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Another one by Night.
I take no credit for anything posted in RF-Dev I did not create myself
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Figure since you guys are helping me out with a few things, Id give a little back and post my guide to basic texture editing. This was made about two weeks ago and posted on the forums of the server I play in. The only sites with rights to use this is Rf-dev.com and Rfpoa.com
I take no credit for anything posted in RF-Dev I did not create myself
______________________________
Figure since you guys are helping me out with a few things, Id give a little back and post my guide to basic texture editing. This was made about two weeks ago and posted on the forums of the server I play in. The only sites with rights to use this is Rf-dev.com and Rfpoa.com
Ohai! I happened to notice that the other threads on texturing are a little bit outdated, and somewhat hard to understand for beginners. So, I've decided to make a complete step by step guide, with screenshots included. I'll walk you through step by step on your first set of textures, which will be bellato male force 55 armors (sorry if this isnt what you want, but it will teach you how to do it). Lets begin!
Required downloads
Adobe Photoshop - This is an absolute requirement. There are some other programs you can texture with, but they all suck to be honest. You will need a registered copy of photoshop if you want to make high quality textures. You need to find your own copy. There are all sorts of illegal and legal methods to get one, and obviously I can't share a torrent of cracked PS on here. Just use google or demonoid.
RF Crypt Tools - This is a package of four applications that are used by dragging and dropping certain file types onto them in order to compress/decompress them. I will show you how to use this later, and yes, this is required.
Download link :You must be registered to see links
You must be registered to see links- Thanks for the rehost Sabo <3
C++ Runtime Environment - This is needed to allow Crypt Tools to work. Most computers already have this, but installing a new copy never hurts.
Download link :You must be registered to see links
Nvidia .dds Photoshop Plugin - This allows you to open and edit .dds file types in Photoshop. This is free from Nvidia.
Download link :You must be registered to see links
Or, if your really lazy, I .rar'ed the three files you need here, and I rapidshitted it. I dont have a premium account, so its probably not going to last long, but whatever. Just extract to wherever with WinRar. If you don't know what WinRar is, go google it, download it, then come back here. You will need it.
Download Link :You must be registered to see links
Guide
Step One : Location, Location, Location!
First thing is first, you will want to make a good, easy to access spot to do your work in. You will want to use a folder as close as possible to the root folder, as this will save you from errors later on, and it makes it generally easier to access. For me, I just have my texturing folder on C://Textures . Simple enough.
Step Two : Identification Please.
Find what you want to texture! Most textures are contained in .RFS files located with your RFOnline/Character/Player/Tex folder. The one you want for 55 armor is DarkT60.RFS. For the other level armor sets, youll need to experiment opening up the other files in that folder, as I can't recall the names by memory. Copy DarkT60.RFS or whatever file you are editing, and paste it into your texturing folder. At this point, you may also want to make real back ups of your textures. If you have the time and space, just copy your entire client. If your a cheapskate, copy your RFOnline/Character folder, but there are some things that we'll use later not in your character folder. Just remember to always make back ups of anything you edit, in case you duck it up somehow. You'll want to rename this copy something that will clearly indicate what it is, like "Originals".
Step Three : Powah Extraction!
Now that you have your .RFS file in your texturing folder, you need to decompress its contents into an editable .dds file. To do this, have your RF Crypt Tools in your texturing folder, and simply drag and drop the .RFS your using onto the RFS unpack application. A C++ box will pop up, and it will automatically extract all of the contained .RFT files into your texturing folder.
From here, you select the .RFT files that you want to edit. To find which ones you want to extract, you need to read each ones name. There is a rather simple formula that each is named with.
Names go like this B_A_U_M055FB
Blue is the piece, U for upper, H for helm, L for lower, S for shoe, and G for glove
Indicates race A,B, or C
Indicates type, FB for force, RB for range, WB for melee
The "M" Indicates that it is male. Female versions do not have an "F", they simply do not have any letter before 055.
Going by the formula, we can see the the files we want are BA(G through U)_M055FB.RFT. Select these five files with control+click, and drag and drop them onto RFT-DDS. They will decompress into editable .dds files.
Step Four : Editing skillz, I has them
Now were finally ready to edit our textures! Lets start with the gloves then, shall we? Open those suckers up with Photoshop. If this is the first time its loaded .dds files, it will ask you if you want to open an image with mip maps and a couple other things, just make sure its NOT set to open with mip maps, as the Nvidia plugin will generate new mip maps later. Now that your file is opened, it should look like this :
Now, theres a few methods you can do to recolor this, but this is what I do. Under Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, I select a certain color range I want to change. Since this is just an example to be made, Im not going to put a lot of time into this, its just a quick hue change. Just make sure you remember the levels that you change your hue of, as you will want to have a closely matching set of edits for your other armor pieces.
One drawback to this method is that occasionally you will change the color of areas that you dont want to color, such as skin. I will show you how to deselect certain areas with the lasso tool (or the magic wand, for the lazy asses out there - though this isn't always effective) in order to keep them from being recolored by a hue saturation. Simply select the magic wand or lasso tool on the left bar, and select the areas you wish to leave alone. Now, under the Select drop down, choose Inverse. This will select everything but the area you chose not to color. Open the hue/Saturation dialog, and follow the same steps as above.
