLjedi said:

Is anyone else doing anything with just painting the existing parts by modifying the .dde texture files?

Yes

 

On 4/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, XLjedi said:

Any thoughts?   I have not tried to reverse-engineer my way back thru Unity by attempting to reload a .mu file, not even sure if that's possible? 

Yes you can import a mu in plender using the mu plugin

 

On 4/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, XLjedi said:

Anyone know if the underlying parts already allow for a base color layer? 

No, there would have been the original source files that will have all the layers but you won't find those ever being released for stock parts, so you can only edit the texture 'on-top' of the oringal.

On 4/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, XLjedi said:

My preference would be to have a clean color map layer for livery and leave the texture file either untouched or maybe polished up a bit for a glossier airshow finish.

You will need to make this yourself, my advice would be to start as you have now, then try recreating the textures yourself playing around with brushes to try and get the same details, and basically learn to texture. It's how most people start. Btw using color layers/masks and blend options in gimp or photoshop you could probably achieve exactly what you want.

On 4/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, XLjedi said:

This is basically what I'm doing:

 

That's cool!, keep it up.

[XLjedi]

42 minutes ago, dboi88 said:

No, there would have been the original source files that will have all the layers but you won't find those ever being released for stock parts, so you can only edit the texture 'on-top' of the oringal.

You will need to make this yourself, my advice would be to start as you have now, then try recreating the textures yourself playing around with brushes to try and get the same details, and basically learn to texture. It's how most people start. Btw using color layers/masks and blend options in gimp or photoshop you could probably achieve exactly what you want.

That's basically what I did...  thankfully the existing texture files are using a grayscale (mostly white) with an alpha channel and I could not have asked for a better starting point.  It's exactly what I would've tried to create if the parts were painted different colors.   I haven't quite fully grasped how exactly the alpha layer translates onto the model... I think it gives it a slightly dull/matte finish, but will have to tinker with it a bit if no explanations exist.

I noticed some stock parts had at least 2 dde files and one of them was clearly intended to be a bump map; so I left that one alone and it continues to work exactly as it did before.  This led to me wonder about the other texture file with the alpha channel and whether or not I was drawing directly on what was intended to be a matte finish overlay.

Sometimes devs are nice enough to post the wireframe image of the dde texture file so I don't have to waste time trying to guess where the black interior part of an air intake might be located.  The small retract landing gear texture file has been particularly bewildering.

That .mu plugin for blender may be perfect if it brings in the model mesh with the texture file mapping...  then I can generate my own wireframes as GIMP layers.

 

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 0:12 PM, Benjamin Kerman said:

I personally have released a mod that at the moment uses stock parts and textures with new cfg files. It appears that @Ven is doing a similar thing with editing the dds files and releasing them as new parts. 

I'd like to have my parts in their own folder...  how did you manage your parts in your mod?  Do you just use the existing categories?  I wanted it to be easy to hide my green/yellow parts in the SPH/VAB editors.

Edited April 18, 2017 by XLjedi

[Benjamin Kerman]

That would require something that I don't know how to do. Try asking @NecroBones how he does it for SpaceY.

[dboi88]

8 hours ago, XLjedi said:

That's basically what I did...  thankfully the existing texture files are using a grayscale (mostly white) with an alpha channel and I could not have asked for a better starting point.  It's exactly what I would've tried to create if the parts were painted different colors.   I haven't quite fully grasped how exactly the alpha layer translates onto the model... I think it gives it a slightly dull/matte finish, but will have to tinker with it a bit if no explanations exist.

The alpha channel is the spec map, and you are on the right path, it determines how shiny the surface is, white shiny, black matte. 

8 hours ago, XLjedi said:

I noticed some stock parts had at least 2 dde files and one of them was clearly intended to be a bump map; so I left that one alone and it continues to work exactly as it did before.  This led to me wonder about the other texture file with the alpha channel and whether or not I was drawing directly on what was intended to be a matte finish overlay.

That's a normal map rather than a bump map. A bump map is a height map, and is what you use to create a normal map. You wouldn't want to try and edit it directly, you would want to recreate the bump map and create a new normal map but if you are only 'painting' the part a different colour the bump map should remain the same. So i'd just stick to editing the RGB channels and leave the A alone, maybe if you put a decal on there you could add the decal to the alpha channel to make the decal be shiny/dull.