Replacing the mesh is the primary way to mod a survivor. You can either create a mesh from scratch or convert an existing one.

There are actually two meshes for each survivor -- the "world" mesh and the "view" mesh. The world mesh is the whole body and is what players see when not playing the survivor that is replaced. The view mesh is what you see if you are playing the survivor that is replaced, usually just the hands and parts of the arms.

The general steps to replacing either mesh:

• 1. Create or get a custom mesh.

  2. Import the smd file of it into a 3D editing/modeling tool.

  3. Import the survivor's reference smd file (i.e. survivor's mesh) that you want to replace.

  4. Adjust the custom mesh to fit closely to the survivor mesh.

  5. Delete the survivor mesh.

  6. Rig the custom mesh to the survivor skeleton by weighting vertices.

  7. Export the rigged custom mesh to its own smd file.

Unless the custom model has its own view mesh, you create the view mesh by deleting from the world mesh all but the hands and arms around the same shoulder area as the survivor view mesh you are replacing.