Unreal Tournament Skin Maker

Description

Warning: Discontinued project

This tool can create Unreal Tournament ’99 texture packages to be used as player skins. You don’t need to use UnrealED!

Please uninstall any old version before installing a new one.

Warning: This program uses OpenGL to display the 3D preview. Be sure to have the latest drivers for your 3D card. With some 3Dfx cards it could not work because their OpenGL only works in full screen, and the preview is in a window. However some of them seem to work (Voodoo5 and greater?). For ATI Radeon cards it seems to work with driver version 4.13.7075.

Screenshots

Features

The program allows you to create a skin project using any model installed in UT’99 and then add the textures. Then you can easily edit the descriptions of the textures and finally create the UTX/INT files. The program takes care of creating the file with the correct setting for things like the LODSet property and creates the MipMaps for the textures.

Now with 3D skin preview and UT model compiling!!!

Known Issues

  • Texture corruption. Sometimes a texture may get corrupted on the model preview, press the Refresh button until it is correct.
  • Texture disappears. Sometimes a texture may not show after a change in the “Enable Masking” checkbox. Reload the project to correct.
  • May give an wglMakeCurrent error at program exit.

Notes

The project options (One Mipmap & Palette reduction) can be used to reduce file size to a minimum. This are the sizes for a regular skin (soldier model with team colors for chest and legs and one face, 13 textures in total):

Mipmaps\Reduce PalettesOne Palette per TextureOne Palette per Group or One Palette for all the Package (because there is only one group)
All the MipMaps1.069.356 bytes1.056.671 bytes
Only One MipMap805.702 bytes793.018 bytes

As you can see, the most reducing option is the MipMaps one. This is because the palettes only have 1027 bytes each, and a typical first mipmap is about 64Kb, with the all-mipmaps texture being about 87Kb  (23Kb more). In the example, the file size was reduced from (aprox.) 1Mb to 790Kb. The quality of the skin is basically influenced from the palettes options. Although the algorithm used to reduce the palettes does a very good work, some quality is lost in the process, and some pixelation could be seen due to the reduced number of colors available. The pixelation can be easily seen in the character selection dialog, but when playing will not be seen so much. The reduction of mipmaps is usually undetected because UT seems to create them internally.

License

This software comes without any guarantee of any kind. I do not take any responsibility for any damage, loss of income, or any other problems you might experience from using this software. You might not charge anything for the distribution of this software, but the costs of media, shipping, etc.

Downloads

  • Read readme_beta.txt file for install instructions.

  • This is the new model pack for use with version 2.5 beta 6. It contains the models from previous packs 1, 2 & 3.Abbey, Spawn, AlienQueen, Chubbs, Guardian, Marine, TheMask, ObiWan, RiotGirl, Rumiko, Smasher, Troop, Arab, BobaFett, Dire, Drake, Escher, Gordon, HellSpawn, JarHead, JHTM, Lobo, LordMaul, Prowl, q2Marine, Ratamahatta, Rayman, Sideswipe, Solidsnake, Tekkblade, Trinity, Julie, Bug, Conan, GGFemale2, GGMale2, Rocketman, Serpico, Snakey.

  • NewXan, WarMachineBoss (to skin this models you need the models patch from psychic_313)

  • Arab, BobaFett, Dire, Drake, Escher, Gordon, HellSpawn, JarHead, JHTM, Lobo, LordMaul, Prowl, q2Marine, Ratamahatta, Rayman, Sideswipe, Solidsnake, Tekkblade, Trinity, Julie.

  • Bug, Conan, GGFemale2, GGMale2, Rocketman, Serpico, Snakey.

  • Abbey, Spawn, AlienQueen, Chubbs, Guardian, Marine, TheMask, ObiWan, RiotGirl, Rumiko, Smasher, Troop.

Thanks

  • Erik de Neve from Epic Games.
  • Scott Martin from Ion Storm.
  • My betatesters. They know who they are.
  • All the users that gave me ideas and bug reports.

FAQ

I can’t select my skin in the game!

Make sure that you have the correct model installed in UT.

My skin doesn’t work anywhere!, why? or, My skin appears green with other color “patches”.

Please check the following:

  1. The project filename has this format: <modelprefix>Skins<skinname>. When you save the project the program will automatically put the model prefix and maybe the “Skins” text (if v1.5 and up), you just have to complete the name.
  2. If playing online, check that the skin is correctly installed in the server (including ServerPackages line). You will have to ask this to the server administrator.
  3. In a non-dedicated server some skins seem to need more sections than normal (example: Abbey model).
When i run the program I get an error “wglMakeCurrent failed”.

This is a problem with your OpenGL driver. It tries to change buffers and it fails. Try to get the last version of your driver or check its options.

Why my Boss / BonusPack4 skins doesn’t work? (or do it incorrectly)

This models need a fix to be skinned. Do you have the fixed models installed?

Why my Boss skin does not show team colors in the head?

Get the Boss.skme fixed file from the download section.

Why my skin doesn’t work on bots?

You have to put both default and named faces on the skin.