This is a guide on how to reskin textures for Gmod models, or just source models in general. I'm assuming you have an editing program of some sort, or at least know how to edit.

You'll need a few different things to be able to retexture:


- An image editing program, PHOTOSHOP IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

- VTFEDIT: https://www.moddb.com/downloads/vtfedit-133

- Storage Space, recommended enough just to make a temporary .psd

- Crowbar, highly recommended to use if you wish to retexture something from workshop:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/CrowbarTool

- VTF Shell Extension, lets you see all the preview pics of the vtfs:
https://www.wunderboy.org/downloads/vtf_shell_extensions_v1-7-5-1-zip/

This part isn't really necessary, but it always helps to have a backup of some sort for your files.

Since you have VTFEDIT, that means your textures and files are going to look like these:



Personally, I make a folder that has backup textures and a set of new textures, which look like this:



They also have subfolders too, but those are dependent on what you want to do.

With that out of the way, we can begin.

All textures are going to be different, and it's sometimes hard to find the right texture. A reminder that the one I'll be using only has a single texture, but most others don't.

If you wish to edit a workshop mod, you can either use {LINK REMOVED}https://steamworkshopdownloader.io or Crowbar's Unpack/Download system to download the mod, to get the files for it. Personally, I'd recommend using Crowbar's Download/Unpack system, since it's usually faster.



Moving on, since we've got VTFEDIT installed, we can go to our addons and find the addon we want to use, because our textures are inside them. I'll be using this one:



Then go find the vmts/vtfs that we need to edit.



If you want to, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO, is to create a backup folder for these because it can serve both as our editing folders and backups. I'll be moving the files into here:



Now, onto the next step.

Now that we have our textures ready, we'll extract them using VTFEDIT.



We're going to open the texture type that's called a diffuse texture, usually called something like "_d" or "_cs" at the end of it. It's going to be a VTF, not a VMT. In short, it's the texture that you see in game in fullbright.



Now extract the file to the location you want it in, and if you followed part one (which was optional) you can extract it to the "old" section. I'd extract it as a .tga file, since it's usually the highest quality.



Now we're going to open our texture in our editing program. I'll be using photoshop.

The main point of this part is getting your texture into your editing program and changing what you want. If you know how to edit a picture, you can immediately skip this part and move onto the next one.

This part is also completely different from what you may do, and this isn't meant to be followed word for word. I'll just be going over a few things of what I like to do while editing textures.

What I like to do, is start out with this, duplicating my main texture a few times and making a group on the third one.



What I'll be doing now is creating a mask for the uniform, since I want to darken it.




Once you get it selected, just select the group, and then press the layer mask button, and it should automatically create the mask.




Now what we'll do is go nuts, and edit what we want.

I won't be showing most of these because it'd be tedious to show all these screenshots and pointless as well, because this won't be applying to someone else because they're not using the same texture. I'll just a list a few things I like to do.

• -using blender's texture paint tab to see where a part of the model's textures are

1. -extremely helpful for identifying where a part of a texture is/what texture is in what spot

• -clone stamp/brush tool for manipulating/duplicating parts of the image onto other parts
  
• -color lookups for changing tones and colors in general
  
• -using photoshop's normal/bumpmap maker on the texture

1. -then using a mask to take a part of the image that was changed and put it onto the bumpmap/normal map of the texture

• -duplicating layers of camera raw filter-edited layers.
  
• -utilizing masks to their full use

1. -using other images from google and other places to place inside
   
2. -using all sorts of editing things inside to just affect that certain area

• -upscaling the image using gigapixel, but it's on a trial tho
  
• -using color replacement tool a lot
  
• -using soft light on different images to bake parts of things in to the texture

In the end, this is what it looked like

Now that we have our texture finished, we can extract it.



Usually keeping the file's size under around 10mb loads in VTFEDIT faster, so I'd extract it as a .jpg to keep it a little more compressed just to save us some time.



If you followed the first optional step, which was to create the folders for backups, I'd export it into the "new" one.



Now that we have our texture exported, we can import it now.

This part's simple, but it can sometimes take a bit of time to load. If you followed the optional step, you'll have the duplicate set of vtfs and the vmt already set up. You're going to begin by selecting the vtf that we extracted out of originally, the diffuse texture, and open it.



Once the vtf opens, go to the top left, to File, and then to Import.



Find your exported texture, and then open it.



Once you've selected your texture and it loads in, press Ok.



Now just wait for it to finish loading.



Once it finishes loading, go to the top left of the vtf, to File, then Save.



When it opens up files, find the vtf that we opened, and double click on it.



Press Ok.



Now we're done, and all we have to do is just replace the texture. One last time before you do, be 100% sure you have your backup textures because you may need them some way.

Now that we've got our vtf/vmts finished, we can move it back. We're going to locate our addon that we originally picked from, and we're going to go there. I'd recommend creating a new file explorer tab for this, while keeping our new textures folder in a separate one.



Go to the materials folder again.



Now that we're here, and if you have the two windows open with the textures, drag and drop them into the addon's texture folder.



Then replace them.



You're done, yay. Textures also update automatically in Gmod, so that means you don't have to restart the game for them to show up, which is cool.

have fun




yea ur done now this guide was too complicated sorry

take vmt/vtf from addon, put in folder, edit image, export image, put image in new vtf by importing, save image and override vtf, replace original file in addons