How To Download Skins From Gamebanana

This guide will help give you advice and the information to download Gamebanana skins and replacing pre-existing model files and sound files. It will help out for beginners to understand only simple information I know of that works pretty well.

This guide will also enhance your skill on modifying MDL and WAV files from the local files of Half-Life 1.

Welcome Section - Gamebanana Directories & Useful Info

Hello! I am glad you clicked on this guide, because I will be helping you out with how to download the Gamebanana skins you so wanted to download right before understanding how to download it properly! Also patience is definitely required for this guide. There are some information I wanna list out that will be very easy to read and comprehensive for most people. (WARNING:) This will NOT include every single skin downloads, this is only meant for specifically the weapons and NPCs field. I am not going to do that any time soon (until I research further in the future) only when I know every step to download every individual skin groups. I will list them down below so you can check out the following sections:

• Firstly, I will list out a directory to visit that you can go ahead and go look for on Gamebanana's website, which is where you download the specified skin you wanna download (it could be a skin for a weapon,
  or skins for NPCs.) Go ahead and look here to browse the weapons section directory, you might wanna bookmark this on your web browser so you can keep this without any hassle without trying to look up this guide again. I am sure it'll save time. I also wanna state that the categories help find what weapon or NPC skin you're looking for specifically. Here are the two listings I will suggest:
  
  Every Weapons (With Categories To Your Right)[gamebanana.com]
  
  Every NPC Skins (^ Still With Categories)[gamebanana.com]
  
  There you have it! There are the two directories you'd need to visit. Oh, if you wanted to download a different skin than these two listed above just go here and browse through the categories. I am not going to list every single individual skin pages that are specific to each and every other individual skin groups (like reiterated). So now that we have that, we will go onto the next list. Although I will provide one more link, this will be the link for just Half-Life 1 all skins. Browse through the categories on the right and then you can pick out a specific item you want to download.
  Half-Life All Skins Page[gamebanana.com]
  
  
• This part of the list is small and simple, it will only tell you what you should download and what you don't wanna download. For my reasoning will be fair; I only want you to download from one specific button. Don't press any other button than this one here in this image. It will show you that you should only download the "Manual Download" button than the "ModBoy" download button.
  
  
  This is the listed image I was talking about ^above^. So since you figured out what button to press and what to do, let me give you these good lessons in the tutorials that are down below this first one. Thank you for checking this out! I appreciate it.
  
  P.S. A side note as to why I don't want anybody to download the ModBoy program. It is because that I have downloaded it previously like two days ago and I had an issue with it, I couldn't figure out how to even work the program nor did they give me any information on Gamebanana about how to use it. So it was irrelevant to me and I was too lazy to even do that by myself, but in this tutorial I will be only covering how to manually download a skin. I would also wanna say I haven't replaced skins for anything like the vortigaunts in the game. I am 95% it is the same thing as I am about to list, since it works on all skins that I have noticed about downloading and dropping files into the valve_hd models folder.

1. Downloading & Extracting Files

The first step to begin downloading is like I said before, download the manual download button for your skin. I will give you a skin to test out to see if it works or not, it will look very different from the original Half-Life 1 pistol. I will give out what changes you will notice between the two pictures.

Original Weapon:


M9 Beretta Skin:

Once you spot the differences, you are ready to go and download the test item! You will be downloading this exact M9 Beretta skin used in the image, It will be the test file that will explain how to download model files, I will link a Google Drive download option since I will provide better sound files that'll sound more clean than the M9 Beretta I found on Gamebanana.

It will be listed right here so you can download it:

M9 Beretta - Google Drive[drive.google.com]

Once you downloaded the file we can carry on and download this the right way. You need to extract this by using WinRAR or 7-Zip. I would recommend both of them since I used both of them and both are good, please visit these links to know where to download these file extracting services. (It is only of your choosing if you want to do WinRAR over 7-Zip or vice versa.)

WinRAR Download[www.win-rar.com]

7-Zip Download[www.7-zip.org]

Now once you have downloaded them and got both of them to work. What you wanna do is go straight to the file you have downloaded from Google Drive, you want to right click the ZIP file you have downloaded. Then you can look at the two listings for WinRAR and 7-Zip extractions.

