Tutorial: How to make custom skins for Team Fortress 2

[Canvas]

Why hello there.
So you are bored. You want new skins and still you can't find anything that pleases your eye.
Well my friend, that time is over.

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Chapter I
Getting ready

So for this you will need 3 programs:

• GCFscape

Website:http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=76
Download: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/fil...cfscape131.exe

• VTFEdit

Website: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=178
Download: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/fil...edit125-11.exe

• Photoshop/or any other image editing program
• corel
• Photoshop elements
• gimp
• etc

It would be great if you could use Photoshop because you'd save a bunch of steps using the VTF plugin.
If you have Photoshop, download it here: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/fil...plugin1011.zip
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II Chapter
Using GCFscape

So we finally have everything we need. Cool. Let's start using these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s.


Close Steam (Seriously)

Start GCFscape and go to Open:


Then go around Steam/steamapps. See those purple boxes? Scroll down a bit until you find "Team Fortress 2 Materials".
K, double click it and now you have what apears to be a directory.
Go tf>materials>Models>Weapons:


Everyting you see now are a bunch of folderes, some with a v_ and some with a w_. Also you have a folder that says C_itens, that folder contains the weapons from the new update.
V_"weapon" - Is how you see the skin in first person
W_"weapon" - Is the skin in the third person


Choose you weapon (the one you want to skin). I'll choose the cigarrete case.
Right click on the folder and click extract, and extract it to whereever you'd like:


So now you have a folder filled with a bunch of files (in this case, two):

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III Chapter
Cleaning the dust out of VTFEdit

Ok. Now. See which of those files has the extension "Valve Texture File" and double click it:


Now while in the editor, go to File>Export>Export as:
And save it has a .jpeg (reccomend) into the same folder where the "valve texture file" is OR If you have Photoshop with the .vtf plugin, you can right click the "valve texture file" and Open as>Photoshop:


Ok, you have a image file(.jpeg) so you might want to go and use it on your prefered editing program. On your image editing program go to Open>And find your skin .jpeg image
Add and change whatever you want.
Here's mine:

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IV Chapter
Extraction

Almost finished!

Now, there are two paths you can follow:

• If you have Photshop and the .VTF Plugin, you can simply go to File>Save as>.VTF (also remember that the name must be the same as the originals name, overwriting the existent one. In my case, the file will have to be called "v_cigarette_case.vtf":

If you used this metohd, skip to the V Chapter.

• Or the other path requires you to turn the file into a image and then make it a .vtf file. So save your edited skin image file in the same folder as the others. Then open VTFEdit and go to File>Import and import you edited image:

After that, go to File>Save as>.VTF File
Again remember, the names must be the same as the original so this will be called "v_cigarette_case.vtf".
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V Chapter
****, are we done yet?

Yes Jimmy, we are almost done.

Just grab the folder where all of that is on (should be called v_cigarette_case), and paste it all in the following directory:
Steam\steamapps\SteamUsername\team fortress 2\tf\materials\models\Weapons


Do not worry about making any kind of Backup. It is not needed. If you want to go back to the default skin, just delete the skin folder from the tf>Materials>Models>Weapons directory.

And you are done.
Go and enjoy getting ♥♥♥ whoped by your own custom designed guns.

Nice tutorial. +rep

[Canvas]

Thank you very much.
I searched for a bit and didn't find any How to make skins tutorial. So I just thought, what the heck.

[Canvas]

* Bump

[Sheik_Yerbouti]

nice, however it should be noted that you realy should back up any files before you attempt to modify them.

[AzureAngelic]

Originally Posted by Sheik_Yerbouti

nice, however it should be noted that you realy should back up any files before you attempt to modify them.

Actually, whenever TF2 runs it takes files from the .gcf. If anything's missing, it simply re-extracts them automatically. You could delete half your TF folder and it'd just come back (provided it wasn't custom content). In other words, if you dislike your skins, just delete them from the tf folder and be on your merry way.

[Sheik_Yerbouti]

you forget the poor irish using 56k modems :P

[SaphrxDispenser]

Good Sir, you got yourself more rep.

[Zikkun]

Thank you!

Bookmarked, rated, and repped since I've always wanted to learn how to make skins but I did not bother to waste time to search for it.

[yoyojumpy]

Thank you sah, always wanted to know how you do this.
You have given out too much Reputation in the past 24 hours, try again later.

[numlock75]

Very good.


Should be stickied

[Canvas]

Lol, I don't really care for rep, since it does nothing.
By the way, if you guys ever need a tutorial on something I can arrange it.

And yes, backup is not needed. Just delete the skin folder from the tf>Materials>Models>Weapons directory.

[Hug_an_Emo]

Great thread dude! I hope to see more good custom skins coming out after this. A lot of them are badly made/ don't fit in tf2. + rep

Thank you, +rep and favorited

[Red Kat]

Thanks. I can't wait to get skinning.