[TUTORIAL]Preparing all 3 types of renders & injecting with VisitorX's injector tool - EASY, QUICK & all FREE tools!

[4 Life]

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Hi folks! So this will be a straight-to-the-point (after this intro, at least) tutorial with pretty pictures, to show you how to prepare custom renders to inject into your game with @TheVisitorX's new render injector tool added to Custom Character Tools. I've seen that some people still have trouble creating renders properly and seen some screenshots of some dodgy looking custom renders, and some people still not aware of this method or this tool. So I figured with this tutorial it'd be a one-stop shop that I can link people to if they're struggling with any aspect.

Big shout-out goes to @Perfectplex for discovering a new method for injecting renders that eliminated a lot of the problems that the old X-Packer method used to present, such as crashing, trouble reinjecting renders and so on. I then pointed out that it might be possible to create the renders using a different DDS format as, since they weren't being injected into an actual file anymore, we might not have to be so specific with the DDS encoding and I'd seen that @I CAN I WILL got a DXT5 format DDS image working before... so maybe try that and it ended up working. So not only do we not have to use Visual Studio anymore, but also the methods PerfectPlex discovered were used as a base by VisitorX to create his injection tool (which I've used extensively and works without a hitch!). On average it takes me less than 5 minutes to download an image, resize it to become suitable as a render, create my type A, B & C renders and then inject them into the game - a far cry from the half an hour+ it used to take me to do it via the old method and it's also a LOT more reliable!

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Let's crack on with the tutorial.

You will need:

The latest version of Custom Character Tools

paint.net free software to create the DDS render files

A template to base the size and colour of your render on - I use retro Triple H's, which you can download HERE

Your cut-out/render file that you want to inject into the game - PSD Dreams is a great site for these

 

I'm going to change Goldust's render to an Attitude Era goldust render with this tutorial as a demonstration. I'll add demonstration images as I go along, they'll look small but click on the images and they'll enlarge  

Make sure you have fully working, error free ltag_type pac files in your game (if you've never modded renders before, you're fine here - if you have, just make sure they're crash-free).

 

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Step 1 - Creating the type B (selection screen) render

We always start with the type B render, as this acts as a base for creating the type A and C renders afterwards.

1) Open the downloaded 0001.png file (this is the Triple H render) in paint.net

2) Drag and drop your downloaded custom render into paint.net, and click Add layer when prompted

NOTE: If you drag in an image that is larger than the HHH render, the canvas size will increase to accommodate it. Don't panic, just continue with the following steps until your render is shaped/sized to the template - then, before you save the image, press Ctrl+Shift+R to bring up the Canvas Size menu, set the Anchor to Top Left and change both the height and width back to 1024 to trim off the excess. I'll remind you to do this later when the time is right and will include an image to help you with the settings!

3) The layer will be selected once you've added it. Use the Move Selected Pixels tool (see image below) to resize and move the image. Hold shift whilst dragging the corner of the layer to resize it whilst keeping the aspect ratio.

I find it useful to place the render next to HHH to compare how big they look. You want them to look a similar size.

4) When you've finished resizing, place the render so its head overlaps HHH's head. You can move it left or right a bit if some of the render is cut off at the edge to fit it all in. It'll look fine but you'll have to adjust it later when you make the type C.

4a) You might need to recolour your render a little for it to look good. Press Ctrl + Shift + U to open the Hue/saturation menu if so. Try and match HHH's render in terms of how red or yellow it appears (by adjusting the Hue), how colourful it is (by adjusting the Saturation) and how dark or light it is (by adjusting the Lightness). You will see your changes happening as you move the sliders, just be careful as adjusting things too much will make the image look worse and you might just have to make do with an acceptable colour level in some cases.

5) Now we need to remove the HHH layer. Click on the Layer button in the top right hand corner. The layer menu will pop up. Scroll to the bottom of the layers and untick HHH's image.

NOTE: If you dragged in a larger image and the canvas resized as discussed in step 2, now is the time to resize the canvas back to 1024x1024 (hit Ctrl+Shift+R, change height and width to 1024 and set the Anchor to Top Left). Settings demonstration image:

Spoiler

6) We used HHH's type B as a base, so the image size is already set correctly. Hit File > Save as. Save as a DirectDraw Surface (DDS). Name it to something meaningful (I'd save this one as GoldustB as it's my Goldust type B render.

7) With the next pop-up, copy the following settings (you should just have to change the format to DXT5, everything else should then be set):

Don't close this image yet! On to the type A...

Step 2 - Creating the type A (Loading screen) render

Keep your type B open, as we'll be working off that to create the type A. The game shrinks this image vertically, so we need to stretch it to counteract that.

1) Press Ctrl + R to open the Resize menu. Change the settings circled in red to the following. Ignore everything else, then hit OK:

You will notice the image looks stretched - this is what we want.

