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Making Survivor Hud Images

By Splinks

A resource page and guide on how to make L4D2 Survivor hud images in my fashion.

Now I use Photoshop so the tutorial part of this guide won't really help much if you're not using photoshop, but I do supply raw PNGS of the backgrounds and borders for you to use in your program of choice located in the RAW IMAGES tab

Award

Created by

Splinks
Offline

Category: Modding or Configuration

Languages: English

Modding: Models

Posted

Updated

22 Jan, 2022 @ 5:40pm

8 Sep, 2023 @ 8:20pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Photoshop Files

Portraits

Incap

Lobby

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SpeedRun Strat

Raw Images

Comments

Photoshop Files

First we'll kick off by getting the PSDs and having them ready to go.

Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ᴅᴏᴡɴʟᴏᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ ʟɪɴᴋs

Download Link #1
Click Here [1drv.ms]

Download Link #2
Click Here [cdn.discordapp.com]

Portraits

So lets start off with what is the easiest.

Open your custom survivor in the Model Viewer from the L4D2 Authoring Tools

From here it's best to go to your sequence tab and put the character in it's default or ragdoll pose and adjust the face flexes to your liking.

Then when you're done admiring your work hit Print Screen.

For L4D1 Survivors all you'll need to do is just rotate the camera to where the character is looking to the left.

PROTIP: If you want to get the best results, adjust the lighting in model viewer to match the original reference images.

Hold CTRL+Left Mouse
to alter the lighting.

If done right you should see improvements like what is shown on the right

After you have your character cutout place it in the proper location.

L4D2 Render Location

L4D1 Render Location

Now go to your background layer and make visible the background of your character

Look at all those beautiful backdrops.

From here I find it best to tweak your render with the exposure filter

With a bit of tweaking of lowering the exposure and gamma you're render's shadows and highlights should come off a lot better. Playing around with the contrast and curve layers in the portrait folder layer can give you even more light boosts

With simply adjusting the Exposure that should get you there for a desired result. And thus you knocked out your ingame portrait.

Incap

Up next let's tackle the "help me i've fallen and can't get up" flair.

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In Model viewer you'll go back to the Sequence tab and choose the animation
Idle_Incap_Elites

From here just rotate the camera to have your character positioned like seen on the right.
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Load in any gun you like, but for the sake of being accurate to the originals you'll need to choose the dual pistols found through the steps on the right.
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Perform the sacred steps
- Screenshot the render
- Bring it into Photoshop
- Remove the background
- Do a horizontal flip
- Have a cookie
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Each backdrop is designated for 2 of the 8 survivors.
Be sure at this time to choose the survivor you're currently modding for
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Place the render in Survivors Layer under the Brightness and Contrast.

At this point I'd suggest going to the Exposure Adjustment Filter and getting a better light and shadows. And then if you need more pop simply adjust the Brightness and contrast layer
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Now you could Export it as a PNG and make a VTF and be on your merry way.

BUT!!!
What if I told you, you could make this better by making a TGA and eliminating those god awful white compression halo edges you see on VTFs.
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Now Edit>Copy Merge(Ctrl+Shift+C) the image

Open the Alpha Maker Layer and Paste In Place(Ctrl+Shift+V) into the IMAGE HERE folder

You should now have a Alpha Mask Image
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~ Now once again Copy Merge(Ctrl+Shift+C) the image

~ Click the Channel Tab next to the Layer Tab to open it

~ Hit the + button to make an alpha channel

~ Paste In Place(Ctrl+Shift+V) your alpha mask
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~ Go back to the Layer Tab

~ Hide the Alpha Maker Layer

~ And enable the Background layer

~ Export that sexy mofo as a TGA and smug in delight of your superior incap image
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Lobby

So I'm just going to be blunt with you. This tutorial won't be showing how to do the paint brush effect (mostly because I use a paid plugin for it)

Luckily Photoshop filters and some light adjustments will get us close enough to where we need to be. With that said time to get rollin!

You know the drill by now

open up that model viewer
choose an animation with a nice pose
load in a weapon
adjust the lighting
make a glamour shot
remove the background in photoshop

L4D1 Lobby Textures

At this time let's open the LOBBY.psd.
You'll see 2 layer folders titled L4D2 and L4D1.
Since L4D1 is the oldest we'll start with it.