That is the essential basics to editing the textures. There are many different skills and techniques you can use to get your desired texture. There are even ways to edit which areas glow with the level 55 aura, but Ill leave that up to you to find :smile:. You can use these methods to finish off the other five pieces of the set.
Step Five : How to put in game ???
Now that you've edited your textures, you need to get them working in game! First thing you gotta do is successfully save your .dds files. Under the file dropdown, select "Save as". Dont change the name, and choose to overwrite the existing file.
A new dialog box will open up with the Nvidia logo on it. This one is a bit tricky, as the needed options vary with each texture. For smaller size textures, you will need to save as 9 layers. For larger sized ones, you will need 10 layers. You will know the difference between the two sizes when you see them, the difference is blatantly obvious. Make sure the format is set to DXT5/ARGB8 , and the other options match what I have below.
Click save. Check to see if its been correctly saved by comparing the original filesize to the new filesize. If theyre the same, you did it right. To get these back to an usable format for the game, you simply drag and drop your .dds ont RFT-DDS (they all work both ways). You won't see anything happen, but dont worry, C++ just overwrote the existing .RFT's in your folder (if you still had them. If you didn't, it will make new .RFT's). Now you need to get it back into a .RFS format. Select ALL of the .RFTs in the folder, and drag and drop onto RFS Repack. It will compact it into a single .RFS. You can find this new .RFS named "PACKED.RFS". That is the file you want to stick back into your RFOnline/Character/Player/Tex folder, but first, it needs to be renamed "DARKT60.RFS". Once its been renamed, go ahead and shove the thing into your client folder, but make sure you have back ups before overwriting.
Step Six : WAT?! Matching Glows!?
Oh yes, you will need to match your glow files to your new set of textures as well. Luckily, this is much easier because you dont need to decompress/recompress anything - the .dds is sitting there raw in the RFOnline/Chef/Tex folder. The name you want for bellato is elec_05.dds. For accretia, it is elec_04.dds, and ammo_02.dds for coras. Bell and acc glow files look like a circle with lighting radiating out of them, while the cora looks like a reddish swirly cloud. Make back ups of these files now, in case you ever need it. Open your glow file, edit it to match colors with your armor or do whatever with it (Experiment! You can make cool effects by editing these!). Now all thats left is to save it. Follow the same directions as above They are saved in 9 layered DXT5/ARGB8.
Oh snap! I broke the 10,000 character limit!
Continued from step six: Some players will have their glows automatically patched over by the client. To fix this, useYou must be registered to see linkstool to change the files creation and modifcation date to the original files dates, which will keep it from being patched over.
Step Seven : Enjoi Your Nomz
Get in game and check out your new textures! Just start up your client, and take a look, get some screens, show it to your friends, whatever. Remember, this is just a basic tutorial to get beginners started, the really cool looking stuff has to be original, so get practicing, and make some cool poop.
Notes
New things will be edited into here as they come.
05/09/2009-
ephemera said:Weeeew, thanks a lot for the nice tut, night.
note:
If someone is experiencing, like i did, a photoshop-error, that the dds-format is not supported although you just installed the plug-in, this may help you:
If you are using a localised Photoshop version (means in your own language), the plug-ins folder may not be named in english "plug-ins", but what it's called in your own language (in my german version it's called "Zusatzmodule" ).
The nVidia-installer though just copies the files in a folder called "plug-ins" (or creates it first), so your photoshop won't find it and shows the error message.
When i checked this plug-in folder it had 2 sub-folders with 2 files (dds.8bi, NormalMapFilter.8bf) in it.
Just copy these 2 files to the correct folders in the folder, called "plug-ins" in your language and you should be fine.
cheers
5/21/2009 - Sabo hosted a mirror of the RF crypt tools for me, URL can be foundYou must be registered to see linksor under the download section on first post.
5/22/2009 - For changing the glow for each piece/set of armor.
BuuGz said:Its kinda complicated to explain but ill try my best.
Ok as as u said the files that u edit in RfOnline221/Chef/Tex are the ones
that are the actual colored glows that we see of everything that is ingame
(armor, Maus, mobs, and so on) and when u edit them there it will recolor all
the glows that the specific item is using, just as u said if u edit the glow
from the acc armor all the armor from lvl 55 acc will have the same glow..
so thats what we usually do cuz its easy to edit (and most ppl know only
this way), now here comes the trick , if u go to RfOnline221/Chef/Eff/Armor
you'll see a list of names of each part of the armor for all races, this list tells
the Game which glow uses which glow, an example: if u want the gloves of
the acc lau armor to have the glow of coras all u have to do is copy the
name of the cora part and rename it to the acc part and overwrite the file,
this will tell the game that the lvl 55 acc lau gloves use the glow of the cora
glove.. but as i said there is a drawback here cuz u cant really make it 100%
custom cuz in order to do a colorful armor u need to edit the files in
RfOnline221/Chef/Tex which will alter the look of other armor, the only way
that u can do it custom enough without screwing up the other races armor is
to sacrifice a file from some mobs and some NPC's which wont impact so
much of the game and still give ya the wanted glow effect ;D
Hope u understood it a bit lol
Note: U can figure it out alone if u take your time and play around with the renaming and overwriting the files in RfOnline221/Chef/Eff/Armor
Side note: This method is pretty complicated for stuff other than armor
P.s Hope i didn't give ya headache lolz
Heres a lil teaser from me <3