Collected skinning info (skins.vsks etc.)

I created new thread to this so information is easier to find. I will be collecting skin related stuff in this first post. All corrections and suggestions are welcome.

Car info from skins.vsks files: (not accurate anymore, .vepa is used)

01_american. (Muscle 1) 1. earlyacc_orange.vhcp  Skin10_C5 2. earlyacc_blue.vhcp  Skin11b_C5 3. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin7_C5 4. earlyacc_black.vhcp  Skin5_C5 5. earlyacc_green.vhcp  Skin12_C5 6. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin11_C5 7. earlyacc_red.vhcp  Skin2_C5 8. earlyacc_white.vhcp  Skin_C5 9. earlyacc_green.vhcp  Skin9_C5 10. earlyacc_white.vhcp  Skin8_C5 earlyacc_silver.vhcp  Skin3_C5 earlyacc_blue2.vhcp  Skin2_C5 earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin4_C5 earlyacc_red.vhcp  skin4_c5 earlyacc_red.vhcp  skin14_c5 earlyacc_black.vhcp  skin14_c5 02_european. (Mini) 1. earlyacc_black.vhcp    Skin10_C5 2. earlyacc_orange.vhcp  Skin8_C5 3. earlyacc_blue.vhcp  Skin9_C5 4. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin2_C5 5. earlyacc_red.vhcp  Skin1_C5 6. earlyacc_orange.vhcp  Skin3_C5 7. earlyacc_green.vhcp  Skin4_C5 8. earlyacc_green.vhcp  Skin5_C5 9. earlyacc_orange.vhcp  Skin6_C5 10. pink.vhcp  Skin7_C5 earlyacc_silver.vhcp  Skin2_C5 earlyacc_silver.vhcp  Skin7_C5 earlyacc_green.vhcp  Skin1_C5.

03_american. (Sedan) 1. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin14_C5 2. earlyacc_black.vhcp  Skin11_C5 3. earlyacc_orange.vhcp  Skin15_C5 4. earlyacc_blue.vhcp  Skin12_C5 5. earlyacc_highwaypatrol.vhcp  Skin16_C5 6. earlyacc_white.vhcp  Skin10_C5 7. black.vhcp  Skin8_C5 8. pink.vhcp  Skin6_C5 9. black.vhcp  Skin5_C5 10. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin4_C5 earlyacc_yellow.vhcp  Skin13_C5 earlyacc_white.vhcp  Skin14_C5 earlyacc_blue3.vhcp  Skin11_C5. 04_european. (Coupe) 1. earlyacc_silver.vhcp    skin05_c5 2. earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin02_c5 3. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp    skin04_c5 4. earlyacc_orange.vhcp    skin09_c5 5. earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin10_c5 6. earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin11_c5 7. earlyacc_white.vhcp    skin07_C5 8. earlyacc_white.vhcp    skin01_c5 9. earlyacc_blue.vhcp    skin08_c5 10. earlyacc_silver.vhcp    skin03_c5 earlyacc_green.vhcp    skin06_c5 earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin11_c5 earlyacc_orange.vhcp    skin04_c5 earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin08_c5 earlyacc_green.vhcp    skin03_c5 earlyacc_blue.vhcp    skin09_c5.

05_american. (Muscle 2) 1. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp    Skin03_C5 2. earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin02_C5 3. earlyacc_orange.vhcp    skin01_C5 4. earlyacc_green.vhcp    skin04_C5 5. earlyacc_blue.vhcp    skin05_C5 6. earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin06_C5 7. earlyacc_highwaypatrol.vhcp    skin03_C5 8. earlyacc_highwaypatrol.vhcp    skin07_C5 9. earlyacc_blue3.vhcp    Skin02_C5 10. earlyacc_green.vhcp    Skin06_C5 earlyacc_white.vhcp    Skin03_C5 earlyacc_black.vhcp    Skin06_C5. 06_american. (Muscle 3) 1. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp    skin01_c5 2. earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin03_c5 3. earlyacc_orange.vhcp    skin01_c5 4. earlyacc_white.vhcp    skin01_c5 5. earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin01_c5 6. earlyacc_green2.vhcp    skin01_c5 7. earlyacc_orange2.vhcp    skin01_c5 8. earlyacc_blue2.vhcp    skin02_c5 9. earlyacc_green.vhcp    skin01_c5 10. earlyacc_blue.vhcp    skin02_c5 07_european. (Coupe 2) 1. earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin05_c5 2. earlyacc_yellow.vhcp    skin05_c5 3. earlyacc_orange.vhcp    skin05_c5 4. earlyacc_white.vhcp    skin05_c5 5. earlyacc_red.vhcp    skin05_c5 6. earlyacc_green2.vhcp    skin05_c5 7. earlyacc_blue2.vhcp    skin05_c5 8. earlyacc_green.vhcp    skin05_c5 9. earlyacc_silver.vhcp    skin05_c5 10. earlyacc_blue2.vhcp    skin05_c5 earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin03_c5 earlyacc_blue2.vhcp    skin01_c5 earlyacc_black.vhcp    skin03_c5

First 10 skins have been numbered. Rest are the skins AI might use.
Paints files can be found in data\vehicle\shared\paint and skin textures in data\art\vehicles\xx\

How I extracted skins.vsks files: (Breckfest -dump)
Easiest way I found is to create new folder and drop in Breckfest.exe, skins.vsks files and create shortcut to breckfest. Add " -dump" in shortcut properties after Breckfest.exe and one click will extract all files.


