Texture modding
A collection of information about textures; and how to edit and replace them/client side modding.
General information
Regarding HD textures, 3 reasons off the top of my head:
Texture size is specified/locked. You'd need to manually change that for every item. Not sure we have the tools currently.
I was told early on that bigger textures lead to a slowdown of the game. From what I understand: double a texture's size and it's like having 4 of that texture now. That's a big jump in file size. Consider the amount of costume parts we have in the game, the diversity of costumes you encounter and the game having to load all of those files. Not sure if it's the memory or whatnot (Platense can explain), but with the game code being what it is, it wouldn't work.
And 3rd, purely practical: The way to get the existing assets is by exporting the existing texture files, which are compressed DDS. The quality is often horrible. I tried upscaling and going through bouts of blurs and smart sharpens, but you just don't get a decent quality. So it's a lot of repainting by hand and that's a pain. Happy to be proven wrong on this
Understanding CoH textures
The Saturation mask, as I call it (I'm sure there's a pro term) controls how much skin color applies to the diffuse map. Black is 100% color, white is none.
Diffuse map with white, 50% black and black alpha layer
Normal map with white, 50% black and black alpha layer
Editing textures
Process
This is assuming you're using Adobe Photoshop.
- Download and install Photoshop DDS plugin
- Start Pigg Viewer Pro and browse to your [CoH main folder]\piggs folder
- Find the texture you want to work with
- Right-click desired texture, choose Extract, choose DDS format
- Open DDS file in Photoshop
- Edit texture as desired
- Save as DDS. If your texture has an alpha layer, make it DXT5 interpolated alpha. Files without alpha layer, like patterns or masks are DXT1.
- Open Pigg Viewer 1.61. Find the texture you want to replace, right-click, Create .texture from DDS. Select folder [CoH main folder]\data. Create if necessary.
- Start up game, find changed item
CoH does not always like it when you change textures while the game is running, especially normal maps. You might have to restart for each change.
Resources
Pigg Viewer v1.61
Use this to export and import DDS files. Might have to be run in WinXP compability mode.
https://mega.nz/#!JHRRFKzL!9LgzUNVWln2SRvjjkyl3uz9lfr4EQJiym0723v3HX7I
Pigg Viewer Pro
Easier tool for browsing. Use this to find the textures you want, use 1.61 to export/import. Alternatively, use the command-line Perl script Texture Converter to import if alterations require new header information.
https://mega.nz/#!dXJ1AYKb!fXb-omyssE2KJLhp4z618TeRtRpOdANsbY9D5tSMEnY
Photoshop Nvidia DDS plugin
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop
Female Chest UV map
File:CoH Female Chest layout.png
by arthurh3535