Clan Ship Skin

[YMER-VILE]

First one I made after testing / figuring out how to do it:

[Maverick]

Pretty nicely done m8! Keep up the good work.

[YMER-VILE]

Version 2 - Click it to enlarge.

[geromix]

Awesome. =D>

U are pretty good at it,i think maybe u can make skins for other clans.

[Burn]

You're pretty skilled at this stuff,Ville.
I prefer the second skin,the red gives it a nice touch- Well done!
Who knows maybe you will come up with an even better one! Keep up the good work!

[YMER-VILE]

Thank you - I'll keep trying.

If anyone knows how to put a clan name on in a way that it won't "mirror" backwards, please let me know.  Maybe there's something in a different file?

[YMER-VILE]

Blacksnake:  
Aluminium:  
Bluelight:  

[Maverick]

My god m8, and you're telling me these are your very first tries?  @-) M8 it's obvious you have a lot of talent for this work. Stunning m8, really awesome!  =D>

[Spacemarine_E]

Can you please tell me how you managed to import the skins into the game so you could look at them? Still can't get it to work...

[anoyingnomad]

[quote="YMER-VILE";p="192463"]Thank you - I'll keep trying.

If anyone knows how to put a clan name on in a way that it won't "mirror" backwards, please let me know.  Maybe there's something in a different file?[/quote]


Perhaps draw it mirror then import? i have never did this or something like it but hey.

[YMER-VILE]

@MAVERICK:  Thanks for the compliment, but I cheat by not making my own patterns (mostly.)  The rest is just a combination of the old skin and a new one to keep it looking like the old ship.  Photoshop I'm not new at, just making skins and doing the file import/export parts.

@annoyingnomad:  Good idea, but what it does is that when the program reads your skin, it takes the "pieces" that you paint and arranges them as needed on the ship.  One piece may be used many times on the ship, rotated, flipped, mirrored, etc...   I made a lettered and numbered skin to test for a place that doesn't get "flipped" or "mirrored" but I haven't found one.  It's fine for logos because they're usually symetrical, or it doesn't matter, but if you want to put your clan name on it would be ok in some spots but backwards in others.  Anyway, I'll keep looking.

@spacemarine:  I'll run through the whole process as I know it.  Maybe it will help you and others out.

First, Deactivate the mod in FLMM.  Run utf_edit.  Next, find the ship you want and it's Microsoft Access Table Shortcut (.mat) file.  A + sign will come up on the left.  Click it.  Two things will come up with + signs, Materials and Textures.  We want the Textures file, so click on it's + sign.  Inside of here, one of the files is your skin (varies by ship.)  Click on it's + sign and then select the MIPS file.  Now click EXPORT and save it as .tga (for a backup) and then repeat this process, only this time save it by manually adding .dds to the end of your filename.  This can be opened in Photoshop with the right plugins.  


Edit the skin.  When you save (in photoshop) save as a DDS and, if in 256x256, make sure you check the # of MIPS and set it to 6.  Personally, I save a backup as a Photoshop file before saving as DDS.

Now use your utf_edit tool.  Find the MIPS file for the ship and select it.  Click IMPORT, select the DDS file (not the tga) that you made in Photoshop and click OPEN.  It's now in the right spot, but you still need to click SAVE FILE and then save over the Microsoft Access Table Shortcut (.mat) file.  If you're like me and running Vista, you need to close out of everything at this point or Windows will think that you're accessing the file with two different programs, and it may not allow you access for the next step.  

The next step is to reactivate the mod in FLMM.  Run Freelancer.  Your ship will be visible to you but no one else.

TIPS
*If you're doing lots of back and forth it's best to just deactivate the mod every time you leave Freelancer so that you don't forget later.
*For some reason on my Vista system Freelancer still runs as a process sometimes even after exiting the game.  I found that this can cause problems in loading mod files.  If you encounter this, or to check it, just do a Ctrl+Alt+Delete, select Task Manager, select the Processes tab, and then (if it's there) disable the Freelancer process that's still running.  It shouldn't be running in the Applications tab either.  I have this problem about 25% of the times I leave Freelancer, so I pretty much check in the Task Manager every time.  There's no way that I know of to tell if this proces is still running without checking in the Task Manager.

The tools and another tutorial:  (Previously posted by Osiris, I think) are http://www.geocities.com/redstutorial//Homepage.html  What this tutorial left out was deactivating/reactivating the mod.  That, or I just missed it.



**Disclaimer**  This is how I was able to make it work.  I'm a novice in everything except Photoshop.  Attempt at your own risk.  Corrections or additions to this are welcome.

[Osiris]

[quote="YMER-VILE";p="192455"]Version 2 - Click it to enlarge.

[/quote]

i think this one is the best  :D

good job m8

[YMER-VILE]

Thanks m8 and thanks for all the help to you and Baba.


To all:
YMER has just voted the Anubis MK2 as the YMER Fighter so now it's time to get to work on a clan skin choice.  
After we're done choosing I'd be happy to work on some for any clan interested.  I'll keep this updated when we choose something.

[YMER-VILE]

Some new rough drafts...

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/3817/blightsj9.png
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/3429/bloodud1.png
http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/3401/bluesdu9.png
http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/3783/celticrk4.png
http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/6630/chainyq7.png
http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/7160/coppergr9.png
http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/1199 ... ateqa2.png
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/3849 ... ainge1.png
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/8044/discfx6.png
http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/3206 ... nesju1.png
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4782/leafskyvq7.png
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5638/maggotdg2.png
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/9899/orangepks7.png
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4092/pinkyqp8.png
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/952/plightnd0.png
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1736/psychogr4.png
http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/6118/weirdob8.png

[Dynasty]

THat Psycho one is just amazing mate  =D>
=D>  =D>