You'll have 3 folders

REFERENCE
photo of bill's lobby photo
PORTRAITS
this is where you'll paste in your custom survivor screenshot
BACKGROUNDS
unique backgrounds for each l4d1 survivor

(Pretty much all self explanatory)

Now just put in your transparent glamour shot in the PORTRAITS folder under the Light Tuning

From here all you'll need to really do is

- Run an Exposure filter
- Add a bit of brightness and contrast
- Then slightly raise the saturation

L4D2 Lobby Textures

First we need to hide the L4D1 layer and make the L4D2 visible by click those glaring eye icons.

You'll have 4 folders this time around

REFERENCE
photos of Ellis' and Nick's beauty head shots
BORDERS
collection of black borders for each survivor's backdrop
PORTRAITS
this is where you'll paste in your custom survivor screenshot
BACKGROUNDS
unique backgrounds for each l4d2 survivor

(Can't get any more dummy proof than that)

Just like the L4D1 Lobby Section, paste your custom survivor photo in the PORTRAITS folder under the Light Tuning

Once again we get to visit the ol Exposure and contrast tool to make the this easier on the eyes.

But for the the hell of it all, here's the settings I went with.

Okay outlines can honestly be be done simply painting them on if you have a steadier hand or just a drawing tablet. I however only have a mouse and a hand that shakes like a ferret on top of a dryer.

So what I do instead is..
Create a solid black layer
Make a layer mask
Click the Layer Mask and turn it black
Select the Poly Lasso Tool
Change the background to white
Make a Selection and hit delete

For the sake of comparison. Here's what those few steps changed.

Ain't it beautiful? Take this time to bask in your greatness of now knowing the ways of above average hub texture making.

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SpeedRun Strat

Make a render of your character without a background
Place it in the Portrait/Survivor layer folder with the other renders in either the l4d1 or l4d2 section
Change background to the appropriate survivor.
Adjust your character render with an exposure filter
Save that bad boy and call it a day

Raw Images

If you just want the whole collection of images you can download them from one of the two links below.

Download Link #1
Click Here [1drv.ms]
Download Link #2
Click Here [cdn.discordapp.com]

But if you're just here for for one image or on the weird chance that these downloads fall into obscurity then we have some backups.

Lobby

COACH

NICK

ELLIS

ROCHELLE

ZOEY

BILL

FRANCIS

LOUIS

Portraits

L4D2 SURVIVORS

BILL

FRANCIS

LOUIS

ZOEY

Incapped

COACH & FRANCIS

NICK & BILL

ELLIS & LOUIS

ROCHELLE & ZOEY

24 Comments

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ZIGGY 28 Jun @ 10:55am

what if my mdl model gives me "error loading model" but crowbar gives no errors and in the game everything works fine? i can't find the solution anywhere😭

ebes 5 May @ 11:43am

thanks lad

valadezramon1273 1 May @ 4:04pm

Wow I didn’t know that the survivors has their own ui like having different scratches in the background pic

ArTuRMV 12 Mar @ 3:33pm

This is very practical, thanks for your effort!

I noticed the Raw Images links are off.

Splinks [author] 21 Feb @ 4:54pm

@Favy
In all honesty you would get the same results if you ran the whole page through an ai translator

My spanish is 3yrs old levels at best

Favy 21 Feb @ 11:31am

Could you translate it to spanish?

Funtime Freddy 60 14 Feb @ 4:35pm

Gotcha. Thanks.

The reason why I wanted to ask was because the "Make Screenshot" option in the HLMV viewer would make the screenshot way out of wack.

Splinks [author] 14 Feb @ 4:18pm

@Funtime Freddy 60
Step 1: Look at keyboard
Step 2: locate the arrow keys
Step 3: look up from there till you find a button labeled 'PrtSc'

Funtime Freddy 60 28 Jan @ 1:17am

How do you screenshot the render?

Splinks [author] 10 Sep, 2024 @ 5:07pm

@Alya you would need to decompile it and apply the files to your game's content folder. But as long as you have any image that works for the template then you really don't need to the models to make screen shots from.

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