47 replies to this topic

[amade]

I know 7.0 is still in public testing but once it's released With the release of patch 7.0 here's a guide on how to keep using custom player made skins.

First, lets have a brief explanation of how the new in-game camo patterns work in 7.0.

Spoiler

What you get is a set of dev-made camo patterns for each nation which is then applied universally on all tanks of a particular nation. So in the  ..\(game install folder)\res\vehicles\(nation)\Camouflage folder you'll find a few camo tiles (which is also editable). The patterns are overlaid as repeated tiles on top of the default base skins while the edges and seams of the tank model are masked off using the CM file found in each individual tank folder.

For glossary purposes:
dev-made camo pattern = camo tiles, found in each nation's camo folder. I'm calling it dev-made to differentiate it from player made custom skins.
CM File = camo mask/map, found in each vehicle folder with "_CM.dds" suffix.

The new system isn't too bad, but it's far from perfect. As a result of all tanks sharing the same dev-made camo patterns you get stuff like patterns not aligning on seams like this:
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_01.jpg

And where the mask (CM file) doesn't mask the patterns properly you get this:
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_02.jpg

Some camo patterns on some tanks exhibit misalignments a bit more prominently:
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_03.jpg

Right, so what if you want to keep using player made custom skins?

There are 2 methods of doing it:
1. Blacken the CM file of whichever vehicle you don't want dev-made camo skins to appear on.
2. Blacken every channel of all camo files found in the ..\(game install folder)\res\vehicles\(nation)\Camouflage folder (note that this method will affect all tanks instead of specific tanks).


Method 1

As you can see below I have a custom skin installed for my Leopard. On the left side is how it looks like without any dev-made camo pattern applied. On the right side is how it looks like with a dev-made camo pattern applied:
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_04.jpg
As you can see the custom skin looks messed up with the new dev-made camo pattern overlaid on top of it. Of course, one might say the solution to this problem is to simply not use the new dev-made camo pattern on your tank. However, if you are using a custom skin on a certain tank other players you see in battle who opt to use the dev-made camo pattern on the same tank(s) as you are will appear messed up!

So in order to be able to use custom skins without it appearing messed up whenever a dev-made camo pattern is applied you will have to edit/replace the tank's CM file. As you can see from the image below my custom skill still looks okay even though a dev-made camo pattern is selected (the pattern box is highlighted):
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_05.jpg

This is what the Leopards's CM file (VK1602_CM.dds) looks like before and after editing:
http://www.amade-wos...new_camo_06.jpg

It should be noted that the CM files apparently have alpha information inside it, so if you want to preserve it for each tank you have to save it as "DXT1 with Alpha" from the original CM file. However there doesn't seem to be any adverse effects with simply discarding the alpha because by making it all black in effect you don't want to use the default patterns so any alpha info within the file becomes irrelevant. This means that we could simply use a 100% black no-alpha CM file and use it for every tank which we don't want to have dev-made camo patterns applied to it. I've uploaded a blank file for anyone who wants to give it a try:

http://www.amade-wos...ns/blank_CM.dds

To use it, open your vehicle's folder (e.g. ..WoT\res\vehicles\german\G26_VK1602) and back up the original CM file. Then copy the blank CM file into the folder and rename it according to the original file name (e.g. in the leopard's case it's VK1602_CM.dds). Now any custom skins you use on the tank will be displayed correctly even when dev-made camo patterns are applied. The only downside is that you can't see if someone is using an dev-made camo skin on that tank rather than just having a default base skin.

Note: that this method of blackening the CM file will only affect the particular tank you're editing (useful if you want to retain the dev-made camo patterns for other tanks).


Method 2

In one of the posts below I've also described how you can edit the in-game camouflage patterns. It's then possible to disable dev-made camo patterns for EVERY tank by blackening each nation's camo tiles.



========================================================================================================================

And now we know how skins work in 7.0 we can all continue skinning and using new custom skins as usual : D
I hope all skinners and custom skin users will find this guide helpful, any questions just post a reply in this thread.

[Tanz]

http://forum.worldof...le_honoring.gif Thx for the info. I was going to try 7.0 jst to check it out..but this is some great news http://forum.worldof...great.gif...Thx again

[Striker_002]

I was hoping with the new custom skins you could customize the "overlay" skin so that it would act as a full skin.(So you could have a *set* of different custom skins for each tank).  That way i could make *my* tank look exactly how I wanted it too, while (most) other people using the same tank would have a different skin.

However, with the way the system is set up it isn't possible.  All the skins are "tile" style skins* that repeat themselves, so much for that .  Also, they same camo file is used for all tanks in the nation.

*The skin files themselves are small tiles, but they somehow look more natural in game(Repeating is not obvious), I'm wondering how they did that?...

