What The Heck? Skin Problems

[Springheel]

Need some help with this in case I'm missing something blatantly obvious.

 

I've been trying to create alternate skins for the proguard. I've done most of what I need:

 

1. made a new texture

2. made a working material entry for it

3. made a working skin file for it

4. added a "skin" entry into the proguard's def file.

 

 

However, when I load him up, he still looks normal. I tested that 1 works by swapping the texture files. Load him up and the new texture works fine. I tested that 3&4 work by changing the skin to "common/textures/nodraw", and indeed, when I loaded him up those textures weren't drawn. So the skin file is fine and the def file points to it fine.

 

I can't see anything wrong with #2.

 

One test that didn't make sense...when I tried switching through the skin file to a citywatch skin, the proguard loaded and still looked normal. So switching it to nodraw worked, but switching to my texture and to citywatch didn't. The only connection I can see is that common/textures/nodraw is a D3 texture and the other two that won't work are ours.

 

Any ideas what might be the problem? Here's the skin file:

 

skin merc_proguard_redbrown_coat

{

models/chars/proguard models/chars/proguard_redbrown_coat

 

}

 

and here's the material for the alternate skin. The only difference between it and the original is the '2' in the first file.

 

models/chars/proguard_redbrown_coat

{

renderbump -size 512 512 -aa 1 -trace 0.1 models/chars/chaindisp_local.tga models/chars/chaindisphigh.lwo

 

surftype15

description "armor_chain"

noselfshadow

 

diffusemap models/chars/guards/proguard/proguard2_d.tga

bumpmap models/chars/guards/proguard/proguard_localmix.tga

specularmap models/chars/guards/proguard/proguard_s.tga

}

[Gildoran]

Just some random troubleshooting ideas...

 

What happens if you just apply that material to a brush? Does it look different compared to the original?

 

Have you tried reloading D3 after setting up the skin? Although commands like reloaddecls/etc can be useful, I sometimes find reloading D3 to help.

 

Also, have you viewed the skin in-game?

[Springheel]

Also, have you viewed the skin in-game?

 

Well damn, I wouldn't have guessed that. For some reason, the proguard appears with the original skin in the editor, but when I fire up a map, he has the new skin. If I exit the game and open the editor again, he appears with the original skin.

 

Any idea why would that happen? It's quite annoying--I don't want to have to load a map every time I want to check a new skin.

[Gildoran]

Maybe the editor preview doesn't know about skins?

 

Anyway, you don't have to reload the map every time you want to tweak the skin... you can just load it once, then alt-tab out of it. After applying corrections to the material, you can just press F2 to go back in game, and type "reloaddecls" at the console (I recommend binding 'r' to it), and you'll be able to see your changes immediately without having to reload the level. I always do this for materials, and it's a real time-saver.

 

PS, you might want to try some of the other reload commands (e.g. reloadimages) listed on the id dev site.

[SneaksieDave]

As far as I know, this is the way it always worked right? I would place one of the books, choose a skin, and then in cam mode, it always looks like the same book. You have to be in render mode to see the new skin.

[Springheel]

You have to be in render mode to see the new skin.

 

Yeah, but for some reason with AI even rendermode doesn't show the skin. You have to load and play an actual map to see it.

 

What's odd though, is that the editor DOES show the nodraw texture if you use a skin to apply that. It just won't show anything else.

[Gildoran]

I have no idea why that is.