Skinning Chapter Four: Inserting .DDS Images & Putting Re-skinned Models In-game

1. Inserting the edited .DDS texture file back into the character's .hgp file

we now use the lswinsert.pl script to take your edited file and put it back in the place where we extracted earlier and save this edited file as a new .hgp

Click 'start' in your windows taskbar. Click 'Run...'

Enter this command into the box. The name of script to run ' lswinsert.pl ' followed by the name and location of the .hgp file you extracted from originally ( C:\lswmods\stormTrooper.hgp ),  then the edited .DDS file to be inserted ( C:\lswmods\tiepilot.77824.DDS ), then the new file to be written ( C:\lswmods\xstormTrooper.hgp ). Make the new file to be written similar in filename (though not identical) to the original .hgp file. In this case I put an 'x' at the start of the filename;

eg.

lswinsert.pl C:\lswmods\stormTrooper.hgp C:\lswmods\tiepilot.77824.DDS C:\lswmods\xstormTrooper.hgp

The script knows where to insert the edited .DDS by reading the offset information in the filename (77824 in this case).

2. Putting our edited .hgp file back into the game.

We are now taking our edited .hgp file, and replacing the original .hgp file with it.

Copy and paste the newly written .hgp file, xstormTrooper.hgp, from C:\lswmods\ to the directory you first got it from, in this case

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\

Delete the original file stormTrooper.hgp file in the

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\

directory (remember we earlier backed the original file up in

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\backup\

so we can put the original stormTrooper.hgp file back at a later date).

Rename our new file to have same name as original one we just deleted. In this case we now rename xstormTrooper.hgp to stormTrooper.hgp in the \Chars\Clone\ directory.

3. Check to see how your new skin looks in-game

If all went smoothly above, you'll be able to fire up LEGO Star Wars and choose a level that uses your character (or pick it on freeplay if available - The Stormtrooper is only available in the Bonus Level, not as a freeplay character) and have a go with it! You can take screenshots by hitting shift-Print Screen, then quitting out of the game and pasting the clipboard to Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. A better way is to set up screen captures in Paint Shop Pro (fullscreen, multiple images, no cursor) and every time you hit your hotkey the screenshot will dump into Paint Shop Pro.

At this point we will probably was to make some adjustments to the skin. I discovered that the imperial symbols get stretched if placed in the "correct" minifig position above the eyes, so I moved them to a 'safe' position where the end of the eyebrow stripe in the original Storm was located. And I noticed the back of leg and sole of foot textures looked wrong when just using the negatived version, so I found another character with black legs (Darth Maul) and took the back-of-leg and foot textures from that and pasted them into the appropriate positions on the .DDS texture. Compare Fig 3i. and Fig 3ii. below

Fig 3i. First Try   Fig 3ii. Legs & Imp Sign

So it's back to editing the .DDS file again, then inserting the edited .hgp file back into the game as outlined above. Repeat as necessary until the in-game character looks as good as possible.

4 . Restoring the original character back.

To put the original character back should be easy enough if you've made it this far. Just be sure that you've also saved a copy of your modded character somewhere too (a copy of it should still be in the C:\lswmods\ directory if you copy & pasted it earlier).

Delete the modded stormTrooper.hgp file in the

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\

 directory.

Copy and paste the original .hgp file, stormTrooper.hgp, from

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\backup\

to

C:\Program Files\Giant\LEGO Star Wars Game\lego_data\Chars\Clone\

When you start up the game, you should now have the original stormtrooper character back.

 

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