Car skin formats:

Note: Channel order here is equal to png files generated by Breckfest. With official tools G = Roughness, A = Car paint clear coat

c5.bmap:
Texture. On transparent areas color is taken from paint files.

n.bmap:
R - No effect, All black (Reserved for ao?)
G - Normal map detail
B - Alters reflections, All white
A - Normal map detail

s.bmap: (Most of the info copied from dev post: Link.)

R - Metalness:
White color means it's 100% clean metal and black means it's not clean metal. Rust, for example is no longer metal which means it's a black value in metalness.


G - Car paint clear coat
White means a clean showroom quality clear coat, black means no clear coat at all. Mark everything that is not car paint (plastic parts, chrome, vinyl decals, dirt, rust) as black into this channel.
Your car probably isn't a new car either so don't go full white on the base brightness. Generally this channel should have all the same details marked in as there are in the roughness channel.

B - Reflectivity:
This is an additional adjustment for reflectivity which in most cases should be left as 128,128,128 grey. However, if you have details such as holes marked into your textures I recommend marking them into this channel as black.

A - Roughness:
White is super rough, black is super smooth. Most of the detail should go in this channel.

Example channels from 05_american/skin01_s.bmap: (AM2 Skin3)


ns.bmap:
Old format

Photoshop tip: Save in PNG tend to overwrite 100% transparent areas. Save for web & Devices > Interlaced seems to fix this. (tell me if there is better way)

Pink texture problem: (Breckfest)
Path to the .bmap file have to be manually written inside some files.

Example for driver_c.bmap:
Before bmap conversion add "data-art-textures-" to beginning of filename.
After conversion hex edit insides of file to form "data/art/textures/"

Rename the file back.

UV maps (by citizenerased)
Muscle 1  http://i.imgur.com/JTWg8TN.png
Muscle 2  http://imgur.com/yHCFLRS.png
Sedan  http://imgur.com/Lqp2Xoi.png
Mini  http://imgur.com/ZjD5N18.png
Coupe  http://imgur.com/rSHVkFN.png
Muscle 3  http://i.imgur.com/odUDENB.png
Coupe 2  http://i.imgur.com/fB3OcCu.png

Other threads to check
TOOL Breckfest - BMaps made tasty
Custom Skins Thread


Edit: Most of info is from 2015, I made small corrections

Mazay's ImageMagick scripts v1.0

I wrote couple of scripts to help working with channels of images.
Scripts are initially written for my own use, but I thought others might find them helpful too.

Partial copy of ImageMagick http://www.imagemagick.org is included for ease of use.

Drag & Drop images over batch files to convert.

channels_separate.bat:
Saves channels in separate files.

channels_combine.bat: (not Drag & Drop)
Combines channels separated before.

nmap_alpha_to_red.bat
Converts Breckfest normal map to usual format.
Red channel will be overwritten with alpha/transparency channel. Alpha will be removed.

nmap_red_to_alpha.bat
Convert usual normal map to Breckfest format.
Red channel will be moved to alpha channel.

Download here


Post your comments!

Mazay's ImageMagick scripts v1.0

I wrote couple of scripts to help working with channels of images.
Scripts are initially written for my own use, but I thought others might find them helpful too.

Partial copy of ImageMagick http://www.imagemagick.org is included for ease of use.

Drag & Drop images over batch files to convert.

channels_separate.bat:
Saves channels in separate files.

channels_combine.bat: (not Drag & Drop)
Combines channels separated before.

nmap_alpha_to_red.bat
Converts Breckfest normal map to usual format.
Red channel will be overwritten with alpha/transparency channel. Alpha will be removed.

nmap_red_to_alpha.bat
Convert usual normal map to Breckfest format.
Red channel will be moved to alpha channel.

Download here


Post your comments!

Can you make a re-converter script where you can convert non-bmap files back like vsks or things like that??

I tried to do something like that. I downloaded LZ4 compressor and did play with parameters hoping to find something which works with wreckfest.
Aswell I tried understand compression to fake it, but no luck yet. It would need more work than these scripts as here ImageMagick does the hard work 

First thank you for sharing. I've made a few basic skins without the editing of ns/s before and I've looked over the seperated channels.