I am saddened, with the exception of the Africa Korp style skin, most the german skins are pretty "meh" at best. Their still may be (limited) skin modding to make better tile camo skins.

[Webtroll]

edit: nm reread, the tiling is pewp. can the custom camo tiles be replaced with blanks if we want to use our own skins?

[amade]

Striker_002, on Nov 19 2011 - 06:57, said:

I was hoping with the new custom skins you could customize the "overlay" skin so that it would act as a full skin.(So you could have a *set* of different custom skins for each tank).  That way i could make *my* tank look exactly how I wanted it too, while (most) other people using the same tank would have a different skin.

However, with the way the system is set up it isn't possible.  All the skins are "tile" style skins* that repeat themselves, so much for that .  Also, they same camo file is used for all tanks in the nation.

*The skin files themselves are small tiles, but they somehow look more natural in game(Repeating is not obvious), I'm wondering how they did that?...

This was my hope as well, but considering that you'd have to make a different camo skin for each tank then the CM file would've not been needed. So it was pretty obvious how the system would turn out to be i.e. a set of skins for all tanks.

The tiling is actually pretty easy to do, I can explain how to make custom repeatable tiles however I still haven't figured out how they translate the colour from what we see in the DDS to what we see in-game. That part seems a bit trickier or perhaps it's something very obvious that I haven't noticed and someone else will point it out for me. However if you're asking how to arrange the tiling on the model differently (e.g. scaling or orientation), I think it's not possible as that's determined by the model's UV layout so you'd have to edit the model itself.

Webtroll, on Nov 19 2011 - 07:18, said:

edit: nm reread, the tiling is pewp. can the custom camo tiles be replaced with blanks if we want to use our own skins?

While it's possible to edit the tiles there's no point in blanking them because it's much easier to just blank the CM file as per what this guide is all about. In fact, you can't blank the camo pattern tiles, you can only change the pattern or colour. To blank (mask them) it has to be done via the CM file.

edit: Now that I've figured out how the tiling pattern works it is possible to blank the camo tiles, however this will affect all tanks so it's not a good option if you still want to retain the in-game camo for some of the tanks. If you want to get rid of camo for certain tanks only then it's better to blacken that particular tank's CM file.

[Webtroll]

blacken the CM file? Brilliant! As I can't imagine any advantage to seeing who has the new camo and who doesn't that seems like just the trick. All current skins will work just fine, including hitbox skins for those who use them. Thanks! (and a +1)

i still wonder why bother tiling when you're already saving space with the reduction in the number of custom skins needed to modify multiple tanks.

[amade]

Webtroll, on Nov 19 2011 - 15:20, said:

i still wonder why bother tiling when you're already saving space with the reduction in the number of custom skins needed to modify multiple tanks.

Because the tanks in-game are of varying sizes they needed to scale the pattern differently on each tank. They can't just overlay the pattern on top of the base texture like we do in PS or GIMP and stretch to fit. Instead they repeat a small patterned tile over the tank and scale it accordingly so it looks about right. Currently however the M6A2E1 suffers from a mis-scaled pattern for its turret.

[Striker_002]

It's definitely odd that the color information isn't present in the file itself, the same with the scaling information.  If modders can find out where those are then there is still a chance to make our own custom tile style skins.

[Webtroll]

i'd be surprised if a lot of tanks don't have funky mapping. what would happen if you replaced a tile with a bigger map? would it still work like the skins in different sizes do? (for example some skins have smaller crash skins)

[amade]

Striker_002, on Nov 19 2011 - 16:02, said:

It's definitely odd that the color information isn't present in the file itself, the same with the scaling information.  If modders can find out where those are then there is still a chance to make our own custom tile style skins.

Well I've figured it out. The DDS files with the camo patterns are actually storing alpha information in the multiple channels. So in fact you have to edit the RGB and alpha channel in order to make your own patterns. Each channel is then assigned a colour from inside the game itself. In other words, unless we can mod the colour info from inside the game we won't be able to change the colour and even if we can we would be limited to a palette of 4 colours or less only.

In the image below you can see that I'm editing the "red" channel.
http://www.amade-wos...w_camo_edit.jpg
Each channel doesn't actually determine what colour is being used, it's simply denoting which areas will be visible. Then, a colour is assigned to each channel by the game and as you can see from the actual pattern screenshot the red channel has been assigned the colour brown by the game. The camo pattern file does not determine what colour is used at all, only the shape of the patterns. So in this particular camo pattern only the white areas in the red channel will have the brown colour (hopefully I'm making sense here, I'm trying to simplify the explanation as much as possible).

