Problems editing Chaos Marine texture

[Yautja]

hey, i need a hand, i had a go at the iron warriors reskin myself today, i followed the Hiveworldterra tutorial, got Beroc's WTP tool, opened downloaded custom skin to modify it for myself, and used gimp 2.0 to open the Chaos_marine_Default.Tga. i turned the whole right or left shoulderpad (no clue which) to chevrons and edited the Dirt file so that that shoulderpad was pure white to gett it to work, and saved these and made a WTP with the Default file, then placed it in the DXP2 Data art ebps chaos folder. when i went on DC and onto the army painter, the chaos marine was no different, so i redid it again, this time not doing the dirt file, and still no result, i reopened that chaos marine file with Gimp and went to default, and all that showed up was a hellofalot of squiggly lines, kinda like when the Telly's reception goes screwy . any idea what i did wrong? this really annoyed me cos i followed the Tutorial completely and this took me quite a while to do... i really want an iron warriors reskin and as i cant get anyone else to do it for me, i really just want to do it myself, but even this didnt work. grr.

[IBBoard]

I'll move this to its own post in a minute as it is a separate issue.

Firstly, I'd recommend using the Dawn of War Texture Tool instead of Beroc's WTP tool. The WTP Tool is fine for basic WTPs but it doesn't understand different sizes (e.g. scouts) or banner images and it hasn't been updated in a long while.

As for the issue, where did you extract the file to in the first place and what tool did you use? If you extract it to its default location then it should work fine as soon as you re-compile it. I normally recommend the W40K folder rather than the DXP2 folder as it is more consistent.

Also, did you put it in the data/art/ebps/chaos folder or data/art/ebps/races/chaos/texture_share? It needs to be in the latter one or else the game won't read it.

As for the TGA file being corrupt when you opened it again, I don't know what could cause that. I might be able to take a guess if you could post the image but otherwise I don't know the symptoms.

[Yautja]

I extracted the File to the Default folder, but it was in Dxp2
i put it in the Texture_share folder

i cant actually post a picture, my internet despises doing any uploading of anything at all

Could it be to do with mods at all? i have a early LotW mod installed...

Edit: i tried it with the one you linked me to, and when remaking the WTP i got this problem:
Compiling WTP for chaos_marine_unit_default.tga
Reading chaos_marine_unit_default.tga

ERROR: Base layer must be a valid 32-bit Targa image
Compiling WTP for chaos_marine_unit_default.tga

What did i do wrong?

[IBBoard]

I guess if you took an updated DC version of the texture it would be in the DXP2 folder.

As for mods, yes, they can cause problems with textures not showing if you are running them. If you haven't done so already then try running Vanilla DC.

The error is fairly self-explanatory and is probably a side-effect of the corruption you mentioned. I don't know what you might have done to cause it to be invalid. Normally if you extract the texture, edit it and save it then it'll be saved in the same format as it was originally in. What file size (KB) is the _default.tga file?

If you can't even upload a JPG of the texture going wrong to somewhere like ImageShack.us then I'd recommend getting a new ISP

[Yautja]

i tried running Vanilla DC today but still no difference
the Size of the file after editing is 526KB
I'm using Gimp 2.2 if that means anything...

also i am working on getting broadband heh but for now AOL 9.0 very much for the loss.

[IBBoard]

Even on AOL dialup you should be able to upload a JPG in not too long.

526KB sounds like the wrong size, as if the file format isn't even TGA. _default.tga images should be ~1MB (four colours - red, green, blue and alpha transparency - at 512*512 bytes each). The colour layers (_dirt, _primary, etc) should be ~256KB.

If it is the wrong file type then unfortunately Windows isn't too helpful. Linux and Mac (I think) check the content of the file to determine file types. Windows relies entirely on the file extension. Linux would be able to tell you what file format the file really was, Windows will just assume it is a .tga because it says ".tga".

The only other thought that just popped in to my head (because it is a funny size - not a power of two) is whether you saved it with compression? Dawn of War and the Texture Tool don't handle compression, so you might have saved a compressed TGA. If you're still talking about the corrupt image then it shouldn't be the compression that caused the corruption (unless the Texture Tool/Beroc's tool erroniously let you compile a compressed texture into a WTP and you then re-extracted it and the tool assumed it wasn't compressed).

