Summary

A fix to allow Unreal Tournament players to produce and use custom skins for the WarBoss and Xan Mk.2 models supplied with Epic Games' Bonus Pack 4, released December 2000.

• Skinnable versions of WarBoss and Xan Mk.2 models
• Talktexture support
• New HUD status icon for WarBoss
• Enables WarBoss and Xan Mk.2 to use any male voicepack
• Enables any model which uses male voicepacks to use the Robot (Xan) voice
• Requires SkeletalChars.u from Epic Bonus Pack 4

Following a query from QAPete at PlanetUnreal, I'd like to assure everyone that this fix does not overwrite any Bonus Pack 4 file and causes no problems with online compatibility. However, you'll only be able to use the skinnable versions of these models on servers which also have this fix.

Download links and installation

This mod is available in three formats. The UMOD version is easiest but will refuse to install unless you have the UMOD version of Bonus Pack 4.

The "unsafe UMOD" and non-UMOD versions don't check whether you have Bonus Pack 4, so you can install them with the non-UMOD version of BP4. Only use these versions if you're sure you have Bonus Pack 4! You don't have Bonus Pack 4 unless you have Xan Mark II and WarBoss in your Player Setup "Class" list, DOM-Bullet, CTF-EpicBoy, etc. in your maps lists, and a file called "SkeletalChars.u" in your UT System directory.

Just to state the obvious: you need to install the 14MB Bonus Pack 4 first! The UMOD checks for the presence of Bonus Pack 4 UMOD, so if you used the non-UMOD version of the Bonus Pack, you have to use the non-UMOD version of this fix as well.

UMOD version

Double-click to install on Windows systems. [A UMOD installer is also available for Linux, I think.] Download the "separate files" version below if it doesn't work.

Separate Files version

Extract all the files from the ZIP file to {your Unreal Tournament folder}\System.

For either version, if you plan to run a server, open {your Unreal Tournament folder}\System\UnrealTournament.ini in Notepad or equivalent and find the heading [Engine.GameEngine]. Look for a block of lines which start with "ServerPackages=" and paste in either of the following if they aren't already there:

ServerPackages=SkeletalChars
ServerPackages=SkeletalCharsFix313

Note: if you paste this from some Web browsers, there will be a space on the end of each line. Please delete these.

The first Server Package should be added by Bonus Pack 4, and both should be added by the UMOD version of this fix, but check them anyway.

To use this skin for a player or bot, select one of the fixed models, such as "WarBoss [fixed]", from the Class drop-down list.

Male/Xan voices

By default, two versions of each fixed model appear, one which can use the Robot (Xan) voice and any custom Robot voices, and one which can use any Male voice including custom voices. Another fix is included which places the Robot voice in the Male list as well, and both models default to this voice.

If your Class list is too full and you wish to remove one of these versions, use Notepad or the equivalent to open {your Unreal Tournament folder}\System\SkeletalCharsFix313.int and place a semicolon ";" before any of the lines starting with "Object=" to remove that variant of the model from the user interface. You will still be able to play against users of the variant you removed.

If you wish to remove the Robot voice from the Male voice list, for example if you already have another fix which does the same thing, delete System\BossVoiceFix313.int or rename it to BossVoiceFix313.txt.

Making skins

For either model, a skin package should include the following textures, replacing "wxyz" with any four-letter code of your choice.

• wxyz1 - Main skin, 256x256 pixels (all parts of the model use a single skin, export the Epic ones from SkeletalChars.u for examples)
• wxyz1T_0 to wxyz1T_3 - Team-colour variants of the main skin. If these are not included, the Epic skin will appear instead.
• wxyz5 - "Talktexture" for chat messages, 64x64 pixels. If not included, the Epic talktexture will be used.
• wxyz5T_0 to wxyz5T_3 - Team-colour variants of the talktexture. If these are not included, wxyz5 will appear instead.

The packages for these skins should be called WarMachineBossSkins_*.utx for the WarBoss and NewXanSkins_*.utx for Xan Mk.2 (replace the * with the name of your skin). The package names WarMachineBossSkins_Fix313 and NewXanSkins_Fix313 are used by the fix, don't use them.

The INT file for your skin should be like this:

[public]
Object=(Name=WarMachineBossSkins_NameOfPackage.wxyz1,Class=Texture,Description="Skin name")

Replace "NameOfPackage" with the rest of the package name, wxyz with the same 4-letter code you used in the texture names, and "Skin name" with the human-readable name of your skin.

The texture names used by Epic in SkeletalChars.u will not work if used in an add-on skin! Use the ones listed here instead. Don't say I didn't tell you.

Apart from this, skinning these models should be the same as any others. If you want a set of "normal" skins to see the format, you can look at my test skins, but please note that these were not intended to be used in-game except to test the fix and were not designed to look nice. I may make some proper skins in future.

Credits

Original models by Epic Games.

Fixes and WarBoss status icon by Simon "Psychic_313" McVittie.

Thanks to usaar33 for telling me how to kill the warning messages and stop "skin hack" cheating, and to Burnt Kona for his status icon tutorial. Apologies to all those on irc.gameslink.net whose channels I spammed looking for an online tester, and thanks to DarkByte[S&D] on #UnrealScript for volunteering and testing the models.

The legal bit

This fix may be distributed in any way (disk, CD, network, Internet etc), as long as you distribute the whole UMOD or zip file, unmodified. Please contact me if your site provides a mirror download for the fix, so I can notify you if I update it in future.

You may include this fix with skins which require it. The UMOD version is preferred in this situation. Please do not package your skin and the fix in the same UMOD as this could lead to problems if I have to update it.

By installing or using this fix, you accept responsibility for any problems it causes and agree that I am not responsible for any consequences of use.

Having said that, please contact me if you have any problems and I'll see what I can do.