2) Press Ctrl + Shift + R to open the Canvas Size menu. We'll now change the canvas size back to 1024x1024 to change the overall image size. Copy the settings circled in red, ignoring everything else.

3) Your type A render is now ready to save as a DXT5 format DDS, same settings as your type B so refer steps 6 & 7 there again if needed. I saved mine as GoldustA.

Step 3 - Creating the type C (selection screen) render

Again, keep the image open, as we'll work off of it to create the type C. This is your small render for in-game, Creation Suite etc.

1) Press Ctrl +Z TWO times, to reset the image back to its correct aspect ratio.

1a) IF you noticed that you couldn't overlap HHH's head when making your type B without some of your render cutting off, and had to move it over, follow this extra step:

 

Spoiler

With this image you'll NEED to center the head. If so, use the same method as the first step to drag in the supplied 0001.PNG (HHH render) and add it as a layer. Then centralise the head of your render to HHH's and then click the Layer button at the top right as you did earlier, then untick HHH's layer to remove it. The rest of the body won't show up in this image, except for when you preview their theme in the Jukebox menu, in which you'll notice that even the official renders have parts cut off/boxed out

2) Press Ctrl +R to bring up the Resize menu. Change the circled settings only, to change the image size to 512x512:

3) Save the image as a DXT5 DDS again, referring to steps 6 & 7 of the type B tutorial if needed. I saved this one as GoldustC.

 

Your type A, B & C renders are now ready to inject! Open up Custom Character Tools. Open the Character-Render Injector via the Inject tab, and the render injection interface will open.

The bottom drop-down list is in order from A to C. So load your type A, choose the slot you want to inject it into and then choose the first option at the bottom, then the second for the type B and last for the type C.

Here's my finished results! As you can see, when compared to the unedited Cactus Jack render, the size is correct

You can also see previews of a tonne of renders I've done HERE for my Monday Night Wars project

 

P.S. Before anyone asks, the images are easy enough to follow so I won't be doing a video tutorial

Edited May 31, 2017 by 4 Life

[Hawideros]

Amazing!!! Thanks 4 Life, TheVisitorX, I CAN I WILL & Perfectplex!

I changed the renders for Paige. If someone would like to save some time take mine:

https://mega.nz/#!chdkUAJK!eAceWv4fuFAP21Ii3kO7tOTxS3ZuPatblpcy_dFB0FI  

Edit: Here's Emma up-for-grab & up-to-date!

https://mega.nz/#!E91VkZ6D!vbYTX5UI-nuSrKk1hphuI-1Mu5MGTTOVJCv9l6OH8IU 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2016 by Sickboy

[TheVisitorX]

Thank you for the tutorial, I will place a link to that in my CCT thread!

[Trash81]

Great, thank you!

[I CAN I WILL]

Thanks 4life For Mentioning Me!

[4 Life]

Thank you for the tutorial, I will place a link to that in my CCT thread!

All good man, thanks again for such a brilliant tool

[Robbie686]

Great tutorial man really handy.

[4 Life]

Amazing!!! Thanks 4 Life, TheVisitorX, I CAN I WILL & Perfectplex!

I changed the renders for Paige. If someone would like to save some time take mine:

https://mega.nz/#!chdkUAJK!eAceWv4fuFAP21Ii3kO7tOTxS3ZuPatblpcy_dFB0FI  

 

 

 

 

 

That looks awesome mate

[ObsoleteRipZz]

Damn nice! Should save a bunch of time not having to use Visual Studio. Those save times killed me

[4 Life]

Damn nice! Should save a bunch of time not having to use Visual Studio. Those save times killed me

Yeah man, that sucked so much. Especially when you waited all that time and then you went to inject it and it didn't work somewhere along the line and you'd have to start over Some of them would just never work. With the tool though there are no crashing issues because the render isn't injected into the ltag file which, as we know, is pretty damn fragile. I made and injected over 50 renders in one afternoon and not a single one of them gave me an issue anywhere. So yeah, as a whole, I'd call the old method VS/X-Packer method extremely obsolete

[4 Life]

@Sickboy

You should start a renders thread mate

[kt93]

good job

i hope one day that we will change modded superstar render and custom ring anouncing. i know custom ring anouncing is working but its bad to hear ex. brad madox(mod) from charlote north carolina weigh at 207 lb "shinsuke nakamura"

[Beardy]

Fantastic tutorial, @4 Life! This is exactly what I've been looking for the past few days, because the sizing of mine just weren't coming out right. This will be very helpful. Thank you, sir.

[4 Life]

good job

i hope one day that we will change modded superstar render and custom ring anouncing. i know custom ring anouncing is working but its bad to hear ex. brad madox(mod) from charlote north carolina weigh at 207 lb "shinsuke nakamura"

You know you can change the billing info (residence/weight) as well, yeah?