[Yautja]

I was working on a new file, and this one didnt corrupt, it just wont move into the .wtp file
I wasnt compressing the file, right heres a tthought, heres what i am doing : recolouring the whole middle section of one of the shoulderpads with Chevrons on Default, then i went on Dirt and made that shoulderpad completely white so that ther colour scheme wouldnt overwrite it. have i missed anything out? oh P.S. i may of gone over the edge of the shoulderpad with the chevrons, is that a problem?

[IBBoard]

If that 526KB is a new file then it is definitely either the wrong format (i.e. not actually saving as TGA) or it is compressed. When you save it check the file format and the save options. You may have to use Save As, but you shouldn't need to. I use The Gimp in Linux and haven't had a problem with it (as long as you're using the latest Texture Tool - some earlier versions didn't set the headers quite right).

The editing process should be as simple as: extract WTP from SGA, extract TGAs from WTP, edit TGAs, save TGAs, re-compile WTP, play game.

Going outside the bounds of an area shouldn't matter on the _default layer, as long as you've not gone on to another area of the texture (i.e. you just went on to a black patch)

[Yautja]

Right, it was that i was saving them as a diff type file. thanks to you're suggestions, i managed to get the skin to ALMOST work.
Nothing happens in any mods, but when i go on Base DC, it comes up with this : http://www.xfire.com/profile/khornatekyle
if it doesnt come up straight away with the Screenshot, scroll down till you get to it. sorry for the Xfire screenie but its the only way to do it that doesnt take 2 hours >.>
the same happens on diff colour schemes, i checked the other models but no change for them. you seen this before? whats happened? could it be that i am editing a Custom skin? oh btw it's Hangar-8's Chaos extra detail skin.
oh as well the Default file switched to 1,024Kb under .TGA and the Dirt changed to same as all the others, 275Kb

[IBBoard]

My first guess would be that your _dirt layer is wrong. Any area that is black on _dirt will show team colouring, or black if there isn't any team colouring.

My other thought is that the texture might be inverted for some reason.

To be honest, though, I can't quite tell what part of the texture is showing up on the arms to work out what it is doing. If you could work that out then it might help.

I take it the model goes back to normal when you remove the texture?

[Yautja]

what do i have to do, in total, to get just one shoulderpad to show chevrons. i have done the chevrons on Default, and turned that shoulderpad white on dirt. is there anything else to do, or have i screwed up on dirt?

i cant tell what texture is on the hands, i had a look earlier, possibly the backpack texture as there is vents
and yes, it goes back to normal when i remove the texture.

[IBBoard]

The steps to add the chevron should be:

1) Open _default.tga and add chevron
2) If the area was team coloured before then open _dirt.tga and paint the matching area white
3) Recompile texture

At the moment I can't quite see why so much of the texture would be black. The only other thing I can think of is that the _dirt and/or _default layers have been rotated or something.

What happens when you back up your TGAs and re-extract the WTP? Does it still look like the original texture but with your changes (same dimensions, orientation etc)?

If you could post the WTP then it might help.

[Yautja]

yes, it has Flipped and rotated both the Default and the dirt file when i turn it into a WTP. i tried re-editing it to rotate and flip it but when i go to save it in gimp, it gives me this message :
your image should be exported before it can be saved as a tga for the following reasons:

Tga cant handle layer offsets, size, or opacity

merge visible layers

the export conversion wont modify your original image

i tried exporting it, but it seems to turn the File into something different to a TGA

how do i fix this

oh and how do i post the WTP?

[IBBoard]

To post the WTP you'll need to zip it and post it to somewhere like FileShack or one of the many other free hosting sites.

As for the export message, the second part (visible layers) is expected if you have added layers, but the first one I've never seen before. 32-bit TGA does handle opacity and all images handle size, so only offset should be a problem. TBH I don't know what you'd have done to trigger that, though.

Can you try taking the original (from before you edited it) and re-applying your changes? Maybe the mid-point of the incorrect format is still having an impact.

[Yautja]

tried that today, it did the same thing. i'll try it again, but exactly the same thing happened.


I think the upload worked, here is a link, i could of screwed it up, its the first time i've done it
http://www.filefactory.com/file/fd2198