Blender

By: E3VL

Info

Before we start, understand that this tutorial is making use of Blender as the main software. In this tutorial we will be using the .smd model format. You may still follow if you are using other software. (keep in mind as well, the process for some things wont be the EXACT same on other software) [Substance tutorial will be released soonTM]

Getting our model

Firstly, we need to obtain the model for whatever it is you will be working on. To do this, simply head over to the main page of the github, pick a format of your preference and find the model you need.

Once you have obtained the model you want, we can now obtain the textures for it. Head to the main page of the github and just simply navigate through the "textures" folder.

Now, you have the models and textures downloaded. What do I do with these you may ask. Now, we need to download the appropriate software to edit and make custom skins. For this, there is a plethora of tools you can use. Blender, Substance Painter, Maya, Krita, Gimp, Photoshop, etc.

Software

For this tutorial we will be using Blender, if you want to use Substance Painter then please navigate to the substance tutorial. (substance tutorial may not be finished at this time)

If you are asking, are all of these software's free? Sadly only some are..BUT the ones that are free are: Blender, Krita, and Gimp.

There is a way to obtain Substance which is free and not illegal or pirating in any way. This method uses a service Adobe themselves offer. For more info on this follow this video: https://youtu.be/0uKH4S7QD44

Plugin install

Assuming you now have Blender installed and have ran it at least once, firstly delete the cube and camera that spawn upon loading Blender up the first time, then go to "file" in the top left then "defaults" and click "save startup file" This will get rid of useless junk every time you startup Blender

Next, we need to install a plugin to be able to import the model/s we installed. (This plugin allows you to import .smd .vta .dmx and .qc files)

Go to this link to install the plugin :https://steamreview.org/BlenderSourceTools/ (Download the latest version)

Now that we have that installed, re-open Blender and go to "Preferences" found under the "edit" tab. Click the "add-ons" tab and go to "install"

Now locate your add-on and install as shown

Importing the model

To import our model, we simply just need to go the to top left of our screen "file" then "import" and now click "source engine". Once it opens up the file explorer tab, now just look for the model you downloaded and double left click it.

Sometimes models can take a second to load so dont click anything while ur waiting for it to load in. You are now done importing the model (yay)

Moving and rotating our model

THIS IS JUST FOR A CLEANER WORKSPACE, FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS PORTION IF YOU DONT CARE

Following the above image, we need to make sure that magnet is now blue and same with the "rotate" text below it. Before we continue, you may notice some weird things spawned in with the model like shown in the below image.

We can delete all of the spheres, the kill tracker, and any sights that arent default. Now you may be saying "my model is split up into parts" to solve this, simply hold left shift and select the other parts of the gun, when everything is selected, right click then "join" . Now we can move on to rotating and moving our model.

Select the model in question, and in the top right you should see the x, y, and z axis. Click the X axis and it should look like this after.

Now select the rotate tool. Its the one that has a stop sign in the middle with arrows rotating around it. Now, on the red line, hold left click and rotate the model left to a perfect 90 degree rotate. Now select the move tool and line up the model with the blue line going down our screen.

Texturing our model

There is multiple ways to go about this in Blender, today im just going to show you a very simple way. We need to change our workstation to "texture paint" now.

Once in the texture paint tab, follow the below image.

Once our texture mode is set to "single image" we can now import whatever texture map we want. To acquire the texture for the model you are editing, simply head to https://github.com/BigSpice/TitanFall-2-Skin-Modding/tree/main/Textures

Now, you should have downloaded the correct textures. Simply go to the "open" button on the right side as demonstrated below to open a file explore tab.

Now locate the texture you want to edit and just open it. Congrats, you have now successfully imported a model and textured it. (A more advanced tutorial may come soon)