High-Resolution Unreal Skins mod

Current Status: VERSION 3.1 RELEASED! DOWNLOAD HERE

This Mod will replace all those blurry Unreal/UT99/RTNP skins with detailed, high-res counterparts. It works in Unreal Gold 227 and Unreal Tournament '99. My primary goal with this project was to keep the skins looking as faithful as possible, while removing the obvious outdated "pixelation" of the original skins. Each skin has been manually reworked. There has been no simple filters or cheesy sharpening techniques used during the skinning process. Each part of every skin has been manually air-brushed and blended. Hundreds of layers were created to apply overlay detail textures, better looking shadows, better highlights, and more. The skins look like the originals from a distance, but more detailed up-close. In the case of bigger meshes like the Titan, detail is evident even when viewed from a distance.

With the new Version 3 release, ALL skins of Unreal Tournament, Unreal, and RTNP are included! In addition to this, many custom Skins from popular single player maps are also included. If that wasn't enough, the longstanding FOV issue of the weapons in widescreen is FIXED. No more ginormous Redeemer! Version 3.1 comes with a mod window that can enable/disable this option for people who don't want it. Some of the previous HD Unreal skins have also been updated for this release, and an optional "random HD armor" mod is included for UT99.

Supported Custom Maps/Packs for HD content:

7 Bullets
Xidia Gold
Operation Na Pali
Project Zephon
Strange World
Déjà Vu – Gryphon Revisited
Interloper (only one Skaarj skin currently)
NOTE: These packs do NOT have to be installed for this mutator to work. They are merely optional.

I highly recommend AHaigh01's S3TC world textures, which look great when combined with these Skins. I would suggest his HD4k Extreme Resolution V3 for the DirectX11 Renderer for the best results!

Although these skins work in UT99 offline with bots, they are primarily meant to work with the OldSkool mod in SinglePlayer:
OldSkool Mod

Installation / Configuration

1. First make sure you have a copy of UT99 or Unreal Gold patched with the unofficial fan-made 227 patch.
2. Extract the contents of the zip file to your Unreal 227 or UnrealTournament folder (keep folder names on, so the files automatically go to the right places).
3. UT99 ONLY: it is HIGHLY recommended that everyone download either the unofficial fan-made 469 patch, OR the 4GB memory aware patch to eliminate the "virtual memory error" crash. The 4GB memory aware patch allows you to keep using version 436 if you don't want to update to 469 at this time (there are still some bugs they are ironing out with 469).
4. UT99 ONLY: it is mandatory to either download the DirectX11 renderer or the UTGLR Drivers for these skins to work. I would recommend DirectX11, as the UTGLR drivers are becoming outdated...
5. Add the Mutator "Unreal/UT: HD Skins Full" to the mutator window. If using Unreal 227, the Mutator button will appear when you go to the "new game" window. If using the UT99 OldSkool mod, go to Options->OldSkool, click the Options tab, and the "SP Mutators" Button.

NOTE: If you do NOT see a mutator window, it probably means you are using the old version of Unreal! You need to use Unreal Gold with the 227 patch, NOT the original Unreal. Everyone should have Unreal Gold or UT99 by now anyway...

Troubleshooting \ Known Problems

Pulse Gun Beam is off: this is actually a bug that currently exists with the 469a patch. The 469b patch should be out soon that fixes this issue. Keep checking the 469 web site for updates!

Virtual Memory error crash: Some user-made maps have a LOT of skins and textures. When this pack is used alongside Ahaigh's S3TC pack, it's possible some maps will crash with a "Virtual Memory" error, especially with too much saving/loading. This happens more often in UT99. The way to avoid this error is to download either the 4GB memory aware patch (for UT99), or the fan-made 469 patch (also for UT99).

Virtual Memory error crash in Unreal Gold with 227: Open 'Unreal.ini' located in Unreal\System folder and search for 'UsePrecache'. Set this to 'True'. Also, search for 'CacheSizeMegs', and set it to '8'. Turning this number up higher will cause MORE virtual memory error crashes! You need to keep it low.

Player skins not appearing in the player setup window: because this mod works as a mutator, it will not replace the player skins in the player setup window. However, Ahaigh01's texture pack will in fact replace some of the player skins in the player setup window using texture files directly - but some of the skins still will not appear. This is because some of them are "hidden" skins contained in system files, and there is currently no way to replace system files. That being said, ALL the skins will be replaced in-game with the use of the UnrealHD mutator!

Player Model Skins turning back to default after loading a saved game: This problem appears to be UT99 specific with the oldskool mod. I am unsure why it happens, but the solution is to just download Ahaigh01's texture pack, which comes with skin texture files that will always work even after saving/loading a game. The only issue that will remain is with the hidden player skins contained in the system files. Unfortunately, these skins will still continue to revert back to default after loading a saved game...

