Since Stingray's site seems to be permanently down and I can't find his tutorial anymore and people keep asking for it, I decided to create my own Skinning Tutorial.

This is my first attempt at making a tutorial. So please forgive me if something seems to complicated. I try to write it as simple as possible.

First you have to download and extract the tools. You can find the download here.

Open your copy of Winzip and click on 'Open'. The 'Open Archive' dialog pops up. Find your cd-drive with the FAKK2 cd inserted. Doubleclick first on the folder 'install' and after that on the folder 'fakk'. There should be two 'pk3' files. If you don't see them make sure that you have selcted 'All files' in the dropdown list 'File types'.

Select 'pak0.pk3' and click on 'Open'.It should look something like this.

For this tutorial we need files for the upper body of first skin the julie model uses. The files are called:

julie1_skin1.ftx Texture for lower body
julie2_skin1.ftx Texture for upper body
julie3_skin1.ftx Texture for the head

Select the 'julie2_skin1.ftx' file and hit extract. In the extract to window select the 'skins' folder located in the Skin Tutorial directory you just downloaded and extracted. Make sure that 'Use folder names' is selected. You can click on 'Extract' now.

The directory structure should look like this:

If you want to change another skin. For example the third one. That's the red battle suit. Extract the 'ftx' files ending with 'skin3'. It's that simple.

Now move 'julie2_skin1.ftx' to the 'bin' folder also located in the Skin Tutorial directory. Go to the 'bin' directory. Select 'julie2_skin1.ftx' and drop it on ftxconvert.exe. You should get a file called 'julie2_skin1.tga'. This file can be edited with your favorite paint program. Like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or Photopaint. You can delete now 'julie2_skin1.ftx'.

I put the same tattoo I have on her back. Couldn't think of anything more creative. Feel free to change whatever you want, but make sure you save the file in 24-bit and leave the name of the file as it is. You can save in 32-bit if you want masked areas. But that's not necessary for this tutorial. You can find my tga and ftx in the 'template' folder.

Go to the 'bin' folder again and drop the newly created 'julie2_skin1.tga' on tgaconvert.exe. You should get a new 'julie2_skin1.ftx' file just waiting to be put in an pk3 file.

Now move 'julie2_skin1.ftx' back to the 'newjulie' folder. It's time to create your first pak file.
Right click on the skins folder and Select 'Add to zip'. In the 'Add to archive' textfield insert the path to the F.A.K.K.2 pak files.

For example 'C:\Games\Fakk2\fakk\'

After that follows the name of the pak file.

For example 'pak9.pk3'

In the end it should look like this:

Make sure that 'Include subfolders' is selected. You can hit 'Add' now. When Winzip is done. Start up the first level of F.A.K.K.2 and you should see your changes in all their glory.