If I edit the channels to look like this:
http://www.amade-wos...amo_edit_02.jpg

...and then save the DDS as 16bit A4R4G4B4 (it must be this specific format!), this is how it ends up in-game:
http://www.amade-wos...amo_edit_03.jpg

Spoiler

The actual format used in Nvidia's Photoshop DDS plugin:
http://www.amade-wos...mo_edit_03a.jpg
(4.4.4.4 RGB 16bpp)

The yellow paint has covered the whole tank (the grey areas are caused by the CM mask which reveals the base texture), previously in the original pattern if you look at channel alpha 1 the only white areas visible are small spots. In the original pattern this translates as yellow spots like in the preview image. But because I masked all the other channels and completely unmasked channel alpha 1 the whole tile becomes yellow. If I had unmasked (totally white) the red channel only while all other channels are totally black the tank will be covered in brown paint instead.


Now, if I edit the channels to look like this:
http://www.amade-wos...amo_edit_04.jpg

I get this:
http://www.amade-wos...amo_edit_05.jpg

It's important to make sure that the mask in each channel does not overlap the masks in other channels, or else the colours would "mix". What remains elusive is how to set the scale of the tiles or the colour assigned to each channel. I'll leave that up to the modders 'cos I'm no good at bits of codes and stuff like that.

If you want to get rid of the camo completely for every tank (if you don't like how it looks like or want to get rid of all dev-made camo and use custom skins only on all tanks) you can simply blacken every channel in the DDS like so:
http://www.amade-wos...amo_edit_06.jpg
For some reason the thumbnail preview shows a colour fill nevertheless the tank remains bare of any camo paint.

And here's a link to a blackened camo tile: http://www.amade-wos...ins/no_camo.dds
To use it, simply copy it to whichever nation's camo folder <..\(game install folder)\res\vehicles\(nation)\Camouflage> and rename it to whichever camo pattern file you want to replace (backup your old camo files first!).


Wow, I only wanted to explain how it works and didn't intend on making a tutorial but this is what this post turned out to be : P

[amade]

Webtroll, on Nov 19 2011 - 18:57, said:

i'd be surprised if a lot of tanks don't have funky mapping. what would happen if you replaced a tile with a bigger map? would it still work like the skins in different sizes do? (for example some skins have smaller crash skins)

Nothing much, except if you use a bigger tile you get higher definition patterns. And possibly use up a wee bit more resource on your system. The size of the tile when placed on the tank still remains unchanged. The same goes for crash skins, if you replaced it with higher res crash skins it would look better (provided that you have a better quality high res crash skin instead of just rescaling from the smaller original) but the mapping stays the same.

[iamablocker]

just a quick question:

since we are dealing with the CM file, what is the effect of the "blank CM" on skins that have Zimmerit coating on it?
or the effect of the standard camo on said Zimmerit skin?

Part of the effect relies on the CM file and maybe we can just make a "bare panzergrau zimmerit skin" and then let the camo system work some sort of magic on it.

[Striker_002]

amade, on Nov 19 2011 - 19:57, said:

Well I've figured it out...(wall of text)

Wow, the devs seem to have made a needlessly complicated system for overlaying camo.  I'd like to experiment with it some when the servers come back up to "tweak" the existing camos to look better, but untill then i'm shaking my head at how complicated it appears to be. (Digital art expert I am not).

[amade]

iamablocker, on Nov 19 2011 - 21:07, said:

just a quick question:

since we are dealing with the CM file, what is the effect of the "blank CM" on skins that have Zimmerit coating on it?
or the effect of the standard camo on said Zimmerit skin?

Part of the effect relies on the CM file and maybe we can just make a "bare panzergrau zimmerit skin" and then let the camo system work some sort of magic on it.

CM is not the SM. CM is the mask for the new in-game camo system. Skinners edit the base texture, SM (specular map) texture and the NM (normal map) texture to create zimmerit-type skins. A "blank" CM file will not affect zimmerit-type skins, at most some skinners may use the original CM mask to mask out bits of the zimmerit in which case most skinners always keep a backup copy to work with, the CM file itself is not required to get the zimmerit effect to work.

[iamablocker]

amade, on Nov 20 2011 - 00:04, said:

CM is not the SM. CM is the mask for the new in-game camo system. Skinners edit the base texture, SM (specular map) texture and the NM (normal map) texture to create zimmerit-type skins. A "blank" CM file will not affect zimmerit-type skins, at most some skinners may use the original CM mask to mask out bits of the zimmerit in which case most skinners always keep a backup copy to work with, the CM file itself is not required to get the zimmerit effect to work.

derp.

i just realized this when i was mentally reviewing the zimmerit tutorial while travelling to work.  

forget the general question.

