Issue: How to enhance older game textures... Thread

Hey Guys,
i like to apologize, if in that case that an similar thread already exist here...

I just want to resharpen or want to make better textures for Mechwarrior 4... maybe later im adding some new textures or do a little bit artwork through color modification or anything like that....
But i ask for help: How should i start, firstable to open the file which contents the texturepool for the game - called: textures.mw4 ?
My Tools are : Free Open Source Graphic Programs: Gimp, XNVIEW... a few more...
Is it possible to make it with these programs or is Adobe CS necessary ?

Edited by: machinoverkill

adobe CS is optional, but it really helps workflow wise.. However you can easily get away with using GIMP, its just the workflow will be slower.

the way you start the process:

take the original texture.
scale it up to the size you want (usually 800% to 1600%).
and then attempt to recreate the same texture using your own artistic skills by painting the texture from scratch or utilizing high resolution photographs and modifying them to look like the texture you want. You can also combine both methods as some artist do.

Best of luck.

thank for your advise...does adobe cs certain files with textures in it, also convert into a graphic format - or is a therefore another program necessary ?

Hi machineoverkill. As with most games, there may be official modding tools that allow you to extract\replace content from the game's files.

In case of MechWarrior 4 there's the MW4Extractor tool that works like a "winzip", where you can open the .mw4 files and replace content. You can find it for download at "mechreg [dot] org [slash] missions [slash] Lost"

So in your case, you'd use the tool, extract the textures, work on restoring\improving them like he suggested and then replace them back.

Edited by: RNavega

@RNavega
Hey Bro,
thx for your support - that seems to be will easy