This tutorial shows you how you can “delete” parts of a model/skin without having to actually 3D-edit it just by editing it in Photoshop or Gimp.
If you encounter any issues with this tutorial or you don’t understand part of it, you can ask for help on the Killerskins-Discord server
or you can contact me directly: Yoru#1006
Table of Contents
Infos
To delete small model parts you might not need to actually model edit. Simply making textures transparent might help in a lot of cases, but not all (Initially I wanted to delete Spirit Blossom Evelynn’s crown, which for some reason did not work).
Keep in mind that textures deleted like this will still cast shadows, which will become and issue if you plan to erase really big model portions.
Also the textures are created with the model in mind, so in Syndra’s case she has a really dark forehead and eye area.
Often models are also incomplete, for example often if you delete hair that fully covers the side of the head, there might not be a modeled ear and the character will look ear-less. Or if a skirt overlaps the legs, part of the leg will be missing (Secret Agent Miss Fortune).
Required tutorials
In order to follow this tutorial you must understand and be able to follow the following tutorials:
Required tools
- Any graphic editor that can handle .dds files
- Photoshop + NVIDIA Texture Tools OR Intel Texture Works
- Uvee to extract the model UV (only fully necessary if you don’t use Maya or Blender)
- Something to view your model (not mandatory but very helpful)
Written tutorial
Loading your model and extracting the UV
Follow this tutorial to load your model in Blender (or Maya or wherever you can load a model and view models parts and uv) and extract the UV (best watch it until 15:20):
Finding the UV space you want to erase
First select the model parts you want to erase on your model. (I use Maya here instead of Blender, but its very similar).
Make sure to select everything of whatever you want to remove, all small areas and also the back side which can be hard to see sometimes.
Now look at the UV and remember which areas are selected, best leave it open and selected.
Then go into your graphic editor program, load the texture and the UV on a layer on top of it. Make sure that the UV is perfectly aligned in the middle, Photoshop likes being icky with that.
Select the area around the selected UV shells in your 3D programm. I recommend the Polygon Lasso tool.
Make sure to not overlap other UV shells to not delete thing you don’t want to.
Finding out what method you need to use
There are 2 methods which are used by different graphic programs and plug-ins: Alpha masks and transparency.
You must find out which one your programm uses in order to make textures invisible.
Alpha mask
If you load a texture and it it looks solid and has a layer called “Alpha” under channels that’s black and white, you need to use the first method.
Transparency
If the texture clearly has transparent parts and no Alpha layer under channels (or no channels), you need the second method.
I use Photoshop for this one.
Go to the Alpha layer under “Channels”. Then paint all the areas you just selected in fully black.
Then export your texture with a BC3/DXT5 compression.
I use Gimp for this.
Simple take your eraser tool and erase all the selected areas fully.
Then save with BC3/DXT5 compression.
