Author Topic: Standard Skinning Techniques  (Read 6433 times)

Offline MassimoV

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Standard Skinning Techniques
« on: February 18, 2013, 06:45:31 PM »
Standar Skinning Techniques (In Gimp)
       
        So you want to learn to skin punk, well do you? No problem cause I’ll take you through how to skin and make pretty bots.
       
        So the first thing you want to do is grab yourself a copy of Gimp 2.6 or Paint.net.  Both are free, but I’ll be using Gimp for the tutorial. MS paint is an option but it limits what you can do due to lack of alpha channels.
     
        Ok, to start, get your robot built and click the export robot button at the bottom of the paint screen.  If you did work in the paint tab, click the export chassis texture instead of template box.  Now you can leave RA2.
       
        Go to the custom textures folder.  Right click on the template and open it with Gimp. If you just want a simple texture, just copy and paste (under the edit tab after right clicking) the texture over the outlined area and save what you have.  Go back into RA2 and import the texture and bam, you’re done.  If you want to be fancy, you’re going to have to resize your image.  Go under the image tab and select resize image.  If you want a lexan skin, size it to 512x512 pixels.  Usually you want a 1024x1024 pixel skin though.  In theory you could do a 2048x2048 or 4096x4096 but both are ludicrous.  Now that you have it resized.  Select the magic wand tool.  Now go under the layer tab and select the “add alpha channel” button.  Now click on each side of the chassis template, including the green part, and hit delete.
       
       Then, go under the file tab and select “new” and set the dimensions to the image size you have now.  Put the texture you want everywhere, leaving no white.  Now copy and paste the original template over the texture.  For only certain sides to have that texture, just select the side you want and hit delete.
If you want a name logo, find a spot where you can get a logo (I use dafont.com).  Hit the print screen and open up a new tab under Gimp.  Paste the image on the new canvas.  Select the select the wording and cut it out of the image. Hit ctrl+z a couple time so you have a blank canvas.  Paste the logo on to the canvas.  Next go under the colors tab and select color to alpha. It should already be set to white so just hit ok.  Select the logo and paste it onto the template.  You may need to go back and resize the logo, again by using resize canvas.
       
      Once you have changed the skins size, you can’t use the in game paint tools.  To use them, go into the texture library and navigate to what you want to use.  Open the image in Gimp and select what you’re going to use and paste it on your bot’s skin.  You may have to do some resizing of the image in its original state again by using the resize canvas tool just don’t save any change.
All that’s left to do is fire RA2 up and import the template, and there you’re done.  I hope this tutorial helped some new players.  Let me know if you’re confused in anyway and I’ll help.  Thanks for reading!

Offline Scrap Daddy

Re: Standard Skinning Techniques
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2013, 07:52:37 PM »
hmmm, i may do one on how i skin my bots.

Offline evgeshko

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Re: Standard Skinning Techniques
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2013, 07:30:01 AM »
I have a problem with paint my robots. When I resize my exported texture to 1024x1024 and then open it in my DSL 2.1, that's what comes out:

In botlab everything looks fine


But on the arena...

anyone else had similar problems?
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 08:48:00 AM by evgeshko »

Offline Conraaa

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Re: Standard Skinning Techniques
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2013, 08:01:54 AM »
Oh, this problem! The bane of my robot skinning attempts throughout the ages.

Not sure there's a surefire way to get rid of it, re import the skin? Make the empty space on the .bmp that isn't part of the chassis darker? I'm not too sure.

Offline 090901

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Re: Standard Skinning Techniques
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2013, 11:35:01 AM »

Not sure there's a surefire way to get rid of it, re import the skin? Make the empty space on the .bmp that isn't part of the chassis darker? I'm not too sure.


im talking about the skin glitch. like if you paint the background of the template to blue instead of red, it blends better and looks less sh**ty.