Change log

Version 3.1 Changes:

• Fixed many of the weapon offset issues with certain FOV settings
• The weapon position fix is no longer applied unless someone has an FOV above 100. The exception is the Redeemer, which starts working above an FOV of 91.
• Added a mod window in-game that enables or disables the weapon position fix in case someone is used to the "ginormous" weapon appearance. The mod window layout was borrowed from "Advanced Model Support"; credit goes to Simon 'Psychic_313' McVittie.
• Made the Insta-gib rifle skin more faithful to the original.
• Improved the wires on the UT Shock Rifle a bit.
• Added MipMaps for the custom skins contained in HDSkinsCutom.utx

Version 3.0 Changes:

• All UT99 skins now included in this release!
• Dozens of custom skins found in various popular Single Player maps now also included (see list above for supported map packs).
• Longstanding FOV issue (or the ginormous Redeemer bug) has been fixed on widescreen monitors. If you are playing on fullscreen or use a default FOV of 90, no change will take effect.
• MipMaps were added back in, as virtual memory errors should be eliminated thanks to the DX11 renderer and the new UT version 469 patch.
• Many "accessed none" bugs have been fixed, thanks to yrex.
• Optional Random armor mod has been included that will change the UT99 classic armor to Red, Blue, or Gold armor with different sounds and attributes. This optional mutator is inspired by Quake.

Version 2.1 Changes:

• Fixed a bug that caused massive amounts of lag in Unreal Gold. This was due to the mutator constantly checking for Botpack, Seven Bullets, and Xidia packages (which don't exist in Unreal Gold). The bug was causing the Unreal log to grow to immense sizes with the thousands of missing package errors.
• Fixed a bug in which 3rd party skins were not working in Unreal Gold. All possible skin combinations should now work just fine, assuming you restart the level each time you change your player model/skin!

Version 2.0 Changes:

• All player skins have now been added to this release! Thanks goes to Ahaigh for making "AI Upscaled" versions that I based my improvements upon.
• All the missing skins have been added (thanks to Ahaigh), such as the ISV Robot, RTNP Marines, UT99 Boulders and Nali Skeleton.
• Mipmaps have been removed with most of the skins to improve performance. With Version 1, the game would sometimes experience hitches when first entering a room full of large skins. This problem seems to be gone for the most part.
• Virtual Memory error crashes have also been reduced significantly, also thanks to the removal of MipMaps of most skins.
  NOTE: virtual memory errors are still possible if Ahaigh's 4k texture pack is used with UT99. I recommend using the 2k pack instead.
• Fixed a bug with the Spinner appearing incorrectly in several custom map packs (Xidia and 7 Bullets namely), as well as the CAR Ammo.
• Many tweaks to existing skins have been done.
  
  

Credits

This project was conceived by me (Lightning Hunter), and most of the skinning was done by me. However, there are a lot of other people to credit! Here is a comprehensive list of all who contributed:

-Ahaigh created a thread at OldUnreal back in 2011 with a handful of high-res skins. All of these skins have been included, with most of them having been tweaked by me. The following skins were created by Ahaigh and were barely modified by me:
Flags, Sign, Steel Barrel, Wooden Barrel, Chest, Wooden Box, Moon Two, Moon3, Boulder, Lantern, Knife, Rabbit, ISV Robot, RTNP Marines, UT99 Boulders, Nali Skeleton, and all the books.
The following skins were created by Ahaigh and tweaked heavily by me:
All trees & Plants, All player skins, the Monk Statue, Eightball Gun, Dispersion Pistol, Health, Nali Fruit, Amplifier, Bandage, and the Flash Light.

-For UT99, Ahaigh used various AI Upscalers and added detail textures for many of the decorations that I included. I did minor tweaks to some of those decorations.
The UT99 inventory was also AI upscaled by Ahaigh, but for those skins I completely reworked them beyond recognition!

-Yrex helped out immensely with code tweaks, mesh fixes, and more. The RTNP weapon skins would not be working properly if not for his meshes and coding help, and there would be thousands of "accessed none" errors. In addition to this, yrex helped with making the mutator compatible with both UT99 and Unreal without package dependencies!

-Simon 'Psychic_313' McVittie, for the "Advanced Model Support" mod window in which I borrowed the layout from.

-J-Rts created the original Flak Cannon skin, which I heavily modified.

-Buff Skeleton (Waffnuffly) created the incredibly awesome Spawn Notify code, which allows the mutator to exist in such an easy to use form! This pack would be so much more difficult to install/run without it...

-Casey, for the creation of the UT Texture Merger tool (which will most definitely be used in the future), and also for his help in general.

-Skywolf created multiple mesh fixes, such as the new Titan mesh that fixes the mirroring issues with the skin. These issues were blatantly obvious with high-res skins, but barely noticeable with the original blurry skins. Also, keep an eye out for a possible future release from Skywolf with HD meshes/models!

-sn260591 created the original mutator code for this mod, which unfortunately lagged the game (might have just been my system) and had to be scrapped. However, I still have to thank him for the original code that allowed me to get this project up and running and tested!

-Gopostal for a few tips and feedback. Thank you for supporting the project!

-The following people helped out with beta testing (insert names here if anybody signs up :O )

-Thanks to the following people for their feedback at OldUnreal and UnrealSP.org: Leo T_C_K, Gopostal, Kajgue, AlCapowned, han, Krull0r, BobIsUnreal, unreality, Dr.Flay™, Ironword, and Teridax.

Also, a lot of the detail overlay textures I used on these skins came from various free texture websites on the internet. Here are some of my sources:
hhh316: Hhh316.deviantart.com
Mb3d (Max Textures): Mb3d.co.uk
AGF81: Agf81.deviantart.com

Many of the other detail textures used came from Unreal itself. I apologize if I forgot to credit anybody for any detail textures used in this pack!

Production Details and Other Info

This project took quite a few years to complete. The average skin took 4-6 hours to complete, with some of the more complex skins (like the Titan) taking several weeks!