Halo2: Editing Skins Tutorial

[twilkey2002]

It would be cool if someone could sticky this.

Step 1. Open any program that lets you extract and inject bitmaps. (Iuse Ch2r)

Step 2. Open the map you are trying to skin it in. (Or just open the shared.map) If you want it to just be for that map and only that map then read up on internal and external bitmaps. Open the shared.map if you want it to show up on all the maps.

Step 3. Find the bitmap for the vehicle. (If you are using Ch2r then the bitmap picture will show up on the left side if you click once. If you are using dothalo then the raw data window should pop up. In Ch2r you double click the bitmap file to open the extract and inject window.)

'Step 4. Look on the window where it says something like DXT2/DXT3 and remember that.

Step 5. Click extract and save it somewhere where you can open it. (Keep the modding program open.)

Step 6. Open the bitmap in photoshop or whatever you use as long as it has the dds plugin.

Step 7. Edit it to your liking. (Do not change the size.)

Step 8. Go to File then Save As and save it somewhere or just override the original one you saved.

Step 9. Now this is where the DXT numbers come in. In the window that pops up on the top left where it says save format. If the bitnap said DXT 1 then save it as that with 1 bit alpha. If it was a DXT2/DXT3 then save it as a DXT3 and if it was a DXT4/DXT5 then save it as a DXT5.

Step 10. Open up your inject and extract window for that bitmap.

Step 11. Click inject and find the edited bitmap.

Step 12. resign and close the map you edited and the shared.map.

Step 13. Ftp the edited map and the shered.map over and clear the X, Y, Z files and the Cache folder located in the E folder.

Step 14. Have fun with your new colors.

[gundamzuki]

You might want to edit your thread title to let people know you are talking about Halo 2 skinning.

[twilkey2002]

Thanks for catching that. And thanks whoever changed that.

[enerbrat]

I deleted the X, Y, Z, and CACHE files like it said. Now I get "Can't read disk" errors and the maps won't load. I had a backup of the CACHE that I restored but did not backup X, Y, and Z.

EDIT: I had to reload Halo2 directly from CD then it would run. But it still didn't replace it.

[merriam]

same problem dude when you delete the xyz the maps fail to load lol anyone know the problem?

[malumvolo]

Im got the same problem, Im gonna try re-copying H2 over.

EDIT: all I had to do was run Halo 2 off the disc, then load any map, and now it works off my hdd again.

DOUBBLE EDIT: I also loaded 1 sp map and one MP map

[haxalot88]

Im got the same problem, Im gonna try re-copying H2 over.

don't delete the actual folders... it ruins the game. what he meant was delete the content of the folders since the actual game depends on those folders existing. so if you want to fix the problem, make 4 folders "x", "y", "z", and "CACHE" respectively.

[patchesreusch]

nice bump