TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

User avatar
heymanjack
Apprentice
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:51 pm

TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by heymanjack »

You will need these programs/tools
1. Photoshop/GIMP (I will use photoshop in this tutorial)
2. umodel, extract.exe, decompress.exe by Gildor
3. ddsinjector 1.4
4. dds plugin for photoshop/gimp (I dunno if gimp supports dds editing natively but photoshop doesn't) https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-tex ... -photoshop

I will include my injustice modding folder so you can download it and you can be sure all tools have been tested.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7abzu ... +Tools.rar


IMPORTANT NOTE
ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR FILES


Tutorial
To make things more organized for me I place all my tools in a single folder. I call this folder "Injustice modding tools"

Image

Go to the injustice main directory and go to Assets, This is where most the game resources are available. DLC Characters and costumes are at the DLC folder

Image

Now this is where we will choose what character to edit. In this tutorial we will edit superman

All character skins or whathaveyous are prefixed with CHAR in the file name. So we will look for Char_superman.xxx. You will notice there are some files with _superman_A. This means this is an alternate costume of superman

Copy Char_superman.xxx

Image

Go back to your injustice modding folder and go to umodel and paste it there

Drag char_superman into extract_xxx.bat

Image

You will see a new folder created in the folder named CHAR_Superman. Open it and go to texture2D. This is where all the textures of Superman are found. You can edit all of this to your liking. We will edit the Superman_diff.dds in this tutorial.

Image

Open it in photoshop. Now edit it to your liking. I will add a pink mustache to superman.

Save it as a dds dxt5 file and place it on the ddsinjector folder ( I usually "save as" so I have a backup dds file of the original)

Image
Image
Image

Now copy the CHAR_Superman file in umodel to the main injustice modding directory to where the decompress and extract.exe are. Drag the CHAR_Superman.xxx to decompress.exe

Image

You will see a new folder called "unpacked". Open it and you will see a new Char_superman.xxx It will be bigger than the original char_superman in filesize. Take it and place it in the main injustice modding folder, overwriting the original

Image

Grab the new char_superman and drag it to extract.exe.

Image

You will see a new CHAR_Superman folder. Open it and go to textures and look for Superman_diff.texture2D. Notice it has the same filename as the dds file we edited.

Copy that file and paste it to the ddsinject folder where we placed our edited superman_diff.dds. Take the Char_superman.xxx file in the main injustice modding folder and place it in the ddsinject folder as well. Your dds folder should look like this.

Image

Open run.bat. Type in the name of the xxx file namely Char_superman WITHOUT the .xxx. IT should look like this.

Image

Now type in the name of the dds file we edited WITHOUT the .dds. It should look like this

Image

Now type /exit

NOW WE ARE DONE MODDING! Copy the Char_superman.xxx in ddsinject folder and place it in the assets folder in the injustice folder. Make sure you backup the original file. Test it out in the game and see how it looks!

Image


User avatar
Newmodder
Mortal
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:36 am

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by Newmodder »

Awesome tutorial.Worked on the 1st attempt.Great work :)
Thanks for sharing*
Nothing special here,it's just a signature]
User avatar
Gambid
Elder God
Posts: 8669
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2003 4:17 pm
Side: Light
XBox Live: ArmoredGambid
Location: Bulgaria, Germany
Contact:

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by Gambid »

Great tutorial. Could you please attach the images to the post, so that they never get deleted.
I Rule This World!

Image

By the unholy darkness that consumes me, I will have the Earthrealm.

Mortal Kombat Secrets Founder and Webmaster
User avatar
a.martin
God
Posts: 1163
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:36 pm
PSN: -
XBox Live: -
Location: Argentina

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by a.martin »

I'm happy to say that I've made it! I made my own Mod of the Luchador Skin of Bane :D but because it's a DLC skin and it's not on the Asset Folder with most of the skins I haven't actually managed to get it in game.. Because of it's many folders, the "EUasset", "JAasset" and the "USasset"..
I know I have to practice a lot before get it right but at least i managed to get it in photoshop... and i wanted to thank to this community and Heymanjack for the post and the tools all in one!
Attachments
it would look like this. and without the peñadura word on his chest.
it would look like this. and without the peñadura word on his chest.
check out the work on photoshop
check out the work on photoshop
User avatar
heymanjack
Apprentice
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:51 pm

