HAP texturing
About Guide
HAP texturing
HAL texturing

Beginner's Guide to changing Clothes/Skins on a full Body character.

This tutorial uses the fullbodygirl.htr character as an example, but the same method applies to other characters and also those you may make in People Putty.  The objective is to get a new skin onto the figure in the Haptek Player.  If you don't have her, visit the Haptek site to get their demo fullBodygirl.




We start with an explanation as to what is really happening here:

The haptek player looks for and loads a jpg or bitmap image (or Haptek's own versions of these) and applies it to the surface of the model.  This is also referred to as the object's 'texture'.  The Haptek player can use many sizes of texture but for the whole body 1024x1024 is most often used as it provides a good resolution.

We need to make it use a skin of our choosing so first you need a 'skin'.  There's a skin already made in this tutorial folder, this is what it looks like (reduced):



 
 You will see it looks a bit weird as all of the body has been mapped onto a flat surface which will then be placed onto a 3D object.  You'll also get an idea as to where each part of the body is located on the map, which will be useful if you decide to make your own skins.




Firstly we need a place to store your skins, so make a folder in the Haptek program directory:


C:\Program Files\Haptek\player\data\standard
 


Find this part of the directory in the Program Folders and make a new folder called 'skins', this is where all your character's 'clothes' will be stored.  Copy the skin provided into this folder and we will use this one as an example.  Okay, so its called 'redcatsuit.jpg' which is the name needed by the player.

The next step is writing a small piece of script that will point the Player in the right direction.  This piece of script is called the HAP file.




This is the code required, it tells the player to load the texture onto your figure:


#Haptek Version= 1.00 Name= red_cat HapType= command FileType= text
##standard


\settexture[tex= [data\standard\skins\redcatsuit.jpg]]


Open a text editor (notepad will do) and copy and paste the above code into it. This then needs to be saved as 'redcatsuit.hap'.  This creates a HAP file which can then be identified and used by the player.  There is also a copy of this HAP file included in the tutorial folder.

Okay, so that's the work done, time to test it.  Get fullBody girl up and running and drag and drop the 'redcatsuit.hap' onto the character.  You should see the changes take place.

All you need to do to create a whole wardrobe is make or download further skins and make a corresponding HAP file.  Simply edit the code above ie, change the filename 'redcatsuit.jpg' to match your new skin, eg 'bluecatsuit.jpg', rename the item 'blue_cat' and save the code as 'bluecatsuit.hap'.  You can then use this to change her into the blue catsuit.