[Hawideros]

@Sickboy

You should start a renders thread mate

Done!

http://smacktalks.org/forums/topic/63362-complete-render-packs-thread/

[kt93]

good job

i hope one day that we will change modded superstar render and custom ring anouncing. i know custom ring anouncing is working but its bad to hear ex. brad madox(mod) from charlote north carolina weigh at 207 lb "shinsuke nakamura"

You know you can change the billing info (residence/weight) as well, yeah?

if i change this will be different for ring announcing? i didnt try that(height) for pac folders i change pofo/info.

[4 Life]

good job

i hope one day that we will change modded superstar render and custom ring anouncing. i know custom ring anouncing is working but its bad to hear ex. brad madox(mod) from charlote north carolina weigh at 207 lb "shinsuke nakamura"

You know you can change the billing info (residence/weight) as well, yeah?

if i change this will be different for ring announcing? i didnt try that(height) for pac folders i change pofo/info.

No mate same procedure, the "from Charlotte, NC, weighing 207lbs" is another audio file so you just replace that like you would a call name

[kt93]

good job

i hope one day that we will change modded superstar render and custom ring anouncing. i know custom ring anouncing is working but its bad to hear ex. brad madox(mod) from charlote north carolina weigh at 207 lb "shinsuke nakamura"

You know you can change the billing info (residence/weight) as well, yeah?

if i change this will be different for ring announcing? i didnt try that(height) for pac folders i change pofo/info.

No mate same procedure, the "from Charlotte, NC, weighing 207lbs" is another audio file so you just replace that like you would a call name

yeah but the problem is that the "from Charlotte, NC, weighing 207lbs" is  audio file that is not identified only brad madox name is. so that is why i dont use mod to replace a superstar/divas or NPC.

[4 Life]

yeah but the problem is that the "from Charlotte, NC, weighing 207lbs" is  audio file that is not identified only brad madox name is. so that is why i dont use mod to replace a superstar/divas or NPC.

Think this is his ID mate: 763121961

It says the same thing so 99% sure it's his, unless there's someone else who is also from Charlotte that weighs 207lbs

But yeah, if their ID hasn't been found then you can't replace it of course. Unless you dug through the sound files and found it yourself, it's there somewhere but it might take ages.

[kt93]

yeah but the problem is that the "from Charlotte, NC, weighing 207lbs" is  audio file that is not identified only brad madox name is. so that is why i dont use mod to replace a superstar/divas or NPC.

Think this is his ID mate: 763121961

It says the same thing so 99% sure it's his, unless there's someone else who is also from Charlotte that weighs 207lbs

But yeah, if their ID hasn't been found then you can't replace it of course. Unless you dug through the sound files and found it yourself, it's there somewhere but it might take ages.

yeah its difficult i know i appreciate your work. the modding this year is verry good so much choises you know i love the game i buy it for 15€ and now maybe i will buy the trainer for 15€ because it might be good for my universe mode or i buy x-patcher for crowd signs but i dont work so i dont have much money so it is difficult.

[4 Life]

yeah its difficult i know i appreciate your work. the modding this year is verry good so much choises you know i love the game i buy it for 15€ and now maybe i will buy the trainer for 15€ because it might be good for my universe mode or i buy x-patcher for crowd signs but i dont work so i dont have much money so it is difficult.

Let me know if that ID works mate, pretty sure it's his but would be nice to identify it

Ravioli Game Tools is free btw if you ever wanna dig through the game's sound files for any reason

[kt93]

yeah its difficult i know i appreciate your work. the modding this year is verry good so much choises you know i love the game i buy it for 15€ and now maybe i will buy the trainer for 15€ because it might be good for my universe mode or i buy x-patcher for crowd signs but i dont work so i dont have much money so it is difficult.

Let me know if that ID works mate, pretty sure it's his but would be nice to identify it

Ravioli Game Tools is free btw if you ever wanna dig through the game's sound files for any reason

it is working i replace maddox with del rio  i hope to find other NPC Ring announcing and try.

[Genericho™]

I am having a little problem in the beginning. When I place the render of Austin Aries on top of HHH, the render of HHH becomes smaller and is at the top left side of the picture. What is the issue?

[marmelada21]

I am having a little problem in the beginning. When I place the render of Austin Aries on top of HHH, the render of HHH becomes smaller and is at the top left side of the picture. What is the issue?

I'm having the same problem and didn't find a solution yet.

[4 Life]

I am having a little problem in the beginning. When I place the render of Austin Aries on top of HHH, the render of HHH becomes smaller and is at the top left side of the picture. What is the issue?

I'm having the same problem and didn't find a solution yet.

You just open paint.net, and drag and drop the HHH file - click Open file. Then drag and drop your image and click Add layer. Should work, I've not changed any settings and I don't do anything special