Skin Swaps! (Owls and parrots that never were... etc.)

[Chimera]

their tails and forearms look really.. really tiny and lololol i am gonna burst out laghing everytime i see that owl XDDD

[TygerDarkstorm]

Even though the eyes and feathers are a little wonky, I love the way those skins look on the raptors. Those devilsaurs are too cute! You're right, they totally need purses. XD And Spiritbinder's fixing, or whatever, of the turtles are lovely.

[SpiritBinder]

The necklace is really exaggerated on the devilsaur, though. I expect it to be carrying a handbag and wearing an old fashioned lady's hat.

Wish... GRANTED!

[Wain]

Oh my god!

Grandma, what big teeth you have!

[GormanGhaste]

I like the green devilsaur; it's a little more dignified without the necklace.

Speaking of the green raptor skin, the raptors that use it don't have feathers. Do they use a slightly different model, or are the feathers on that skin just completely transparent?

[Thwip]

WTB Purple devil and black or white raptor.

[Vephriel]

[

Heeeeee baby Skorn! <3 I think they look really nice on the raptor frames actually.

[Kalliope]

Wowwwwwwww, the devilsaur skins look fantastic on the raptors! All the raptor-devilsaurs look....pudgy...for some reason. O_o But I love some of the color schemes, like the pink, blue, and gray....green too, of course. <3

[TygerDarkstorm]

The necklace is really exaggerated on the devilsaur, though. I expect it to be carrying a handbag and wearing an old fashioned lady's hat.

Wish... GRANTED!

That is awesome Spirit!

[Kalliope]

*quietly dubs Grandma Devilsaur "Mrs. Longbottom"*

You're welcome.

(Thank you, SB!!! heeeee!)

[Wain]

Speaking of the green raptor skin, the raptors that use it don't have feathers. Do they use a slightly different model, or are the feathers on that skin just completely transparent?

Good question! It's the same model. However all the raptor skins have an alpha channel. This serves as a mask to make parts of the image transparent if you don't want them shown. For example this is used around the teeth so that they don't have to go into minute detail on the model itself. In the case of the feathers, most raptor skins have a feather-shaped gap in the alpha mask around where the feathers are depicted in the skin file. The green raptor skin has no feathers, and its alpha mask is completely filled in at that point. So the feathers that are on the actual model are rendered invisible. The Devilsaur skins actually have the feather-shaped gap in the alpha mask, despite them having no feathers on the actual skin! This shows they were copied from the raptor skin originally. The mask was never altered, as the model itself has no feathers so there's nothing to worry about. If you copy one over to the raptor model, however, you can see the problem.

I made versions of the devilsaur skin files with a modified mask so that the feather region is invisible, and they now work on the raptor model without any weirdness. For example:


This was fun! I finally learned how to edit individual colour channels in the image files, and even mix and match channels between skins. Doing so gives you all manner of weird and wonderful colour combos, such as:

I really love the moonlight silver in the last one. Note that this is all a matter of random mixing and matching. No artistic talent is involved. If you want to see real artistic talent applied to these skins, well... I'm hoping a certain someone will have something close to finished soon and he'll show you what real artistry is

[Wain]

And a few more novel combos, this time using proper raptor skins rather than the devilsaur ones. I'll avoid doing any more of these as they're not real skins in the database and it's getting a bit off-topic. I'd probably post anything else like this in the fan art forum.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Those raptor skins look so amazing. :O How much effort would it be for Blizzard to implement skins like that if they're just alterations of the color files?

[Wain]

Those raptor skins look so amazing. :O How much effort would it be for Blizzard to implement skins like that if they're just alterations of the color files?

Well for every interesting combo that looked like it might work in the game, there might have been 5-10 that I rejected. That was using purely random mixes of colour channels from different skins. But it takes just a matter of minutes. That's all!

[Thwip]

I would honestly love a larger selection of both raptors and devils. The Devilraptors look insanely stunning. While the devils don't look too bad with raptor skins, I still think there was a little more tlc in their original skins. [Red Devil with black stripes. plz. That's what Dred should have been! Ahahaha!]

[Nick]

Raptor skin waaaaaannnnnttttt.
/drools

[Shade]

Those raptor skins look so amazing. :O How much effort would it be for Blizzard to implement skins like that if they're just alterations of the color files?

Well for every interesting combo that looked like it might work in the game, there might have been 5-10 that I rejected. That was using purely random mixes of colour channels from different skins. But it takes just a matter of minutes. That's all!

Can they even use something that has been 'made' by a fan? I mean they are from their files, but isn't there something that prevents them from using fan submitted work or such? *shrug*

The necklace is really exaggerated on the devilsaur, though. I expect it to be carrying a handbag and wearing an old fashioned lady's hat.

Wish... GRANTED!

Okay, am I the only one who just had a Harry Potter flashback and thought of Snape in the clothes of Neville's grandmother all of the sudden?!

[TygerDarkstorm]

No Shade, Kalli already mentioned it a few posts up.

[Wain]

Those raptor skins look so amazing. :O How much effort would it be for Blizzard to implement skins like that if they're just alterations of the color files?

Well for every interesting combo that looked like it might work in the game, there might have been 5-10 that I rejected. That was using purely random mixes of colour channels from different skins. But it takes just a matter of minutes. That's all!

Can they even use something that has been 'made' by a fan? I mean they are from their files, but isn't there something that prevents them from using fan submitted work or such? *shrug*

I presumed the question was how easy would it be for them to generate new skins by the same method.

[GormanGhaste]

Love this mottled one!