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by heymanjack »

a.martin wrote:I'm happy to say that I've made it! I made my own Mod of the Luchador Skin of Bane :D but because it's a DLC skin and it's not on the Asset Folder with most of the skins I haven't actually managed to get it in game.. Because of it's many folders, the "EUasset", "JAasset" and the "USasset"..
I know I have to practice a lot before get it right but at least i managed to get it in photoshop... and i wanted to thank to this community and Heymanjack for the post and the tools all in one!
Just place it in the dlc folder. Where you found the original files. DLC costumes go into the dlc folders. Placing it on EU, JP, US depending on the version of your game. If you're unsure place it on every folder.
User avatar
a.martin
God
Posts: 1163
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:36 pm
PSN: -
XBox Live: -
Location: Argentina

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by a.martin »

I've put it inside the 3 folders, and amazingly didn't work, :( but i'll keep trying :) thanks for the advice :D
User avatar
a.martin
God
Posts: 1163
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:36 pm
PSN: -
XBox Live: -
Location: Argentina

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by a.martin »

OH yeah! Nailed it! when I restarted my PC and played Injustice the mod worked.

thanks Heymanjack for your support
Attachments
bane mod 2.png
bane mod 3.png
bane mod 4.png
User avatar
shaowebb
Mortal
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:13 pm
XBox Live: dynasty penguin

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by shaowebb »

Having a bit of trouble loading Raven's "Raven_diff.texture 2d" file into photoshop. I grabbed the nvidia DDS thing and if I try to open the texture 2d with open it says "wrong file type" and if I try to open it with open as .dds it says "File format module cannot parse the file".

First time trying to get a texture2d file to load into photoshop and I dont have any .dds versions of anything in the folder I extracted yet so if anyone can help me figure out how to get this loaded or converted to .dds to load it that would help a lot. Looking forward to this mod project.
UPDATE!
Image

Also on a sidenote if anyone knows what the model file itself is named and where its located I'm still trying to locate it so I can see if I can edit it. I dont see any .obj or similar formats Im familiar with here so if you know anything about this stuff I'm all new to it so Im more than open to reading anything you can shoot at me.

Thanks guys. Glad we got code dude's like you all in the community who work at stuff like this.
User avatar
shaowebb
Mortal
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:13 pm
XBox Live: dynasty penguin

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by shaowebb »

Just finished a test run that was quick and dirty with Sinestro. Just a quick color swap and addition of a White Lantern logo and then recombined the files according to the tutorial just to see if I'm doing skin mods right. Anyone willing to take this file and test it on their PC copy and post the results for me? Im wanting to make sure Im getting this right before I actually do any real paint changes or model work.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/rkpct ... nestro.xxx

UPDATE:
Someone on Neogaf installed my file and this was the result. Any idea what could have happened here as all I did was a quick color swap and add a logo to areas of the Sinestro_Diff.dds file.

http://i.imgur.com/V8rW9fS.png
Last edited by shaowebb on Sat Dec 07, 2013 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
rizzn
Apprentice
Posts: 122
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:07 am
Side: Darkness
PSN: rizzn1
Location: GER

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by rizzn »

shaowebb wrote:UPDATE:
Someone on Neogaf installed my file and this was the result. Any idea what could have happened here as all I did was a quick color swap and add a logo to areas of the Sinestro_Diff.dds file.
How did you save the .dds? Just by pressing CTRL+S? I don't know if the program uses the right settings if you save it this way. Try by saving it with "Save as..." and a popup should appear where you can adjust your settings.

Use this settings:
dds.jpg
//EDIT:
Btw. I checked your character file and it seems your software is not saving it correctly. On the right it's the original texture, left is what I got after extracting the modified char file with umodel.
sinestro.jpg
Image Image Image
User avatar
shaowebb
Mortal
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:13 pm
XBox Live: dynasty penguin

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by shaowebb »

rizzn wrote:
shaowebb wrote:UPDATE:
Someone on Neogaf installed my file and this was the result. Any idea what could have happened here as all I did was a quick color swap and add a logo to areas of the Sinestro_Diff.dds file.
How did you save the .dds? Just by pressing CTRL+S? I don't know if the program uses the right settings if you save it this way. Try by saving it with "Save as..." and a popup should appear where you can adjust your settings.

Use this settings:
dds.jpg
//EDIT:
Btw. I checked your character file and it seems your software is not saving it correctly. On the right it's the original texture, left is what I got after extracting the modified char file with umodel.
sinestro.jpg
Ugh...yeah thats not how it was when I saved it. I did just do the quick and dirty "add white and a logo" thing to test this, but I didn't have two sets of textures and they werent' squashed like that. Looks like a UV map fractal ?_?


Any idea what might be the issue and how to fix it or is the best guess just try save as and double check my settings?
User avatar
rizzn
Apprentice
Posts: 122
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:07 am
Side: Darkness
PSN: rizzn1
Location: GER

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by rizzn »

shaowebb wrote:Any idea what might be the issue and how to fix it or is the best guess just try save as and double check my settings?
I don't know exactly why this happened to the texture, but you could do another try on saving it with the settings above. I just extracted the textures of the .xxx archive. So you can check this bug yourself with using umodel for it.

