How To Create Cs Go Skins

Hi everyone and merry Christmas Eve! I'd like to share some advice I have learned from personal experience, and other creators on the workshop. This is just a way for me to write down a bunch of information that I feel like is worth sharing, in no particular order. This is also not intended to be a skin making tutorial, but rather to help you improve your own skins if you already know how to make some.

Before Making your skin you should already have a pretty good idea of what you want to make. You don't have to have the whole thing planned out, but making a quick sketch of your skin will probably help you out in the long run. I often spend a lot of time in photo editors, then making targas and using vtf edit so that I can see the skin in game after every single change. Making a quick sketch helps you decide what you actually like on each part of the gun without having to do this:

r/csworkshop - Some tips for making csgo skins for new creators

My bad habit of creating a new file for every tiny change

Deciding which finish style requires a pretty basic understanding of the finish styles in csgo. You can find all the information on finishes here: http://counter-strike.net/workshop/workshopfinishes. Try to get a good understanding of every finish style, because choosing the right one can be the difference between a good skin and an amazing skin.

You should also read the style guide. It includes information about how valve selects skins, and what they are looking for in a game-worthy skin.

Remember, the csgo workshop is highly competitive. There are over 203,529 entries for items, and each case typically includes only ~17 skins. Out of all those, only 2 selected skins are covert, and often one of those covert is what's known as an "established skin", a skin from an item set that has already been accepted into csgo (ex. the release of the M4A1-S Printstream). Holding back from going overboard with colors and detail, while it may be tempting, can actually improve your chances of getting an item in game, even if it may harm your chances of getting positive workshop ratings. Remember, simplicity can be your best friend if used correctly.

Also remember to not get carried away with the pearlescent slider. While it looks cool and is very fun to see what colors you can make change, it's often overused and can actually make the skin look too complicated, but it can make colors really pop when used in small amounts!

What colors should you use? I once received advice to stop using a monochromatic red theme, as it is overused on the workshop. Pick the colors that you like that work well together, while also trying to be unique. One thing I like to do is find a pair of gloves to match my skins with, and use the colors of the gloves to create my own palette. You can also do this with any other skin, just avoid copying too much. A skin can be incredibly detailed and beautiful, but if it looks too much like a skin already in the game (even from far away), it is less likely to be accepted, so get creative!

Do not be afraid to get second opinions! Find new people to see your skins so you can get their first impressions. When you've been working on the same skin for a long time, you will have a biased opinion on how the skin looks. You should look for random people who can give an honest opinion and can give constructive criticism.

Understanding the workshop

As a new creator, visiting the workshop items page can be very intimidating. The workshop is full of talented artists and your voting queue will first show you skins by established artists competing for covert skins to be included in cases, with millions of views and hundreds of steam awards. Remember, your skins don't need to look like these in order to get accepted. Take a look at this skin, recently accepted into csgo in operation broken fang. It has 8 awards and 2200 views, which is indeed impressive, but nothing compared to the amount of impressions made by this skin (made by the creator of the beloved Swag-7), which has been on the workshop for 4 years and hasn't been accepted yet.

Creating your own workshop post

Previews, previews, previews are everything. The thumbnail is extremely important, since many people will vote on your skin solely by the thumbnail. The thumbnail should give a clear, close view of the skin and show as much detail as possible. Don't worry if you need to crop parts of the weapon off, but try to make the skin take up as much of the screen as possible.

Here is an example of a good thumbnail:

r/csworkshop - Some tips for making csgo skins for new creators

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=437598503

Here is an example of a bad thumbnail:

r/csworkshop - Some tips for making csgo skins for new creators

Check out my skin !!1!!!!!

Another important tip: When previewing your skin, pay attention to the phong exponent and intensity. The default values are 32/255, which causes a very harsh white haze on your skin. u/hollandje reccomended 255/5 in this video, which helps you see the detail on the skin much more clearly.

What previews should you have? Besides a good thumbnail, valve asks that you include a basic side view with no obstructions (such as writing over the skin). It's reccomended to have a lot more previews than that though.

I would reccomend including:

- A gif or image showing various possible patterns (Pattern based skins only)

- A gif or image of the weapon being inspected

- A gif or image showing the weapon being reloaded

- A gif of the weapon becoming worn

You may also want to include:

- A picture of the weapon on the ground

- A picture of the weapon inspect in inventory

- Pictures of the weapon in different lighting conditions.

In game previews also improve the quality of your workshop page a lot! They show you really put effort into the skin, and make it really stand out on the workshop. This is done by putting your vtf file in the game files, then making a copy of items_game.txt in (recalling from memory) OS>Program files x86>Steam> steamapps>common>counter-strike>csgo>scripts. Next, find a Factory New (This only works with factory new, anything else will appear solid black) skin of the weapon that you want that you own and take note of what collection it is in. This page right here is extremely useful for navigating items_game.txt, since all the cases and most of the skins have different names in the files than in the actual game. Then, replace the code for the skin you have with the .txt file that you submitted to the workshop, removing the file path and .vtf from the "pattern" and "normal" (if your skin uses a normal map) sections. Then, add -insecure to your launch options on csgo (go to games library and right click on csgo and click properties). Then launch the game and equip the replaced weapon, and begin going full papparazi.

Now it's time to upload your skin!

It's not as exciting as it seems, it's actually usually a pretty rough landing. Your skin will be downvote bombed upon first release, regardless of quality. The biggest reason for this is that creators sometimes downvote all news skins so that their own appear on workshop page 1. This is why valve also rarely uses the voting system to choose skins. If you want your skin to be more popular, please, do not downvote other people's skins! Instead, ask your friends to review it, or maybe post your new skins here on r/csworkshop! I have found that posting on social media attracts mush less toxic people than those who scalp the workshop for new submissions. Just because your skin is doing poorly in the workshop doesn't mean it won't be included in the game. Valve usually ignores workshop ratings when choosing skins, maybe because of the downvote bombing issue. Don't be discouraged if you see that your skin has more negative ratings than positive ratings.

Workshop voting is very harsh, and if you can make it past 40% positive ratings, you're doing fine and you shouldn't feel like giving up. It just means there is room for improvement. The creator of the XM1014 Seasons told 3kliksphilip in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPN66uhh44 that it was accepted with only 52% positive ratings, and I highly doubt that was the lowest rated skin to be accepted into csgo.

So don't give up! Your next idea might be your best one yet!