CS2 Skin Creation Tutorial 4: Workshop Item Editor 

My pleasure :)

Thank you very much :)

Thank you so much for your nice words!

So you mean that if I only change the R channel I can change the metallic value of areas that have the default texture? Quite interesting. But this is more relevant to the Patina style since in the Gunsmith style the skin overrides the entire texture of the weapon. Thank you for the info. Will play around with it and see for myself!

@viperskins I made a gunsmith skin for the glock. I ended up finding out the default ambient occlusion texture was still showing the old handle grip grooves when I didn't have any on my skin. For the R channel, you can paint the whole weapon metallic if you wanted to, I found the info by hovering my mouse over the material mask checkbox area. Btw great job on the tutorial series, definitely helped me a bunch, when making my skins

@@tonyh9102 Any idea how to remove or prevent unwanted artifacts/pixelation?

If you're talking about the mat_fullbright command then it's exactly the same. In fact if you click on the Albedo option in the ConVar tool you'll see in the console that it runs the same command. But as you said, through the UI is much easier :)

Haha thank you so much my friend :)

Thank you very much for all your nice comments! It means a lot to me to get such a great feedback :) As for maps quite frankly I haven't tried my luck with them at all (YET!). I'm currently working on a new sticker tutorial but some events in my life interrupted my work. I will resume working on the tutorial very soon.

Lower poly or does the weapon look a bit jagged? If it's the latter then it might be that the normal map bake also contains the geometry of the weapon's mesh (open the normal map image and see if it contains anything besides what you drew). This can happen if you're using Blender 4 or a newer version. To fix it check out this shorts video: ru-vid.comJpGvl0yA09o?feature=share

My pleasure man :) High resolution setups are good for taking screenshots and capturing videos of your skins. Obviously the higher the resolution the better, but it does not affect the quality of your skins, just the screenshots and videos. Also, I use 1080p as well, and it's ok, it does the job!

Simply change the colors

1. Check that you're using the CS2 models and not the old CSGO ones 2. Make sure that the Texture Scale is set to 1 3. Make sure the ignore_weapon_size is checked

@@viperskins Yes, I downloaded both resource folders from the link and accidentally took the objs from the wrong folder. Thnx

@@besprutad Delete the old folder you won't need it (At least not for CS2 skins)

Thank you! Does your skin has a metallic texture in it? If so, when you baked did you set the metallic value to 0? If not then your texture will appear black. Watch the 3rd video of the tutorial to learn more about how to bake: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Eq-KxkTfpds.html

You might have downloaded the wrong models. In the Counter-Strike site, under the resources section you can find the old and the new models. In order to make CS2 skins you have to use the new models. If you use the old models then your skin will look messed up. If you're 100% sure that you used the new models then check the parameters in the Workshop Item Editor again

Regarding the wear, did you add an alpha channel? Regarding the crashing, I have no idea. Are you running any heavy software in the background alongside CS2? If so that can cause crashes

Yes! The plan is to create a new tutorial for stickers after i'm done with skins :)

Thank you very much :) Regarding your question, unfortunately no. Until your skin is officially accepted you cannot use it outside the Inspect and Preview options of the Workshop Item Editor

Thank you for your nice words :) Regarding the colors, can't you simply change the colors? How did you create the skin? In Blender?

@@viperskins I created my skin in blender and used black colour on some parts, Now these parts are shown as blue in ConVar, I can remake it if that's the only way and don't use black color. (Sorry for long reply, I was ill in past few days)

@@flixeris4971 No worries, I hope you're feeling better :) I suggest that you simply change the colors in Blender and rebake. Another way to fix this would be to open the albedo map in GIMP, select the black colors and replace them with what you want. Both ways (Blender or GIMP) are perfectly fine. But yes, you do need to change the Albedo map, but it's not supposed to be too much work. The hard part is behind you already :)

Thank you so much for your continuous support. Your kind words mean a lot to me and I truly appreciate the nice comments :D Regarding your questions: 1. Many are asking me the same question so I guess I'll make a video about it. But the answer is quite simple: You need to change the colors of the albedo map. No way around it. You can either change the colors you chose in Blender and then rebake, or simply select the dark/bright colors in GIMP and replace the colors with something brighter/darker according to your need. 2. When I write text on the gun i usually use a stencil with the text as image (As I did in the Part 2 of the tutorial). And sometimes when i want the text to look sloppy like it was carved with a knife I either use my mouse or my drawing tablet and write whatever I want by hand. 3. For Full Screen view simply go to the settings of the game, go to Video and select the resolution to be 1920x1080

Have you moved the location of your shit? Maybe to a different folder in your file system?

