Overview
If you are looking to customize your character this wont be that hard to accomplish AT ALL. This only covers texturing which anyone can do, I will only be teaching how to change your games textures, nothing else.Modeling is also possible, but is something I don’t know how to do, and requires modelling experience.This is for people who know absolutely nothing about changing their games paint job.Edit: WARNING: THESE SCREENSHOTS ARE HIDEOUS, BUT THEY ATLEAST GET THE POINT ACROSS, SEVENTH GRADE ME MADE THEM, AND I DON’T USE THESE AND WON”T IN A MILLION YEARSAND be sure to back up your games texture files, updates to the game have been known to wipe your textures progress, and with the full release of the game coming shortly, after this edit, be prepared, and many might even become obsolete.
Information On Me and Customization.
When you are making your character, it is nearly impossible to make quality textures with Windows built in Microsoft Paint. I suggest you use Photoshop, or if you don’t want to spend any money, than use Paintnet which I had used for years.
Paintnet is good at getting its job done, while editing without owning Photoshop. It does the same job that softwares like FireAlpaca, Gimp or Photoshop do, just that for me personally, it was easier to understand and navigate for beginners. I own Photoshop now, but I still use Paintnet for editing Scrap Mechanic textures because of its sheer simplicity, unless your into making professional textures.
If you look at getpaint.net it is the top, click the download at the top of the page near the logo, scroll down and click the box that says dotPDN.
***FOR THOSE LESS EXPERIENCED WITH DOWNLOADING, don’t click any ads that say download,, just follow follow my directions word for word.
I am not associated with Paintnet, its just the most decent one that doesn’t cost anything, and no, it doesn’t have a virus, if it had one I wouldn’t be recommending it, my overly protective softwares are fine with it, and Paintnet doesn’t have all the professional features that others have, partially why it is free, but it has MOST of them.
HOW TO CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHARACTER
[link] OOO scary mechanic raw face texture ripped from the files :OOOO
When you go to “File Explorer” most likely in your hotbar you will go under “This PC” and click on one of your drives [“OS (C)” or “OS(D)” are examples] or whatever drive you you have on your computer, whichever one has Scrap Mechanic installed, which is under “SteamLibrary” if not on a main drive.
Now, to find the directory click on “Program Files” or “Program Files (x86)” if you have Scrap Mechanic on a main drive. Click on “Steam”, then “Steamapps”, then “common”, then “Scrap Mechanic”, then “Data”.
On other drives, just locate the Steam Library which I explained previously.
Now if you look here and you tinker around with this a bit, this is where the magic happens, such as customizing grass, trees, plants, blocks, tools, objects or even effects, but don’t get distracted yet because today we focus on our characters.
So click on “Character” than “Textures”. Choose which gender you play as, now you can try it out (char_male or char_female), to edit using Paintnet you have to Right-Click the icon and click “open with” and then click the option that says “paint.net”.
You have several options for texture types, they either have .dif, .asg or .nor at the end.
The “dif” part of the name of the file is the main visible one, this IS the texture you see with your eyes normally.
The glow texture (asg) and The “shadow” texture (nor), the “nor” part of the name of the files are the ones that are pink or pink and purple, or even green, they are shaded textures which allow the texture to be visible.
These can be left alone or made solid pink as default, because game tools are used to make these, making these yourself is possible but often don’t look good, you can make it solid pink if you want the texture on the character to appear flat or smooth.
.nor textures have shading, and make it appear to pop out or have shading at parts, like the mechanics rolled up sleeves are an example of the texture doing its job.
Only color the .DIF FILES to change the visible texture.
(WARNING: Glove textures, Shoe textures and Pants Textures are active for both genders, “androgynous” textures, but they are slightly morphed to fit the model of each gender at all times which means if you have black pants for example as a male, females will be wearing the same colored pants.
You can also edit the ASG file, be careful with these, it gave me that neon bar backpack effect that is shown on this guide if you color the file a sold color, I chose a light turqoise, it makes whatever color you put there a glowing color, not unless the color you put has a lowered opacity, you can control the brightness of the textures with its opacity, to make the texture glow or pitch black.
For these to look normal; like every other texture, leave the slightly visible dark green layer.
Results, Info, Issues, Answering Often Asked Questions.
This part should clear up a lot of questions involving the results of changing textures, like clones, and how it works.
Q: What will happen when I customize my character?
A: When I did mine, It looked 5 times better than I expected, I was immediately fascinated that I could change any texture in the game to what I want. But there are unexpected side effects, If you play with friends and they happen to be the same gender as you, they will appear to look the same as you. Plus, YOU will be the only one who sees YOUR games customized textures.
Q:When I texture my characters do I really have to get constant shades of color to do some realistic shadowy textures?
A: No, not at all, actually my character on the cover his jacket is straight up one color only in each area i chose, don’t even try and do shadow textures unless you know what you are doing, by the way they are hard and end up looking very ugly if done manually by someone inexperienced.
(Edit: these textures are hideous looking back, but they provide a clear example of plausible results from slapping on some crude and solid colors.)
Q:There are more textures in the game for other things should I mess with them since I already know what to do?
A:Yes!