Embedded Files
Sometimes, you want to tweak a certain texture on a model. Maybe you want a different logo, or to change the name patch to be yours. This tutorial will cover the basics of modifying textures for PAC-3 using textures you extract from an addon folder.
Introduction
Introduction
This tutorial seeks to cover the modification of extracted textures to create a custom material that you can then re-apply to an in-game model or upload alongside your custom model.
Programs Needed: VTFEdit and some sort of photo editing software
Programs Needed: VTFEdit and some sort of photo editing software
To get started, you'll need VTFEdit, a program for modifying and exporting VTF files as PNG and JPEG. You can find it here.
As we will be doing some photo editing, you'll need something for that. If you don't have a program for it, I'd recommend paint.net as it's free and better then MS Paint. Get it here.
Getting started: Extracting your VTF
Getting started: Extracting your VTF
Once you have VTFEdit installed, you can use it to preview files in the crowbar so you know what you want to extract. In this case, we'll be looking for the vest texture on a guard for a server that I play. Search around under the materials folder for what you're looking for, you can double-click to view the file in VTFEdit so you know what you want to extract. Once you find it, go ahead and extract all the files associated with that texture (the texture VTF, normal map VTF, and the VMT text file)
Converting VTF files to something more usable
Converting VTF files to something more usable
Once you have your VTF files out, we'll use VTFEdit to convert them into something usable for our image editing program. When exporting, don't forget to use. PNG so you can have transparency on your files. To convert VTF files, open them in VTFEdit, go to "File" in the top left, and click "Export". Select a destination, give it a name, and select the file type to save it as.
Edit your image
Edit your image
Toss the resulting PNG into your favorite image editing software and go to town. Make sure to maintain the same canvas size, and otherwise, you can replace logos, add text, and do whatever. In my case, I went ahead and added some text to the labels on the front and back! If you don't know what part corresponds to what part of the model, don't worry! You can guess now and go back and change it later.
Using your new texture in PAC-3
Using your new texture in PAC-3
Uploading textures
Uploading textures
To use these textures on your PAC-3, you can upload them to a file hosting site such as Google Drive, One Drive, or my personal favorite, Imgur.
Go ahead and upload your edited PNG and the PNG of the normal map; you'll want both to construct your new PAC-3 custom texture.
Constructing new custom texture in PAC-3
Constructing new custom texture in PAC-3
Keep those Imgur links handy. Go ahead and boot up Gmod and open PAC-3. In order to construct our new custom texture, we'll need to use a combination of the new material, the old normalmap, and the texture settings from the VTM file.
Step 1: Create a new material part. Give it a name.
Step 2. Click your new material part. Under "basetexture", paste a direct link to your new custom texture (Right click on it in Imgur and "Copy image address")
Step 3. Under "bump map", paste a direct link to the normal map texture.
Step 4. Open the VMT file in Notepad or something similar. All these settings should be similarily named in the material part. Find and apply them.
Step 5. PAC-3 will consider the material part to just be another material, To apply it to a character, use an Entity part and type the material name under the relevant submaterial.
step 6. You're all done! Your custom texture is now applied.
Image ratios might be all fucked up on this.
Converting back to VTF for custom models (Optional)
Converting back to VTF for custom models (Optional)
If you are editing a texture for a custom model, you can use VTFEdit to convert your PNG back into a VTF. Just open the program and click "Import", then "export" back as a VTF.
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