If you want your char tested ingame just post the link or send me a pm and I will check it. :)
Image Image Image
User avatar
shaowebb
Mortal
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:13 pm
XBox Live: dynasty penguin

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by shaowebb »

They put the game on sale for PC today so I hit it even though its tight.

Successful test!
I got the PC edition even though its tight on cash and I tested the save format advice.

Image

Odd thing is that I had also added a new logo over Sinestro's old one for the white lantern symbol yet it still shows the old logo's design. This makes me think that the Specular map that I didn't change on the file may have something to do with that so logo changes and such may take some work. Anyone got any other ideas why only the color changes but not the editted symbol?

EDIT: Image
Looks like I only editted the one _Diff map and that I'll need to edit some other maps as well. Just the specular map you think?

Also how do I set this up once Im done so that I can just drag and drop it into the DLC folder to use as a new alt outfit instead of dragging it into the Assets folder to replace my original?
User avatar
KingKRool2002
Warrior
Posts: 151
Joined: Sat Nov 30, 2013 11:08 pm
Side: Darkness

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by KingKRool2002 »

Can someone explain where the different parts of the body are in the <character>_Diff.dds image file? I figured out where the head is and where the hands are, but I can't figure out where the rest of the body parts are in the image (i.e. arms, legs, feet, chest, stomach, etc.).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to draw symbols & other things on the characters' costumes, but I have no idea where on the image file I need to draw. I've tried randomly coloring sections, but I still haven't been able to see any changes in the costume's area for most of the body/costume parts.

Also, what exactly are the transparent parts of the .dds image (the parts with black and grey/white little squares everywhere)? Am I supposed to color those areas too? When I try to color one of these areas, it ends up coloring all transparent areas (instead of just the one I tried coloring). BTW, I use the paint bucket to color an area and then I use the pencil to get rid of any missed spots.
User avatar
shaowebb
Mortal
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:13 pm
XBox Live: dynasty penguin

Re: TUTORIAL: How to make your own skin mods

Post by shaowebb »

KingKRool2002 wrote:Can someone explain where the different parts of the body are in the <character>_Diff.dds image file? I figured out where the head is and where the hands are, but I can't figure out where the rest of the body parts are in the image (i.e. arms, legs, feet, chest, stomach, etc.).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to draw symbols & other things on the characters' costumes, but I have no idea where on the image file I need to draw. I've tried randomly coloring sections, but I still haven't been able to see any changes in the costume's area for most of the body/costume parts.

Also, what exactly are the transparent parts of the .dds image (the parts with black and grey/white little squares everywhere)? Am I supposed to color those areas too? When I try to color one of these areas, it ends up coloring all transparent areas (instead of just the one I tried coloring). BTW, I use the paint bucket to color an area and then I use the pencil to get rid of any missed spots.
Paint...bucket?

Oh lord let met tell you some much easier methods. If you use photoshop these are your go to methods of editting colors if you just want a really quick color change. For all of these methods take either the polygonal lasso or marqee tools to select JUST the area you wish to adjust. You can hold down shift to select multiple areas with the marquee tool by drawing a marquee over one area then holding shift and dragging to select a bit more elsewhere. CTRL +D to deselect.

METHOD 1 BLACK AND WHITE(good for making a color white)
Image
Go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>BLACK AND WHITE
What you see is a bunch of channels that say REDS, YELLOWS, GREENS, CYANS, BLUES, MAGENTAS
What you can do is select an area that is a certain color (for me the entire chest of Sinestro that is mainly yellow and also has some blacks). You can then go to those slide bars and make all the shades of those colors either more black or desaturate them to make them white. If an area is a shade thats a combination of those colors (Sinestro's face is made of both reds and magentas) you can adjust the sliders on multiple colors to take all the shades found in that area and make them white or black.

The nice thing about this is that it leaves areas that are not the color you are adjusting untouched. In one slide of the Yellow slider I made a White Lantern out of Sinestro without hurting ANY of the other parts of his outfit's colors.

METHOD 2 HUE SATURATION(Good for LARGE color changes not for making white or black changes)
Image
Go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>HUE SATURATION
What you will see is some sliders for hue, saturation, and lightness.
Hue changes the colors of the area to another shade on the spectrum, Saturation makes the colors more faded looking or more bright like a cartoon, and lightness makes them either lighter or darker.

Remember that hue saturation does NOT leave any colors in the selected area untouched like Black/White did...if you max out the lightness you will suddenly have a completely white or black block where you used to have details. However, if you want to completely change all the colors in and area adjust the saturation or hues until you get the new shade you are looking for.

