[Question] Converting Texture to Data?

[Wrathraven]

I have made my own texture for a cat reskin to match the 'cougar' model. Following <a href="http://www.mmowned.com/forums/model-editing-guides-programs/146854-guide-lex-simple-guide-custom-textures-skins-become-best-reskinner.html">this</a> guide I have gotten so far as the fifth step. I have found the skin I wanted to edit, having converted it to a .tga. I opened it in Gimp, re-textured it how I wanted to, and saved it to .tga. I had to export the image to do so, as I had used layers in Gimp. But when I tried to convert this .tga back into a .blp, it had an error and said it was not formatted correctly.

I brought this image into MS paint, saved it as a .png, and tried it this way...but this didn't work, either.

Can anyone help me? I'm not sure how to format this texture right, and I spent a lot of time on this texture, I am not about to see all that work go to nothing.

[Wrathraven]

Well alright, I just found out how to format the .tga - but when I bring it up on MyWarcraftStudio, that is -not- the picture I made but some crazy jumble of ramdon lines and colors. Like how the old NES used to freak out and screw up the graphics if it was too dusty.

[Wrathraven]

Ok...if no one is going to help me with this, then so be it. I have fought through every stage of this, asked for help throughout it, and NO one has even offered a hand to me. Needless to say I will not be asking for help here again considering how nobody is willing to give it.

I'll figure the rest of this out on my own.

Jerks.

[Yamachi]

Wow... You leave a thread up for ONE SINGLE HOUR, then throw a hissy fit 'coz nobody's replied yet? Seriously? -.- You might not, but the rest of us have lives, you know. Anyways, GTFO of MMOwned if you're gonna act a douche. Oh, and have a good day.

~ Yama

[Mirror]

Hahhaa this is so epic...!

[Mages]

Why do you want a Cat?

[Wrathraven]

If I'd have wanted to act like a douche, you guys would know it. All I am is a little disappointed. I was in a hurry to get it done, and I was definitely working on it for more than an hour - this was not my original post. What I was working on was frustrating and annoying to me, and forgive me if my anger showed up in this thread. I had worked for several hours straight only to find out all my work was for nothing, as it...well, it didn't work.

And I wanted a cat mainly because I wanted to test out reskins, and I'm better at animal reskins than much of anything else....that, and I was planning on changing the druid cat to something else. Dunno about you, but I hate having to look at a rat-tailled-Liono-faced mutant all day o.o And Druids of Azeroth isn't working for WOTLK (I assume) so...I decided to try and make my own.

[Zadenk]

Whether or not you feel you were being a douche is beyond the point. The reason people were calling you a douche was because if you look at other threads in this forum, you notice it takes more than a couple hours between request and response. Throwing a hissy fit tends to not get people to help you faster, calling the community jerks isn't going to get you places either.

To be honest, I have no idea what's wrong with what you're doing.

But try to take a little creative license as to what you're doing.

Reading over what you've done so far, here's somethings you could also try:
- Find a different .BLP converter. I have multiple ones, browse around this forum to see what the differences are, or ways you can use them to problem solve.

- Make sure you're saving the TGA in the right format, as it's entirely within the realm of possibility that you're saving it in the wrong format. Off the top of my head, I believe it's 32bpp, I might be wrong because I'm incredibly sleepy right now and was just making a short tour around forums before bed.

- Try a different image editing program. I have personally never used GIMP, so I have no idea if there might be some underlying troubles that it causes, most people use Photoshop. If you don't have it, I'd suggest giving the free trial a shot and see if you coin different results.

- Make sure there wasn't an error during importing, make sure there wasn't a small error along the way.

With that, happy hunting. Patience is a virtue, one of which I do not happen to have, but I manage to get by somehow, you should be able to too!
EDIT: As for spending massive amounts of time on something, you never truly acquire nothing from it. You always progress or learn something in some way/shape/form. I can recall spending hours setting up an emulator that I would only use for a couple minutes only to realize that the emulator I was using before was far more suited to my needs. I've also gone through bits where I model or skin something for hours only to discard it due to low quality. Etc. If you find that overtly frustrating, time consumption and what you're trying to do go hand in hand.

I recall seeing a Corrupted Dalaran thread somewhere in here, odds are I'm probably going to need to do that at some point, and I'm sure it's going to take a very, very long time >.<.

[Yamachi]

Use BLP Converter 5 or Technetium BLP to convert. When you save the TGA in The GIMP, you MUST add a blank layer first. It will then ask if you want to export. Do so. From there, you should have no problems.

NOTE: The reason you need to add a new layer is because The GIMP normally saves TGA's in 24bit colour. However, when you export a TGA, GIMP automatically merges the transparent layer with the normal layer, forcing it to save in 32bit colour. I'm not sure if this is fixed in The GIMP 2.6, as I haven't tried yet.

P.S. In the future, try to be a bit more patient.

[Wrathraven]

Yes, patience. I know I have very little of it. And I am sorry for tweaking out, again. I feel I must thank you, also, for your own patience. I seldom...display my temper and I am sorry that the visitors to this thread had to see it.

Additionally, thanks for the advice. I'll test with Gimp in the procedure you suggested, Yama, and I'll also take a look at Photoshop - I've always wanted to try it, anyway. If I may ask one final question, however. Does a reskin require an MEF? And if I were to swap the model of a tauren druid cat form to, say, the cougar model and reskin I created, would that also require an MEF? I tested with a different converter and managed to make a .MPQ file with the texture in place, but am unable to make it work in-game, and the one model viewer I found on this site....tends to immediately shut down after I attempt to load up an m2.

[Yamachi]

...Does a reskin require an MEF? And if I were to swap the model of a tauren druid cat form to, say, the cougar model and reskin I created, would that also require an MEF?... ...and the one model viewer I found on this site....tends to immediately shut down after I attempt to load up an m2.

Yes, use Cypher's Model Edit Fix (you can find it by looking through his threads via his profile). Also, I'm guessing you're using WoW 3.x, in which case you'll need to get the latest WMV from WoW Model Viewer

[Wrathraven]

Ahh, I must have missed that part. Awesome, thanks ^^