• WinRAR Extraction:

  After you have downloaded WinRAR with the file, you want to go to your downloads folder in your C: drive. You want to right click the file that you have downloaded from Google Drive and then you wanna hover your mouse over the "extract here" button and then click that. You then wait as the file unzips itself and then you want to head over to the next area.
  Image that helps visually:
  
  
  

• 7-Zip Extraction:

  After you have downloaded 7-Zip with the file. You want to right click the file the same way you do for WinRAR, but it is different. As you can see here you have to hover your mouse over the area where it says 7-Zip and then you want to head over to the "extract here" button. You can see a visual image down below:
  
  You are good to go! You will see a file with the name M9 Beretta and you will see two folders with the names "Models" and "Sounds". Then there is a README.txt I have put in there for people who have granted access to the file without reading the guide, your friend can definitely view what it is since it is very relevant and necessary.

2. Replace Models To The "valve_hd" Folder

So like the title had said, it will explain that you need to replace the files to the valve_hd file. But where is that file exactly? Well, it is inside your steamapps folder within your computer. You need to right click Half-Life 1 in your Steam library, you need to click on the properties button, then click on the local files button, then you click on the browse button. Then once you get there you need to click on the file titled "valve_hd" and then you head in there and go to the "models" folder. You then need to put in the .MDL files in the file you have downloaded from Google Drive. You wanna copy and paste it in there, and then once it says that it has detected files with the same file names, you wanna click on yes to all.

So it can confirm to replace all of the files there with the same file names can be replaced. You have to copy the all of the contents from the Models folder from the Beretta M9 skin you have downloaded. You then go to this exact folder in Half-Life 1's local files.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve_hd\models

Go directly to File Explorer and then copy and paste this line ^ in the file address you need to go copy & paste the files at.

After that you need to need to go to the next section of the guide, which is about replacing the sound files with the contents in the file you have downloaded.

P.S. If you didn't know this I should've said that you need to browse if it's in weapons, scientists, or whatever skin mod you are downloading. If it is for a weapon then go to weapons, if it is for the scientists then go to the scientists folder.

3. Replacing Sound Files

The last section we'll be reviewing and going under is replacing the sound files with the files you have downloaded. Then you will be complete of installing the Half-Life 1 skin you have desperately wanted! You need to go to the file you downloaded and then go to Sounds folder you have downloaded, then open it and then copy and paste the files over at this folder directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve\sound

You will then need to replace all of the sound files from the file you have downloaded to the local files sound files. Go ahead and run your game to confirm if the skin mod works now with the new skin models and sounds.

P.S. If the files are called something different and have for example instead of "m16_hks1" or something similar to that. Then you just wanna remove the "m16_" part out of the sound file name so that way it can overwrite the "hks1" sound file. It's that easy.

4. Complicated Installments

Here is the fourth added section that I wanna explain. Now if you wanted to download a skin for the specified gun the M4/M16 in the game Half-Life. What you need to be doing then is you need to have two copies of the sound files that it has. The extraction and the replacement of the model files are really simple, like I have told in the previous sections about how to copy and paste downloaded MDL files over to your valve_hd file. So it will be the same concept of going to valve_hd but then you have to stop and look and head over to sound in the said valve_hd folder.

The reason to why probably Valve had made a normal "valve" folder right next to the "valve_hd" folder could be that they have updated every model file and a few sound files. They are in higher definition than what they used to be back in 1998. Now since we have figured out how to your valve_hd folder just find the sounds folder right in there. You might see a weapons folder as well, since they always make subfolders to make it easier to browse the game's model/sound files.

Right, so for this case we will be downloading this Half-Life 1 skin and we will be testing it out. Remember to extract the files with WinRAR and 7-Zip. You need to put it in a folder you remember like your downloads folder where your web browser saves your downloads at. You have to use the button extract here for either both of the unzipping programs. You need to look at the contents of the M16 mod I will provide down below, just remember to download it manually and everything like I suggested above ^ here.

So here is the download link to the skin modification we will be testing.

M16 (Animations) (Released) DOWNLOAD[gamebanana.com]

So click this link here, then you need to download it like you know. So then once you have pressed the extract here button, you need to go into the folder contents inside the extracted ZIP file. You need to go to Files\models\ then you'll see that there is model files, you then like said before for every model files. Straight up copy and paste them in the valve_hd\weapons folder only. It is prominent to know all of this so I have bold the text so it can catch your eye.

