Table of Contents

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Animated Textures

Creating and using animated textures in PAC.

Requirements

VTFEdit

Download VTFEdit, open the archive and extract the x64 folder. 1)

Creating Textures

Getting image files

To create an animated texture file you'll need a sequence of image files, you can get them by converting existing animation files such as .GIFs or creating them yourself. There are multiple methods of acquiring those files, some of them will be listed here but you can use your own methods if you prefer.

If you already have the image files you can skip to Creating animated .VTFs

  1. Go to EZGIF.COM
  2. Click on Browse/Choose Files and select your file
  3. Click Upload!
  4. On the next page you'll see a bunch of tools that you can use to edit your .GIF, they are optional and won't be covered here but feel free to use them
  5. Once you're done editing, select the Split tool
  6. Scroll down to Split options:
    1. If your .GIF is transparent select Output images in PNG format
    2. If your .GIF is NOT transparent select Output images in JPG format
  7. Click Split to frames!
  8. Click Download frames as ZIP
  9. Open the .ZIP file and extract all the files to a folder
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Creating animated .VTFs

This section explains creating animating .VTF files from image sequences. If you already know how to do this and just want to know how to use those files in PAC, go to Using animated .VTF files in PAC

  1. Open VTFEdit and click on File → Import
  2. Navigate to the folder with your images, select all of them and click Open
  3. In the VTF Options window
    1. Set Normal Format to DXT1
    2. Set Alpha Format to DXT5
    3. Set Texture Type to Animated Texture
    4. (Optional) If you want to reduce the size of your texture, you can use the Clamp option and set the Maximum Width and Height
  4. Click OK
  5. Go to File → Save As…
  6. Name your file and click Save

Using animated .VTF files in PAC

  1. Upload the .VTF file → Hosting custom content online
  2. Add a Model to your outfit
    1. If you're looking for a flat, one-sided model → Use this .ZIP as your model
  3. Attach a material to the model
  4. Paste the .VTF link into the basetexture field
  5. Attach a Proxy to the material
  6. Set variable to frame
  7. Set expression to time()*fps where fps is the number of frames per second. See also timeex if the frame must restart from 0 when shown. e.g. timeex()*30

If it is for sprites, beams or particles, the material MUST be an unlitgeneric material, which is found in the 'advanced' part group. And because these parts don't support dynamic material linking (materials can only automatically apply to their parent if it's a model-based part : model, entity, weapon), you MUST name the material part and use that name in the part's path. Rewear if needed. Also, consider placing the material outside the sprite if it still fails to apply. When wearing, the sprite checks the material only once, which is a problem if the material part gets created after it.

Materials are shared, except when dynamic linking (which only works with models). So particles don't support frame progressions that run independently for each particle.

Examples

Expression: Reset when shown

Expression: timeex()*fps

fps - frames per second

Example: timeex()*24

Expression: Frame range

Expression: start_frame+(timeex()*fps)%range

start_frame - the frame that you want the animation to start on

fps - frames per second

range - how many frames you want to play

Example: 5+(timeex()*24)%10 — Starts on frame 5 and plays 10 frames

Expression: Play once

Expression: min(timeex()*fps,end_frame)

fps - frames per second

end_frame - the frame that you want the animation to stop on

Example: min(timeex()*24,68) — Plays until frame 68

Simple Animated Texture

Texture used: rock.vtf

Expression: time()*24

Download: animated-texture.txt

Additional Information

Replacing materials → Replacing materials/textures

Proxy expressions → Proxy

1)
It might not work on some systems, in that case use x86.