[Rainybeet]

amade, on Nov 19 2011 - 05:37, said:

It should be noted that the CM files apparently have alpha information inside it, so if you want to preserve it for each tank you have to save it as "DXT1 with Alpha" from the original CM file. However there doesn't seem to be any adverse effects with simply discarding the alpha because by making it all black in effect you don't want to use the pre-made patterns so any alpha info within the file becomes irrelevant. This means that we could simply use a 100% black no-alpha CM file and use it for every tank which we don't want to have pre-made skins applied to it. I've uploaded a blank file for anyone who wants to give it a try:

It is important for everyone to remember that ^^^^^^^ THIS is all you need to worry about if you want to keep using your old skins.  All of the worry before about not being able to use your custom skins can be put aside, and using the skins in the same way you do now will simply involve blackening the files in the World_of_Tanks\res\vehicles\"insert country"\Camouflage folder.
Here are the files in my American folder:

C:\Games\World_of_Tanks7.0\res\vehicles\american\
Cusa_0_1Default.dds
Cusa_1_1GuamBicolor.dds
Cusa_1_2IvozimaBicolor.dds
Cusa_1_3BretagneSky.dds
Cusa_1_4WhiteScar.dds
Cusa_1_5RudesheimTricolor.dds
Cusa_1_6IvozimaTricolor.dds
Cusa_1_7OldschoolUsa.dds
Cusa_1_8Membane.dds

  You do not even have to make up black overlays for every tank, just every Country, since you use the same camo files for each country, not for each tank.  This is what makes the system less complicated than if they used separate dds files for each tank, since your computer only has to read from about 45 different skin files, rather than several hundred if you had each skin in each folder for each tank, which would probably cause more lag because of having to deal with so many different files.

Simply blackening the file DOES cause a slight variation in luminosity across the entire tank, but it is very slight, and I have not found it to cause any noticeable difference when actually playing.  I am sure that people willing to put the work into modifying the alpha channels will fix even this small problem very soon.

The funny thing is that because the camouflage is so generic and applied to so many different tanks, it is not nearly as detailed as the skins that we make up ourselves.  The only thing that will be at all complicated about the new system will be redesigning the new camo files to work with so many various tanks and still look good, but for a group of people that has put so much time and energy into the customization of skins for video game tanks, that will just be another challenge that I look forward to seeing the results of.  

[amade]

Rainybeet, on Nov 20 2011 - 21:25, said:

It is important for everyone to remember that ^^^^^^^ THIS is all you need to worry about if you want to keep using your old skins.  All of the worry before about not being able to use your custom skins can be put aside, and using the skins in the same way you do now will simply involve blackening the files in the World_of_Tanks\res\vehicles\"insert country"\Camouflage folder.

...

  You do not even have to make up black overlays for every tank, just every Country, since you use the same camo files for each country, not for each tank.  This is what makes the system less complicated than if they used separate dds files for each tank, since your computer only has to read from about 45 different skin files, rather than several hundred if you had each skin in each folder for each tank, which would probably cause more lag because of having to deal with so many different files.

Simply blackening the file DOES cause a slight variation in luminosity across the entire tank, but it is very slight, and I have not found it to cause any noticeable difference when actually playing.  I am sure that people willing to put the work into modifying the alpha channels will fix even this small problem very soon.


The funny thing is that because the camouflage is so generic and applied to so many different tanks, it is not nearly as detailed as the skins that we make up ourselves.  The only thing that will be at all complicated about the new system will be redesigning the new camo files to work with so many various tanks and still look good, but for a group of people that has put so much time and energy into the customization of skins for video game tanks, that will just be another challenge that I look forward to seeing the results of.  

You can blacken the camo files, but by doing so you disable for every vehicle. If you want to use player-made custom skins on certain tanks only but still retain the dev-made in-game camo patterns for everything else then blanking the specific vehicle's CM file is a better option.

Of course, if you don't want to see the in-game camo patterns at all for any tank then it's easier to just blank the nations' camo files. Regarding the uneven luminosity, you have to make sure the you blacken EVERY channel of the camo pattern file, if you just blacken the canvas you only affect the RGB channels but there's still the alpha 1 channel that needs to be blackened. I think the CM file also contributes to uneven luminosity. So if you want to make it even you'll probably have to blacken the CM file as well. In which case, if you are replacing each tank's CM file you don't have to blacken each nation's camo files anymore.

As for designing new camo files, look a few posts above where I've also explained a bit on how to work with them ; )

[Cptgahou]

We have to pay gold for the camo?! WHY!?!?!  

[Webtroll]

why would they come up with another way for you to spend your money? hmm...

[TheDreadnought]

So will this new camo work to disable the "cheater" skins that are out there, or can it be easily bypassed?