Insurgency ggx 101: simplified!

intro

in a land where unreal and unity rule this world, and once-new tech from the source engine slowly becomes obsolete, a few smart fellas in NWI decided to make a push for cooler looking shaders: SURFACEGGX!!!!! … which were then never officially used by NWI. ever.

BUT! thanks to the source dev wiki, along with phale’s ggx collection garnerning attention to this funky new tech, applying ggx is a total cinch to do!

unfortunately, that phale dude turned out to be no-good at instructing others in a practical way, they even suggested saving RGB channels seperately to merge later, taking up extra time! BALONEY!

however, after the ggx craze has loooong gone, i decided to step up to the plate and make my own ggx mod to complete the vanilla ggx package; thankfully, through development, i memorized my own, easier-to-digest guide to making ggx, and i’m finally gonna share it! SMOP!!!

BEFORE WE BEGIN! make no mistake that actually making the ggx sheets themselves absolutely REQUIRES photoshop or any photo editing tool that allows you to change color channels!

STEP ONE: getting alphas (not THAT alpha)

first stop: BROWSE LOCAL FILES!

you’ll need to snatch materials from insurgency_materials_dir.vpk, the mother of ALL textures. vpks are only openable with GCFScape! (get it nemstools.github.io – https://nemstools.github.io/pages/GCFScape-Download.html)

https://i.imgur.com/WC8MChY.png

next, navigate in this order:
root > materials > models > weapons > right click and hit Extract (extract it anywhere, but i highly advise making a mod folder on your desktop and extracting it there to help organize things, as shown here)

https://i.imgur.com/r4WpHSk.png

(aforementioned mod folder example)

https://i.imgur.com/VbaoBKr.png

afterwards, open up a vtf with _nm at the end with VTFEdit (should be on the site linked before) and export as .tga. DO NOT SAVE IT AS ANYTHING ELSE, .TGA PROVIDES THE BEST QUALITY! then, open that .tga riiiight up like a tin of spam with your copy of photoshop and go right to the channels tab!

https://i.imgur.com/436Is59.png

YOU HAVE YOUR ALPHA!

https://i.imgur.com/i5xMbcE.png

STEP TWO: making the sheet

with the alpha and the channels tab at hand, simply delete the channels named RGB, Red, Green, and Blue

https://i.imgur.com/wpLsfqA.png

now with just the alpha, go to brightness and contrast (image > adjustments). set brightness to 30 and contrast at -50 (not in legacy mode though!)

https://i.imgur.com/2azkZ6H.png

now copy, create a new channel, paste onto the new channel, and invert with ctrl+i

https://i.imgur.com/mYMZsG7.png

then, go to levels (same tab as bright+cont) and drag the left slider to 75

https://i.imgur.com/cuezzwC.png

after that, create one last channel and totally paint it white

https://i.imgur.com/S3zJsbo.png

now organize the channels so that the black alpha is top, white alpha is middle and pure white layer is bottom and then go to mode > rgb color and BOOM! you’re done!

https://i.imgur.com/7NHYYGt.png

STEP THREE: mbgjgndmgdhjgdmgt VTF AND VMT TIME

i’m so tired and this hay fever sucks and my legs feel like they’re losing muscle faster than thatcher can spin in her gravOKAY TIME FOR THE LAST STEP

SAVE YOUR BRAND SPANKING NEW GGX SHEET SOMEWHERE IDK AND THEN CONVERT IT TO A VTF LIKE SO (FILE > IMPORT > THE GGX SHEET YOU MADE DUMMY)

(NONE OF THIS MATTERS JUST CLICK OKAY)
https://i.imgur.com/6AARH1m.png

THEN SAVE AS VTF ENDING IN SPEC AND MAKE A VMT AND PASTE THIS LOL

“SurfaceGGX”
{
“$basetexture” “modelsweapons1911WEAPON_YOU_MADE_A_SHEET_FOR_dm”
“$bumpmap” “modelsweapons1911WEAPON_YOU_MADE_A_SHEET_FOR_nm”
$phongexponenttexture “modelsweapons1911WEAPON_YOU_MADE_A_SHEET_FOR_spec”
“$color” “[1.0 1.0 1.0]”

“$roughnessmultiplier” “0.7”
“$metal” “1”
}

REPLACE WEAPON_YOU_MADE_A_SHEET_FOR WITH THE NAME OF THE WEAPON, YOU PROBS ALREADY SAVED THE NAME OF THE WEAPON ON THE SPEC SHEET SO JUST PASTE THAT

COLOR IS FOR BRIGHTNESS, ANYWHERE IN THE 3.1 TO 3.9 RANGE IS GOOD, MAKE SURE TO ADD ONE UP TO THE LAST DECIMAL ON THE SECOND AND THIRD VALUES

ROUGHNESS DETERMINES HOW METALLIC SOMETHING WILL BE, 0.6 TO 1.0 IS GOOD IF YOU’RE USING A CUBEMAP, OTHERWISE 0.5 IF YOU HAVE AN ENVMAP

METAL IS OBVIOUS, SET IT TO 0 IF YOU’RE EDITING SUPPRESSORS OR THE ELCAN OR THE PO2X4 OR FOREGRIPS

IT’S ALMOST 2 AM AND I AM SUPER SICK I LOVE YOU MWAH 💚 🏳️‍🌈

STEP FOUR:

PUT YOUR VMT AND VTF IN A FOLDER NAMED AFTER THE WEAPON YOU JUST EDITED (MATERIALS > MODELS > WEAPONS > WHATEVER WEAPON YOU DUG UP FROM THE YUGOSLAV ERA FOLDER)

TRY IT OUT IN THE CUSTOM FOLDER BY MAKING AN EXTRA FOLDER AND DRAGGING ALL THE OTHER FOLDERS INTO IT

I’LL IMPROVE THIS GUIDE WHEN I FEEL WAY BETTER OKAY

STEP LAST: SHADING POLYGON NORMALS

SHADING POLYGON NORMALS ISN’T REAL BUT WHATEVER THIS IS THE OUTRO

THANKS TO:

• PHALE FOR STARTING THE GGX CRAZE
• ME FOR THINKING UP THESE AWESOME INSTRUCTIONS AND ALSO THE VANILLA GGX MOD
• MALAKAI FOR PROMISING TO BUY ME LEOPARD CAT EARS AND A TAIL IN 2022
• GOD FOR GIVING ME THE FASHION SENSE OF A JOJO CHARACTER
• JEWS FOR CIRCUMCISING THE MAN I SLEEP WITH
• ME AGAIN FOR BEING TOTALLY INSANE WHEN I’M TIRED I’M SORRY I PROMISE I’LL IMPROVE THIS GUIDE TOMORROW OR THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW OR I DON’T KNOW OKAY I’M SORRY

PLEASE DON’T CLOG UP THE WORKSHOP WITH SHODDY GGX EDITS

YES I’LL IMPROVE THIS GUIDE IN THE FUTURE PLEASE DON’T THROW TOMATOES AT THE STAGE

EMBEDDING IMAGES IS A NO-GO FOR SOME REASON

Here we come to an end for Insurgency ggx 101: simplified! hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!