Tutorial So you think you can mod AFL Evolution?

[Jones2ByrneJones]

I'm Still In the Process of Making This Tutorial please dont post yet until this message disappears

Howdy

Have you ever been sitting around on a Sunday morning and/or afternoon hoping you could read Not Again's guide to creating guernseys for the PC edition of AFL Evolution? Well, you've come to the right place because this thread is gonna be the guide to creating guernseys for the PC edition of AFL Evolution.

Alright everyone, listen up! Here we go! Blast off!

Contents

• Introduction
• Contents
• Essential Materials
• Non-Essential Recommendations
• Step 1: Extracting Files from AFL Evolution
• Step 2 Understanding What You're Looking At
• Step 3: The conversion process
• Step 5:

Essential Materials

• PC edition of AFL Evolution
  • You don't need the PC edition of AFL Evolution to make guernseys but it's needed if you want to see them in action.
• Adobe Photoshop
  • Or any software that can handle layers. In theory you could attempt to use Paint (and it might work very well!) but I can't offer any advice.
• Winrar
  • Needed to navigate the games "pak.waz" file.
• A DDS to PNG converter
  • AFL Evolution handles images using DirectDraw Surface (DDS)
  • Photoshop can't handle DDS files so they need to be converted first.
  • I use one called "DDS Converter". Direct download link: http://www.softsea.com/download/DDS-Converter.html
• A PNG to DDS converter
  • You'll obviously need to convert them back into DDS because you'll need to implant them back into the game file.
  • I use one called PNG to DDS converter. Indirect download link: http://www.easy2convert.com/png2dds/

If you're from the future and any of these links are dead then just google for an alternative. It doesn't really matter what program you use as long as it works.

Non-Essential Recommendations

• Clover
  • Clover adds browser-like tabs to Windows Explorer. It makes navigation through various folders at once super simple.
  • It's not an essential program but I recommend it in general anyway.
  • Indirect download link: http://download.cnet.com/Clover/3000-2248_4-75732861.html
• SageThumbs
  • Lets you view most image file types in Windows Explorer/Clover. This includes DDS and PSD and makes navigation (and confirmation that you have indeed converted your PNG back to DDS) easier.
  • Indirect download link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sagethumbs/?source=typ_redirect

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Step One: Extracting Files from AFL Evolution

Before I start this step I want to make very clear one thing. KEEP A BACKUP. Copy all files so you have the originals saved somewhere. You might never need them but they come in handy.

Anyway. If you've got AFL Evolution saved on your PC then you should be able to navigate to a similar place. Mine was in Gaming Disk (E/Steam/Steamapps/Common/AFL Evolution.

Anyway within this folder is the most important file on your PC right now. It's called "pak.waz". I don't know what it stands for. Could be Patrick Swayze. Who knows? Anyway in this file is all the graphics and s**t like that. And since this is the guide to creating guernseys for the PC edition of AFL Evolution, then it would make a lot of sense to go there.

For those with normal colour vision the file you want is the one highlighted in blue. For akkaps, it's the only one highlighted. To navigate this super cool file you need to use Winrar. So if you haven't already downloaded it, scroll up a bit and do so.

Once you do that, navigate your way to pak.waz\data\player\texture\med\clothes and there you will find ALL the uniforms for all teams, AFL and custom. Highlight as many as you wish and click "Extract To" and extract them to any folder you wish. And then do that twice in another place so you have a backup copy.

At this point you should begin to notice a pattern in the name. league_team

For the purposes of this tutorial I extracted "cust_d1" to my PC. Not the Clover tabs.

This brings us onto...

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Step Two: Understanding What You're Looking At

If you downloaded SageThumbs like I recommended then your folder should look a little something like this. If you haven't and it doesn't look like this - don't worry, you'll be converting them to PNG anyway.

The "away_d" and "home_d" files are the guernsey and shorts template. The "away_n" and "home_n" are the textures for these. Using the respective files together makes identifying "landmarks" an easier task.

To be honest I'm not really too sure about those "cust_d1_m" files.

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Step Three: The conversion process

Using DDS Converter (download link is above) you can convert all of these .dds files to .png

When you click convert you will get a confirmation message and yes you do sure to convert, OK?

And then travel all the way back to Clover and check out the folder of the files you just converted. No, you don't need a new prescription (or maybe you do) you are, in fact, seeing double. But now that you have PNG's you can edit them in PhotoShop! Woohoo!

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Step Four: Indentifying Landmarks

Now, this process is generally a bit more tedious with actual AFL guernseys because they have logos. As a custom guernsey, this has none, so we'll have to estimate their position.

What it DOES have is cuffs and collars that are perfectly traceable using the pen tool. If you're not already familiar with the pen tool, you should. Look up a Youtube tutorial or two. It's the best and most powerful tool on Photoshop.
The magic wand tool (W-key shortcut) is a shitty (yet viable) alternative if you're lazy and can't use the pen tool although the end-result in the game winds up very pixelated.

Make a new layer and call it "Collar". Press the P-key to use the pen tool and then trace around the collar. Zoom in for increased accuracy. It doesn't need to be exact but using the pen tool/shapes makes it at least look clean.

Let's make it blue!

* yeah! We are well on our way to making an awesome new custom guernsey.

Spoiler: Sidequest

Sidequest: What would it look like if I uploaded a blue collar with nothing else in the image to AFL Evolution?

Anyway using similar techniques you should be able to trace cuffs, shorts (make your own piping!) and logos.

I wound up creating something like this with white blocks as logo placeholders.

Some helpful hints!

• If you plan on using long-sleeves, don't make the cuffs too thick otherwise they will remain when sleeves are present and it looks weird.
• The front of the shorts are in the centre of the image whereas the back of the shorts are on the left and right hand sides. Illustration to demonstrate. The red portion is the front of the shorts. The blue is the back.

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Reserved

Step Five: Implanting into the game

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Reserved