UKTerrorist

CS1.4 Custom Skin Replacements

Note: The credit for this discovery doesn't belong to me. I'm just passing on the information in a more detailed manner. Jemimus of Clan Dead Goat is the guy you want to thank.

I'm quite certain that many of you Counter-Strike players hate the original CS skins. That includes me, and with the advent of v1.4, our favorite custom skins have been thrown out the windows by the programmers at Valve.

When I first saw the original AK-47 instead of my IMI Galil, I nearly passed out. I never realized how bad that thing looked. Anyway... The model system in 1.4 is a bit different than it was in 1.3 (or other past CS versions). For in 1.3, there were two different types:

• v_xxx.mdl
  
• v_xxx_r.mdl

As you (should) know, the first (v_xxx.mdl) is the left handed skin, while the latter (v_xxx_r.mdl) is the right handed version. Well ladies and gents, 1.4 has turned that system - along with many other things - over on it's head. There is now only one type of model:

• v_xxx.mdl

This one file, I believe, serves for both the right and left handed. Now, if you were like me, you started changing your original skins to the custom ones before you even played 1.4. And if you were like me, you were shocked to find that your 'player' was holding his weapon (with the custom skin) left handed. That pretty much threw me off, but to get on with it, you can work around the problem with this little method:

• If you are a right handed player. Take your custom skin and extract all of the regular files in the /models folder. There should be four you extracted (if the skin has the v, v_r, w, and p models). Now, go to your models folder and find the v_xxx.mdl of the skin you replaced. Delete the v_xxx.mdl file. Find the v_xxx_r.mdl and remove the _r from the file name. That's how you can use custom skins in CS 1.4.
• If you are a southpaw (lefty) The v_xxx.mdl will be the model that shows up on your screen. So there isn't that much work involved in changing the originals to custom ones, just install them as you normally would. But there is one added note from Jemimus that I'll pass on to you:

Your models will be mirrors of whatever is in v_gunname.mdl, so make sure you have an incorrectly mirrored right-hand model so it will be flipped automatically when used left-handed.

So although skins require a different installation in 1.4, sprites and sounds are exactly the same. W and P models are installed the same as with in 1.3, no difference.

Well, hope that helps most of players who love their custom skins. Once again, thanks goes to Jemimus. But you can all thank me if you want to...

On a final note, below are a few sites where you'll find some quality custom skins for download:

http://www.cs-skins.net/
http://www.counterstrikecenter.com/
http://gunshop.clandeadgoat.net/

Enjoy!

- The Oracle