Before you start, you will need:

1. Neverwinter installed and playable (obviously)
2. A graphics editing program capable of editing and exporting .dds files (I use the GIMP and these instructions are best used with it).
3. Knowledge of texture editing, working with layers, etc.
4. To have installed the Neverwinter Nude Mods, having selected one of the nude skin textures to install. (Manual or installer .exe, either way is fine.)

A hex editor is also useful, especially if you have experience in using one, but is not required.

Everything else you need to get your own custom textures into Neverwinter should be included in this package.

I recommend you read through these instructions entirely before starting any work, rather than progressing bit-by-bit. You may come up with questions that are answered later on.

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Before we begin, you will be working with your Localdata folder extensively during this process. Your localdata folder will look like:

..\Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\Localdata

The ".." part is dependent on where you installed Neverwinter. Locate this folder, which should already contain two folders, "bin" and "texture_library" and one file, "Gameprefs.Pref".
It is imperative that you do not accidentally delete Gameprefs.Pref, or else you could lose your in-game setting configuration -- this should be obvious but I feel it merits mention.

=============================================================================================================================================

All right, in order for custom textures to be loaded into the game, a special file, texopts.bin, needs to be created.
Fortunately, I've already done this for the nude skins, so it's pretty easy for you to get your own edited skins in-game.
Since you've already installed the Neverwinter nude skins included in my mod package, then texopts.bin is already installed in the correct location.

Custom skin textures are placed in the two following folders:

[..\Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\Localdata\texture_library\costumes\Avatars\SkinUpper]

and

[..\Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\Localdata\texture_library\costumes\Avatars\SkinLower]

for upper-body skins and lower-body skins, respectively.

You should be able to see these folders on your system that contain F_Skinupper_Bare_03_D.wtex and F_Skinlower_Bare_03_D.wtex, respectively.
Your goal is to replace these files with your edited skins.

I highly recommend making backups of these files before doing any editing, although you can always reinstall them in a pinch.

You can use the included Wtex2DDS tool to convert these skins to .dds files that you can then edit.
Alternatively, you can view the .wtex files in a hex editor and delete the first 36 bytes (0x0 to 0x23) to turn them into regular .dds files.

Then you can edit the .dds skins in your graphics program of choice. I've included the unmodified, default skins as well as their normal maps (they end in _Nx).
Sadly, the default textures have a horrible seam around the waistline that is very difficult to get rid of. Characters can, however, just wear a belt to hide it.

SPECIAL NORMAL MAPPING NOTICE:
I'm not the best texture editor myself, so I didn't bother with editing the normal maps, but they can help the textures look more three-dimensional if you can edit them.
Cryptic apparently likes using "green" normal maps, and there's a useful video tutorial on working with green maps here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiROSJYVKqo
The video is for a different game but the same methods apply to these normal maps.
If you plan on making edited normal maps, you will need to use a different texopts.bin, included in the "Normal map texopts" folder.
Copy it over to your [localdata/bin] folder and replace the existing texopts.bin before loading your new normals into the game.
Otherwise, just ignore the "Normal map texopts" folder.

The diffuse textures (that end with _D) control the main skin looks, but have some weird inverted-transparency stuff going on, so you'll need to mess with them a bit.
Open the .dds in GIMP, then right click the layer "main surface" and select "Add Layer Mask" -> "Transfer Layer's Alpha Channel" -> Check the "Invert Mask" box -> "Add".
You should then be able to better see the texture. Then, right click the "main surface" and select "Apply layer mask" and edit away.
There are probably ways to do this same thing in other graphics programs, but I don't use them and so I don't know what they are (look for "layer mask" options and such).

I've also included layered GIMP .xcf files that I used to create the skins; these may be helpful as they show where I positioned my additions relative to the base skins.

You'll need to repeat the above layer-masking steps when you're done editing to return the texture to its former, mostly-transparent state.

Once you've done all that, you can convert your textures back to .wtex format using the same Wtex2DDS tool, or by copying from a backup and replacing the same header you deleted earlier in a hex editor.

Then you'll want to copy over your new .wtex file(s) and replace the ones the mod package came with.
Make sure that your new textures are the exact same name as the textures the mod package installed (although capitalization shouldn't matter).

From there, load up the game and see how your new textures look on female characters! See the troubleshooting section below if things go wrong somehow.
You'll want to restart Neverwinter each time you make a change to the textures, just to be safe.


If you're into high-resolution skinning, you should be able to safely upscale your textures up to 2048x2048 (SkinLower) or 2048x1024 (SkinUpper).
You'll need to hex-edit the .wtex headers to support this, though. Once you've converted your textures to .wtex format, look for offsets 0x9 and 0xd.
You should see "02" which (together with the proceeding "00") indicates 512 pixels or "04" which indicates 1024 pixels.
Change these to match your new texture's dimensions, noting that "08" corresponds to 2048 pixels.

Disclaimer: I've not tried upscaling textures, but this should work in theory.


Anyway, if you do make your own skin textures, please feel free to post them in one (or more) of the relevant threads:


http://www.nudecreator.org/page2/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1656
http://www.loverslab.com/topic/17763-neverwinter-nude-mods
http://www.gamevixenzone.net/hot-stuff-21/neverwinter-nude-mods-1127



TROUBLESHOOTING:
----------------

 Situation: My new textures don't load, and character's skins look all glossy and weird.

 Potential fixes: 	Did you remember to replace the header if you used a hex editor?
					Did you remember to re-apply the alpha channel layer mask per above?
					Did you remember to save your .dds with DXT5 compression, generating mipmaps?


 Situation: I'd like to edit textures other than the SkinUpper and SkinLower textures included here.

 Fix: You'll need a different texopts.bin to do that. Message me about how to make one.

