[General] Custom Skin = Custom Models without replacement of skin?

[NRG]

Hi, this is a simple question to which I dont know the answer.

Is it possible to use a custom skin that will replace one unit while keeping the orgininal units skin. So for example I might want to use a custom skin to basically create a different looking Naga Royal Guard, but I also want to keep the original, so I create a custom model which is identical. Is it possible to get the custom skin to only replace the custom unit?

 

[Chaosy]

i dont use skins anymore for that reason i did not find out how to only replace the custom units so i think you cant

 

[NRG]

Its a shame if it really cant be done because some skins are fantastic and would make perfect additions to a map alongside their standard counterparts.

 

[Tirlititi]

The destructables have a field to choose 1 replaceable texture but the units doesn't .

For what I know, the lightess way to have 2 skins for a model is to use a TextureAnimation in the model so it changes its skin by itself. However, you'll have to copy/paste all the animations because 2 different animations can't share the same frames.

To make it clear :
You copy/paste all the model's frames and animations so you have all the animations twice (I never used AnimTransfer but it may help for that),
You add a tag to the copied animations, such as "alternate",
You add a TextureAnimation that uses the original texture for the copied animations and the modified texture for the others.
And you use the tag in the editor to choose which texture you want.

It's not very complicated but it's damn boring. One should make a tool to automatize it.
Also, the size saved this way is not so good... It's saves mainly the vertices size.

It would be so much simple if Blizz' made a replaceable texture system for units as they did for destructables :s.

 

[Garfield1337]

• Extract model and it's portait with http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools-560/warcraft-iii-viewer-62878/
• convert it to mdl using http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools-560/mdlx-converter-62991/
• put the skin and the model with .mdl extension in same folder
• open the model with http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools-560/war3-model-editor-62876/
• import the skin to texture manager
• open material manager, check which materials use the skin you want replaced, replace it with the one you imported to texture manager and then delete the original skin in texture manager
• save model and convert it back to .mdx
• import model to map.

Do it for both the model and it's portrait.
I can do it for you if you want, just tell me which model and skin.

 

[NRG]

I might be able to do it with those instructions actually. I should really learn to since once I know how to do it, it will open up all kinds creative opportunities. I might take you up on that offer Garfield1337 but It would be easily more than one so I think it would be best if I learned how to do it. Following your instructions I downloaded the WarIII Viewer and the MDLX Converter. However, the model I want to use and the skin I want to replace it with is a Naga Royal Guard with 67chrome's 'Naga MyrmidonWow' skin. Is it possible to export a preset skin? If so, how?

 

[Garfield1337]

I might be able to do it with those instructions actually. I should really learn to since once I know how to do it, it will open up all kinds creative opportunities. I might take you up on that offer Garfield1337 but It would be easily more than one so I think it would be best if I learned how to do it. Following your instructions I downloaded the WarIII Viewer and the MDLX Converter. However, the model I want to use and the skin I want to replace it with is a Naga Royal Guard with 67chrome's 'Naga MyrmidonWow' skin. Is it possible to export a preset skin? If so, how?

Why would you export a skin? You should export Naga royal guard model and give it custom skin then import this model into your map. Then you'll have the original Naga royal guard in game as well as the imported one with custom skin.
Though i think you can export a skin by opening the model in model editor and extracting skin from texture manager.

 

[NRG]

Sorry, I meant a preset model. How do I export the Naga Royal Guard model and its portrait?

 

[Garfield1337]

Open Warcraft 3 Viewer, if a "treeview" window appears, just find Naga Royal Guard in it then right click on model and portait and click Extract MDX.
If there's no treeview window opened, then either it's not shown (which you can enable by clicking View > Treeview window) or the mpq isn't loaded.
You can load mpq by going to File > Open MPQ then find the war3x.mpq and load it.

 

[NRG]

Ok so I managed to most of those steps then hit a snag. Used the Viever to get the Model and Portrait. Converted to mdl. Opened the model with the Model editor. Imported the skin. Then opened texture manager and then opened the materials manager which came up with 5 Materials with slightly varying numbers. How can I tell which materials use the skin I want to replace?

*Also the model is white and skinless when it appears in the Model editor, is that correct?

 

[Garfield1337]

Ok so I managed to most of those steps then hit a snag. Used the Viever to get the Model and Portrait. Converted to mdl. Opened the model with the Model editor. Imported the skin. Then opened texture manager and then opened the materials manager which came up with 5 Materials with slightly varying numbers. How can I tell which materials use the skin I want to replace?

*Also the model is white and skinless when it appears in the Model editor, is that correct?

In texture manager, if you double click a texture you can see how it looks like and thus you can see which you want replaced. In this case, it's only units\naga\NagaRoyalGuard...
When you're in material manager, double click materials, then double click each layer. You'll see what texture the layers use, if the texture is the one you want replaced (units\naga\nagaroyalguard...) change it to custom skin. Do this for each material and each layer.

Also the model is not supposed to be white and skinless
I've just opened it and it looked fine. The only cause i can think of is that you deleted some texture. Did you?

 

[NRG]

Tried it again and it still came out skinless and white, just the model without its skin. Deleted nothing, coverted the NagaRoyalGuard.mdx to NagaRoyalGuard.mdl, and its portrait. Opened it using the war3 model editor and it still comes up white and skinless. Fairly confused. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Garfield1337]

That's weird. Try to load the attached model in model editor, that one works for me.

 

[PurgeandFire]

There are a few guides on how to do this:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-282/how-make-one-model-use-many-skins-11119/

You don't necessarily have to convert it to .MDL unless you are going to manually edit the file in notepad. (described in the above link, first two posts) You can just open the .mdx and change the texture as it is.

You can also download MDX pather (see the third post in the link above) and use that method.

Good luck.

 

[NRG]

Issue solved everybody! Thankyou to Garfield1337 for the help and advice and thankyou to PurgeandFire111 for the link to the guide.

I tried the guide and it managed to work for me, hopefully will be able to do this again without a problem!

 

[NRG]

Actually. Issue not resolved. I can change the model skin. But the portrait didnt respond to the same process, how to fix that?