i need help to make custom weapon skins, Can someone explain it?

[mantequitas]

explain it to me like if i was a five year old, I want to make a custom skin for the ak-47 but i can't find the textures and stuff in the game files

[Demo]

Install L4D2 authoring tools
Download GCFscape
Download VTFeditor
Download an image-editing program (photoshop, paint.net, GIMP, etc)

With GCFscape, open steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/pak_dir.vpk

Go through materials/models/whatever-the-path-file-is to find the texture

Export the texture to your image-editing program and do as you please. Save as .vtf if you can. Otherwise copy the image, launch VTFeditor, paste, then save it with the same name as the file you’re replacing.

Create a folder on your desktop called “[whatever you want to name this mod]”. Inside of that folder, create a folder chain that mimics where you pulled the AK texture from. Materials > models > so-on and so-forth.

Place your edited texture inside the final folder.

Now grab the [whatever you want to name this mod] folder, amd physically drag and drop it onto vpk.exe, which can be found in steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/bin

This will make a copy of [whatever you want to name this mod] as a .vpk package file. Now place [whatever you want to name this mod].vpk inside steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/addons

Launch game and enjoy.

[mantequitas]

Originally posted by Demo:

Install L4D2 authoring tools
Download GCFscape
Download VTFeditor
Download an image-editing program (photoshop, paint.net, GIMP, etc)

With GCFscape, open steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/pak_dir.vpk

Go through materials/models/whatever-the-path-file-is to find the texture

Export the texture to your image-editing program and do as you please. Save as .vtf if you can. Otherwise copy the image, launch VTFeditor, paste, then save it with the same name as the file you’re replacing.

Create a folder on your desktop called “[whatever you want to name this mod]”. Inside of that folder, create a folder chain that mimics where you pulled the AK texture from. Materials > models > so-on and so-forth.

Place your edited texture inside the final folder.

Now grab the [whatever you want to name this mod] folder, amd physically drag and drop it onto vpk.exe, which can be found in steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/bin

This will make a copy of [whatever you want to name this mod] as a .vpk package file. Now place [whatever you want to name this mod].vpk inside steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/addons

Launch game and enjoy.

i can't find the textures file, I'm trying to search the ak-47's texture on the files but i can't find it
it also does not help i know nothing about this

[Demo]

Try subscribing to someone else’s AK47 texture reskin, launch the gamd to install it, then exit out.

Then use GCFscape to go to steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/addons/workshop and select the AK mod (it will be a string of numbers, but the corresponding thumbnail will indicate which mod it is).

Take a look at what file their folder-chain led to.