I thought I followed the explanation but there's extra shine on rust parts whereas I thought I'd toned it down even more. I admit I'm not the fastest to pick up new things.

It would be a great help to see an example both in game and the file for doing it if someone who already gets it would be willing, I could run with that

It's possible channels may have been swapped in _s.bmap files also as they were in _n.bmap. I haven't yet tried dev's info by myself.

Edit: Green and alpha channels seems to be swapped together.

Is there anything I could add to breckfest to make editing the _n and _s maps easier?

Is there anything I could add to breckfest to make editing the _n and _s maps easier?

I think biggest annoyance is tha _n.bmap normal maps seem to have only two used channels and one of them is at alpha instead of red and green where they usually are making editing harded. I think moving current alpha to red automatically would help many. But then there is the problem what to do with rest of channels. If image ends up 100% transparent it isn't gonna be that helpful.

Also I wonder what is the reason for dev's conflicting information about channel order. Perhaps bugbears tools just automatically swap channels, or is there bug in wreckfest?

Is there anything I could add to breckfest to make editing the _n and _s maps easier?

After creating any bmap file, I always then feed that back into wreckfest to check the image created is correct. Automating this would be nice. Not essential by any means, but nice.

Is there anything I could add to breckfest to make editing the _n and _s maps easier?

After creating any bmap file, I always then feed that back into wreckfest to check the image created is correct. Automating this would be nice. Not essential by any means, but nice.

One thing i'm working on is adding an argument that prevents the rename process (currently in testing), and changes the destination of the files, so you could send them to the wreckfest folder. In the event the files exist it would prompt you, or we could have a backup folder or something.   I've also thought of having a gui, so you can do things over and over with one click.

Is there anything I could add to breckfest to make editing the _n and _s maps easier?

After creating any bmap file, I always then feed that back into wreckfest to check the image created is correct. Automating this would be nice. Not essential by any means, but nice.

One thing i'm working on is adding an argument that prevents the rename process (currently in testing), and changes the destination of the files, so you could send them to the wreckfest folder. In the event the files exist it would prompt you, or we could have a backup folder or something.   I've also thought of having a gui, so you can do things over and over with one click.

I like the sound of that. I seem to spend ages renaming files, copying them, browsing to wreckfest vehicle folder, finding & deleting original skin files, pasting the new ones in...only to find the gfx aren't quite right. Rinse, repeat. Anything to cut this faff down would be nice.

I like the sound of that. I seem to spend ages renaming files, copying them, browsing to wreckfest vehicle folder, finding & deleting original skin files, pasting the new ones in...only to find the gfx aren't quite right. Rinse, repeat. Anything to cut this faff down would be nice.

I just write a quick .bat file if I'm doing anything repetitive.

First thank you for sharing. I've made a few basic skins without the editing of ns/s before and I've looked over the seperated channels.

I thought I followed the explanation but there's extra shine on rust parts whereas I thought I'd toned it down even more. I admit I'm not the fastest to pick up new things.

It would be a great help to see an example both in game and the file for doing it if someone who already gets it would be willing, I could run with that

I rewrote s.bmap portion and added there example pictures. It should be now a bit easier to understand.

First thank you for sharing. I've made a few basic skins without the editing of ns/s before and I've looked over the seperated channels.

I thought I followed the explanation but there's extra shine on rust parts whereas I thought I'd toned it down even more. I admit I'm not the fastest to pick up new things.

It would be a great help to see an example both in game and the file for doing it if someone who already gets it would be willing, I could run with that

I rewrote s.bmap portion and added there example pictures. It should be now a bit easier to understand.

Thanks for your efforts to explain. Still can't get _s files working as I'd like though. I end up with shiny rust, and non-metallic metal.

So, I have a 4- layer image, nominally called R, G, B and alpha. Each layer - I follow the instructions as documented here to get the effects I'd like.... each layer is greyscale & for each layer, any value between white and black is valid?

Right, now I have to convince paint.net what each layer is before I combine them into a png file.
For R layer, I use colour curves, select blue and green, and drop the values right down, leaving behind only red.
Repeat process for B and G layer.
For alpha layer, I convert the layer to "black and alpha".
For blend mode, I choose "multiply" for each of the layers.

My resultant png looks nothing like the ones in wreckfest.
If I change the Opacity of R,G and B layers to about 10, it starts to look similar to a wreckfest _s file.

But, once converted, saved as 32 bit png, Breckfested and applied in-game - I always tend to have shiny rust and non-shiny metal.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

conflicting information about channel order

That difference comes down to the compression method used. There's more data reserved for compressing the alpha channel so it's better to use that. Our file converter (creates the alpha channel if it isn't specified and) switches the channels automatically when building the files into the game but all textures are built with the channel order I mentioned earlier somewhere. _n and _s files use a slightly different compression method so that might explain why there are different channels switched. Sorry for the late reply on that subject.