You're most welcome :) Regarding your wood being too dark, just raise the brightness of the colors in Blender (Or whatever tool you used). If you're using Blender, if you created the wood the way I did then click on the colors of the Color Ramp node and raise the pointer of the black-to-white bar a little bit for both colors. I hope that helps

You understood correctly. No need for the VTFEditor to create CS2 skins

It should be a few seconds not more. Maybe reboot your computer, or make sure no other heavy processes are running simultaneously. You're welcome ;)

@@viperskins i tried all those, it still persists. Ill try to check a few other places for help. if i figure something out, ill let people know here. Btw, when the workshop tools are launched, CS2 is also launched in the background right, is it in fullscreen or window? for me its windowed but i saw that for a few others its fullscreen. Theres no option for me to fullscreen it, might be the issue, idk. Thanks

@@wolfheart5408 You can set CS2 to be fullscreen in the game settings when you launch the workshop tools. Set it to 1920x1080 (Or whatever your monitor resolution is) and it will become full screen for you as well. And yes if you manage to figure out your issue please update us :)

​Turns out many people are facing the issue, especially if you have windows 11. Many people say it's because of a new update. I'm yet to find a solution, if I do, I'll post a comment

@@wolfheart5408 Oh interesting! I'm actually still on Windows 10 so maybe that's why I don't face the issue

Thank you so much! Regarding the convar issue.... Maybe try and set brighter colors for the Patina wear, base metal and grime? Try it maybe it will solve the issue. Also if the blue line is very thin then it might not be a big issue. But just to be on the safe side try the solution I suggested above. And please let me know if it helps (Or not!)

Definitely helped a little, just now trying to edit the shading to remove random convar blues in the wood! Can't wait for the new video. So pumped to submit my first skin - until then, I'll be digesting every video on Blender I can find! @@viperskins

It means that the colors you chose for the wood are a bit too dark. Try to change the colors into something brighter (RGB range for non-metallic textures should not be below 55 as the guide says)

@@viperskins it's like some part of the wood 🪵 like stripes which looks okay on FN but at 0.7 ish it's gets a bit overflowing

@@viperskins could i be able to fo that on the UV map from Gimp or do i need to change the color from my blender where I've setup the color ramp ??

@@pangtundure I think it would be better to do it in Blender but it's also possible to do it in GIMP. Another thing that you can do is to limit the maximum wear of the skin to around 0.7 if that's where it starts causing issues. But i think it's preferable to change the color to something brighter

@@viperskins I'm making fixing it and hopefully it'll get fixed soon. I'm also working on the awp and stuff.

In the 3rd part I talk briefly about the alpha channel. If you want a specific pattern for your wear then you need to apply this pattern in the alpha channel as well. Also, you need to use a style that supports the use of alpha channel. The ones that are relevant to patterns are the Hydrographic and Anodized Multicolor styles (If you use Spray-paint or Anodized Airbrush it won't work)

Things that might make your skin look dark in the game: 1. You're using a Roughness Texture and the colors are too bright (Skin is too rough). 2. You're using an AO map with dark colors. 3. Your skin style is Gunsmith/Patina and the Patina tint color is dark. Set it to Fully white. For now let's try those and let me know if fixing any of these points fix your problem

Yeah Thnx And the Problem Was that i havent disabled metallic before i bake the albedo ! @@viperskins

If you make changes then the workshop will load..... Or did i misunderstand your issue?

I mean, when I click "inspect" in the workshop, it will just start loading for infinity. But it never actually loads in. It worked yesterday, but today it just doesn't. I have the same UV map, I restarted my PC, ran the workshop as admin, reinstalled CS:GO, so at this point I don't know what's the problem. In fact, it doesn't load any other model either.@@viperskins

@@fd04mcred Never saw this TBH and it sounds very weird. I doubt it has to do with your item. It might be worth contacting the CS support

I don't know if I just forgot to send it, or if my response was deleted because of an imgur link, but here is what I forced out of the task manager: Failed loading resource: "materials/dev/hair_render_volume.vmat_c" (ERROR_FILEOPEN: file not found) Failed loading resource: "materials/dev/hair_shading_cs.vmat_c" (ERROR_FILEOPEN: file not found) Failed loading resource: "materials/dev/hair_processing_cs.vmat_c" (ERROR_FILEOPEN: file not found) Do you have any idea how could I solve this? I did check the integrity of the game files and it found no problems. @@viperskins

@@fd04mcred @viperskins i have the same problem.. i try to inspect an example paintkit which originally is in workshop tools. Even this dont load. Were you able to solve your problem ?

