Noob Model Skinning & Swapping Guide

[pro_2k]

Well, I’ve been a member of this site now for over two years and never posted a thing, that being because I had nothing to give back to MMOwned, but now after absorbing all that info I finally have something to write about.

Just wanted to sum up my findings about model skinning, and very simple model “swapping”.

The reason I’ve become interested in this is because my druids tree form bores me to tears, little changes here and there I guess would make the game seem a little fresher and If I can help someone get into this all the better. And if the gurus of model editing see this, I would like to learn more if the thread grew.

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Tools needed for this little run through:

• WoWMe
  (It was on mmowned a couple days ago can't seem to find it now)
  WoWMe.rar
  
  
• MPQEditor
  MPQ Archives - Downloads
  MPQEditor.rar
  
  
• WoW Model Viewer
  WoW Model Viewer
  
  
• WoW Image Converter
  (Cant remember where i got this from)
  wowimage-blp-0991.zip
  

First I will show you how to change the colours of the druid “Tree Form”, and then I will show you how to change “travel form” model to another.

==== Changes Colors of Tree Form ====

1. Open WoW Model Viewer and expand “creature” > “Ent” > “ent.m2”
   
   
   
2. This is our Tree of Life form. Now, to extract the skin information we need to open MPQEditor, by selecting open MPQ archive choose “common.MPQ” in your WoW Data folder, expand to “creature” > “Ent” then right click “EntSkinBrow.blp” then extract to a place of your choice.
   
   
   
3. Now open Wow Image Converter. For those of us, like me, would have become stumped at this with a command line nonsense, just right click and open with Java Binary.
   
   
   
4. Drag the BLP file onto the “Decode” side and a fresh new PNG file will be created in the same folder as the BLP file.
   
   
   
5. Now time to edit that in Photoshop or some other piece of software. I made this...
   
   
   
6. Drag the new edited picture onto WoW Image Converter “Encode” and the BLP will be replaced.
   
   
7. In Ladik’s MPQ Editor Create a new MPQ called “patch-k.MPQ” in your WoW Data folder.
   
   
8. Replicate the folder layout “creature” > “Ent” then drag and drop your newly created “EntSkinBrown.blp” into here.
   
   
   
9. Extract “WoWMe.exe” into your WoW installation Dir.
   
   
10. Run “WowMe.exe”
    
    
11. Press F8 at the WoW Login screen
    
    
12. Login & Enjoy the new skin (Well, if it’s a good one)
    
    

--Too tired to go on will write more soon, let me know if what i write is good or not.

have also attached the patch-k.MPQ for noobies like me to have a look at to help them understand

PRO