Also of note is that it will change all colors. So if you have selected a red and a blue area at the same time and move the hue slider one will slide towards the color nearest it on the spectrum and the other will slide towards whatever is closest to it on the spectrum...they wont both turn orange just because you tried to make the red into an orange. If you want to make them both do that you can click the COLORIZE checkbox in the bottom right of that window to make everything selected monochromatic first so that everything selected will be composed of the same base hues of whatever hue is selected. Then you can just play the slider back and forth to make the suit red. For example I could select all of Superman, click colorize and he'd be in an all red suit with his logos and such still intact...just red. I could then adjust the whole suit's hue/saturation to make him into whatever monochrome color I wanted. I figure this might help for flash fans and such.

METHOD 3 COLOR BALANCE (like Hue Saturation but with FAR more control)
Go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>COLOR BALANCE

Image
This takes longer than Hue Saturation adjusting would but offers more control. Essentially you will see a window with 3 sliders for color adjustments and the option to mess with midtones, highlights and shadows.

Ever see a Black suit but when the light hit it the highlights on it were purple? or Bluish? or reddish? Thats what this does. You see this is like car paints...it recognizes colors as layered and you can adjust them that way. Make your shadows fall off into dark purples and have your base tone as bright light blue with a highlight of darker blues or something to make a suit look like it has a glowing blue fire tone to its colors. This gives you a LOT more control over color and such, but it takes the longest to tweak as you have so many areas of seperate control that if you go in blind you might take awhile. Best to think of something like (red and yellow fire) or(Holoflash purples and bright greens bleeding into each other) or something before going in. My example has yellow midtones with green shadows and highlights.

METHOD 4 EXPOSURE (Only used for making colors in place either look like they glow more or are more cartoonish in contrast)
Image
Go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>EXPOSURE
You will see 3 options...Exposure, Offset, Gamma Correction
Think of this as messing with the lighting in a photostudio.
Exposure makes your colors look like they are more or less lit. This allows you to make someone look like they are glowing or shadowy no matter what colors they are made of.
Offset will make shadows deeper or more gray. Think of an old batman comic...the shadows are black as hell and have SUPER contrast everywhere they lay but in real life shadows dont immediately fall off so darkly and tend to transition through grays. Well with this tool you can say to hell with that and make your colors look more comic book-like. They work best though if you only make small adjustments though and generally after increasing either the exposure or gamma correction slightly first.
Gamma Correction is tricky to explain...it will try to make your dark colors and light colors blend into the color nearest them. If you move it one way it will try to darken the colors more and blend them using darker tones...the other way uses lighter ones. How is this useful? Cel shading. You can pull the offset down, the gamma correction down and then turn exposure up and BAM you now have lines and colors that look more like UMVC3 or JOJO than Injustice with just a few tweaks. It wont outline your character model like true celshading but by God it will make them pop like a comic book character. In other words you can make existing shadow textures creep further into the texture or further out without having to paint more shadows and if you play with the other settings it makes crazy awesome comic book stuff.

DO NOT USE PAINT UNLESS YOU WANT TO GO CRAZY.

Also METHOD 5 BLEND MODES
Image
Select an area on the texture map, add a layer, fill the selected area with the paint bucket. Now on the layer bar notice where it says "NORMAL"...thats the layers blend mode. Set it to screen or multiply either lighten or darkent the layer underneath it with the color you chose. You can also adjust the opacity of that layer to your desire. If you paint on a low opacity and flow setting and add strokes on top of strokes with it set to SCREEN you can paint light onto it like fire. You can take this whole layer and scroll through hues and saturation to taste and when done just select the texture layer and this layer and right click select MERGE LAYERS to add the effect permanently to the texture map before saving it as a .dds

In my example, I have my brush settings at the top on Flow 40% and Opacity 50% and I had a color of red to start with using a layer set to Screen. I brushed on 2 strokes of red directly on top of each other and the red lighting effect got more vibrant the more "coats" of paint I put down. Then I brushed 3 strokes of a schoolbuss yellow color on the reds in a small area and it created a transition of red into yellow light like fire. Finally I put down like 6 strokes of a very small almost white color in the core of the yellow to make the brightest spot of the yellow lighting. You can get a LOT of very high end detaling done this way.

There are a lot more blend modes in there so feel free to experiment in them and see if they do anything you like. Theres too many for me to bother going into really besides the main two of multiply/screen though lighten/darken are also really good.

Enjoy. Ask photoshop questions if you want tips on stuff.
Post Reply

Return to “Injustice: Gods Among Us PC Tutorials and Discussions”