If you have the sound folder in the downloaded file you need to take a look at the folder here, sound/weapons/9mmAR/ then you need to extract ONLY the sound file contents named hks1.wav, hks2.wav, and hks3.wav from there to the Half-Life local files folder I will provide you with.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve_hd\sound\weapons

Now, you copy and paste the sound files from there to the address I gave you. It is that simple, but the thing is that it is pretty complicated knowing which files to copy and paste. Since you have seen the folder have all of these other sound files, like boltpull.wav, magplace.wav, open.wav, ETC. For these ones you really have to look with your eyes and you really have to look and think about it with your brain to see where to extract these, if it is hks(1,2,3).wav then extract those ones to the valve_hd weapons' sound files. You have to look at these two addresses I have given you before and the one I have given you above^.

So there are two exceptions where sound files could go to and it is really tricky if you don't pay much attention..

So go and open these two addresses with File Explorer:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve\sound

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve_hd\sound

Now for these, you can see that the standard valve\sound HAS A TON of sound files. This is what the game commonly uses for most of the sound files of the game, you then see what the downloaded folder is using that you have downloaded from Gamebanana. You then look at the contents, and if you see some crap that is like "pl_gun4" or something that looks out of the ordinary. It also requires you looking and searching for that sound file name shoot.wav in the File Explorer. So you can tell if that is a valid file that is inside your local files under Half-Life.

For example for it will show this for File Explorer once I look it up:

It will say "No items match your search" but then if you type in pl_gun you can see there is pl_gun(1, 2, and 3.) So you have to search the local files folder in Half-Life 1 sounds and models to see if anything has a specific weapon sound or model name. It could be different on some occasions. I also wanna point out that there is a folder that is relevant to installing skins and they label these folders as "PeeWees" I have no idea what that is yet but I am thinking this is models. Since for "Pee" it would be the p_ models and the "Wees" for w_models. w_models are for world models, and p_models are for the models that are for the players' weapons skin. It could be the view model of you taking out your handgun or other weapon out and it has this model when you hold your gun out.

(Or that could be v_models since v stands for view models. I am sure that it could be something, but I will get researching in a while and none of that really matters. Just go by the information I tell you since it helps out a lot and I only know some stuff that works and what doesn't.)

Like for let's say hks1.wav and the other hks sound files are in both the valve_hd weapon sounds and the valve weapon sounds folders. Well the magplace.wav, the magin.wav and the open.wav files ARE ONLY under valve weapons sounds. Now it is vastly different when downloading skin mods for the scientists or Barney, since they do not have a folder in valve_hd sounds at all. So you have to look and it can get tricky so I suggest searching where every file is in the folders, so then you can get where you need to download things at.

Another thing that needs to be said is that when installing sound files like hks(1, 2, and 3.) like we've talked about before. Is that you need to extract the files to both addresses that are above this whole sentence. The valve_hd sound files and the valve sound files, those fields need to be replaced with the hks1.wav+ (and above, don't get confused since there is no file named hks4.wav) files. So that way you know that all of those things are installed correctly.

I also wanna inform you that there are some skins that are modded poorly and they don't even have functioning sound files! This is why I have given you a test file to download from Google Drive to be very kind and you will be able to download it as soon as I upload it. It will help you receive a properly functioning sound files with the model files, you will be able to experience a lot of fun with it. Anyways you might have to find sound files that work and test those out versus the other files you've downloaded, because sometimes you might download one file from Gamebanana with working and functioning sound files.

Then one will not have anything working or functioning sound files, then you can download another weapon from Gamebanana and then simply replace the sound files where it could've gone into. So basically what I mean by the sounds don't work right it is when you run your game and then you have to test the gun, then when you test the gun it has the same stock Half-Life 1 shooting or reloading sound effect that is from the vanilla version of Half-Life.

So then nothing had changed, you need to figure it all out too so it is really difficult. I can tell you good luck on this, since sometimes it can be challenging and sometimes it could be challenging enough where you can break a weapon in the game by sounds or models and then you have to verify the integrity of the game's files. Then you have to re-install and replace every one of your mods again with great patience (it will suck if you have a slow processor or computer for replacing files.) Good luck is what I can say.

-Made By CFalcon075

[arojasdominguez]

how do you install animations?

[ToasterZYX]

Yay! I got some points, here have an award!

[✠CFalcon075✠]

@Toaster Well that was very kind of you! Thank you since I wanna keep working at it on the guide I got here. Thanks for sharing some kindness!

[ToasterZYX]

I wish I had Steam points.

[✠CFalcon075✠]

@Pipemilker Thanks! I am trying to make it for people who don't know how to skin easier for them.

[Pipemilker]

Based