It's what I say exactly at the timestamp you mention!

@@viperskinsSorry, I think I was too hasty. To make a skin for the first time. It looks like every step is difficult. I try hard to find what part is error.😅

@@g.n.r.5082 haha no worries! Yes I totally understand what you're saying. First time it's hard, but with each new skin the process will become easier. Just keep at it and eventually it will become better and better

I don't know the meaning of their error codes. You need to read the rest of the error. But from what I've seen in the past, one of the things that can cause errors is having the resolution of the UV maps not to the power of 2, meaning that they're NOT 1024x1024, 2048x2048, 4096x4096 etc.... Check that your maps have proper resolutions. Another thing that might help is simply to try again. I once got a compilation error and i simply tried again and it worked

@@viperskins i've done texture work in the past therefore it definetly wasn't the power of 2 problem, i digged into it and turns out that the paint kit files were in the wrong folder, so i just had to move them to the previous directory contrary to the one they were in.

Oh ok, good to know. Thank you for the update, I'll keep that in mind in case someone asks about it

maybe try downloading the workshop item editor again.... Go to Steam -> Library -> CS2 -> Manage -> DLC, uncheck the Workshop Tools and then check it again

I tried it, and it didn't work. Well, thanks for trying. I'll reply to this comment if I find out anything. Also, I watched the CS:GO series and now I am watching the CS2 as well on how to make skins, and I can say that your video making skills have improved a lot. It's cool. Also the fact that you are referring to problems from the old video's comment sections. Good job.@@viperskins

​@@fd04mcred Thank you very much for the nice comment

Yes. It's on my TODO list. Stay tuned :)

It depends on what you want. If you're happy with the default division of Patina/Regular parts of the gunsmith/patina styles then you can ignore it

@@viperskins If you try to drag and bake every part at once, only a part of the weapon comes out as a bake. How do I solve it?

I find the way. Use a same image texture in the shading. My problem's reason is I use different image texture.

@@Tenburger_fps good that you found it! Yes use the same image. There's no need to use more than 1 image

@@viperskins If I delete cs2, will all the files stored in cs2 workshop tools be deleted?

I've just tried and it seems that you CANNOT add bots

@@viperskins Is there a way to color a 3D model using the "Texture paint" function so that it feels like "gradient"? I painted directly on the 3D model, but the colors are unnaturally harmonized.

@@viperskins Do you happen to know how to solve the texture paint not working properly when the parts of the weapon are separated into several pieces? I divided the weapons into muzzles and magazines and then specified texture paint for each, but the result was that only muzzles were colored or only magazines were colored.

Your windows file explorer doesn't look like mine? Or the Workshop Editor's image dialog is different? Also what do you mean by "can't put in my item"? Do you get an error? what exactly happens?

@@viperskinswhen i try to do the thing you do at 3:40. You say to take upp file explorer and then you get one small and one big page, i only get one small and it doesnt look like yours

@@viperskinswhen i copy and paste at the file explorer I get a name of like a file but you get like a paper and then you add the roughness and that stuff.

@@viperskins can I maybe get your discord and I can maybe share screan or something. The thing is I did a glock so I skipped some of the steps like everything on gimp so instead I made a tga directly

@@Sneakyoxez My man!! At the mentioned timestamp those are 2 file explorers! It's not something related to the game itself! Just copy the tga files to the path where you save your skin, that sums up everything.

I've never seen a system where you can load files from your computer but only if you put them in a certain folder! Such things are usually done when you want to trick/hack a system that doesn't receive files as input and you feed it the file as a workaround. I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by this! Also true about the settings defaulting to pattern based skins. The offsets limits should default to zeroes

What's Promosm?

Are you using the CS2 models or the CSGO ones?

@@viperskins same problem, used CS2 models