Umachines' 2K12 and MVP uniforms feedback thread

[Kccitystar]

@Umachines Hope all is well, brother!

 

So I've been playing a handful of games using your uniforms and there's one thing that's been bugging me for some time that I'm sure it's my fault for not discussing this at length since you started working on uniforms for 2K12:

 

The game doesn't have default spacing for lettering. Some teams, from all the times I've modded, have a wacky, sometimes awful way of displaying the names on the back of the jerseys and the spacing of the fonts vary by team, which sucks. I've used the Cardinals' home uniforms as a base to just replace all of the textures with any team that uses their block style font, like the Royals, Mets, Oakland A's, White Sox (Road), etc. Some teams I've decided to just do their entire font wholesale (like the Jays, which I'll get around at some point). 

The best way I can explain this is in the way the game spaces letters and names on the back of the jerseys. I'll show some teams for example:

 

 

The D'Backs uniforms are guilty AF for this. The nameplate on the back is completely straight. Same with the Angels. I can't think of any teams that use that style, and I think it must have just been the art team at Visual Concepts mailing it in.

 

I actually got creative about it once with the Rays uniforms and the lettering ended up looking amazing:

[Umachines]

I agree with you, KC. And I'm gulity of not doing something about this before. In fact, I can't imagine anything more boring to me about 2K12 uniforms than editing names letters. In Latin winterball we don't really care about players names. That's just another place for advertising. Only Mexican teams are using them lately. So, I've never really payed attention to this part of MLB uniforms.

[Kccitystar]

1 hour ago, Umachines said:

I agree with you, KC. And I'm gulity of not doing something about this before. In fact, I can't imagine anything more boring to me about 2K12 uniforms than editing names letters. In Latin winterball we don't really care about players names. That's just another place for advertising. Only Mexican teams are using them lately. So, I've never really payed attention to this part of MLB uniforms.

Nothing a little podcast won't fix

 

Also, and I don't mean to throw this out there to get anyone hyped up, but there is a high chance that we may be able to import/add teams to a future MLB2K20 mod through REDitor (as Exhibition only teams), so technically, there could be a way to integrate the Caribe team's work into the project.

[Umachines]

Hype?. Not at all...🙃

[Kccitystar]

Just wanted to chime in as I work within the Global file as well as @picklebrad, as I'm not sure you knew (because I kinda didn't either 😂), but uniform fabric patterns are in a DXT1 file in the global (if you use the 2K12 texture editor, it should be listed as 014DA660):

 

 

I'm just going to throw a theoretical here and say that the alpha channel in the uniform texture dictates the fabric type. I'll use my Padres Home uniforms as an example: 

 

 

everything in black basically gets no fabric texture (Texture #1). What's in black is what's left to the UV map texture (the green file) to determine depth/reflections.

The darker grey color on the lower left corner gets a different fabric texture (Texture #2 maybe?) compared to the light grey (Texture #3) that all the uniforms have because they're meant for the socks. See the example below:

 

Texture #4, the "raindrop" looking texture is the mesh used for the Majestic Cool Base uniform textures, which originally were in white in the alpha channel texture.

 

 

I want to say changing Texture #3 in that 64x64 box should apply your fabric texture across all the uniforms without having to do it for all the jerseys.

 

 

 

 

[picklebrad]

This is kind of groundbreaking bro! Well done!

[Umachines]

That would be great. But what is the black level to unlock texture N°4?. I mean white is for the mesh; black for buttons, patches, etc.; 85-85-85 gray for the stirrups and 170-170-170 for the common drill pattern. But not sure about the gray level for texture N°4.

 

Back in 2017 I tried to use texture N°2 for a special BP like uniform, Red Sox St. Patrick's Day, BTW. But the way it  looked was not the same in all its parts. I gess they designed this texture just for the stirrups, and never payed attention about how it could look in the rest of the uniform. I finished moving the effect to the green texture.

[Kccitystar]

1 hour ago, Umachines said:

That would be great. But what is the black level to unlock texture N°4?. I mean white is for the mesh; black for buttons, patches, etc.; 85-85-85 gray for the stirrups and 170-170-170 for the common drill pattern. But not sure about the gray level for texture N°4.

 

Back in 2017 I tried to use texture N°2 for a special BP like uniform, Red Sox St. Patrick's Day, BTW. But the way it  looked was not the same in all its parts. I gess they designed this texture just for the stirrups, and never payed attention about how it could look in the rest of the uniform. I finished moving the effect to the green texture.

If you wanted the uniforms to have texture #2, it's just a matter of shading the entire alpha channel to the dark grey color the socks would be.

Texture #4 is a "raindrop" mesh pattern that you would get if you color your alpha channel white in the areas where you'd want it to appear. If you look at the older Texas Rangers uniforms from the stock game, they have the coolbase style uniform and the alpha looks like this:

 

 

In game, and see where the texture pattern changes:

 

[tinpanalley]

This is incredible work. Very exciting.

Thank you all for your crazy skills and effort.

[Umachines]

Great point! . I've already usted the white layer for some mesh softball-like jerseys in the Caribe mod. Texture N°3 is already present in all uniforms, since it's in the light gray zone of the alpha channel. I think replacing mesh texture (white-4) for a stronger version of the common light gray one for dark jerseys would be great, since currently it's too soft for those colors.

[Umachines]

Just finishing some details to upload my first 2020/Nike set, guys.

 

[Greenfan]

Great, waiting for the upload !

[Umachines]

Now I'm making the MVP 2005 version of these San Diego uniforms. I'm using my 320p templates for that. There are some few changes in the templates. They used to look spotted and granulated. 2020 version looks cleaner and, I hope not too blurry. You have to look really closer to see what I say:

[Behindshadows]

On 2/1/2020 at 6:12 AM, Umachines said:

Just finishing some details to upload my first 2020/Nike set, guys.

 

This looks great, love the details.

[mcoll]

padres are looking good but i confused about the number set. the one in the set block style, but another site it appears they went something to akind to what they used a few years ago. are they now using the block set, or they need to be updated.,. if the other one, i'd be willing to make that chage with permission of course, minus the green layer. i never have figured that out to do that part.

[Umachines]

No problem, mcoll. I'm not really sure about that either. Anyway, once the season starts, or at least the trainings, we will see the real numbers set. Then I hope I will release an updated version too.

[Umachines]

6 hours ago, Behindshadows said:

This looks great, love the details.

Thanks, Behindshadows. I've always believed 2K12 uniforms could look way better than the original versions, that this engine coould show much more. Well, we are all  at this site 'cause we think so. And the same with MVP, with different tricks. So the general idea is pushing all the time to get better results. Sometimes we fail, I know about that. But sometimes we get it.

[Kccitystar]

6 hours ago, Umachines said:

Thanks, Behindshadows. I've always believed 2K12 uniforms could look way better than the original versions, that this engine coould show much more. Well, we are all  at this site 'cause we think so. And the same with MVP, with different tricks. So the general idea is pushing all the time to get better results. Sometimes we fail, I know about that. But sometimes we get it.

@Umachines I'll gladly send over what I was working on so there's a complete version of the uniform set along with the fonts from me and stance socks from @picklebrad

[Umachines]

Ok. That's great. I've been offline a few days (country things).

[Umachines]

Well, back to work, or so XD. I'm just waiting for an important upgrade to this A's set, in order to release it.

 

 

In the background there is more or less the way my source Corel Draw files look. Don't look at the mess, I have worse in fact.

 

[Kccitystar]

2 hours ago, Umachines said:

Well, back to work, or so XD. I'm just waiting for an important upgrade to this A's set, in order to release it.

 

 

In the background there is more or less the way my source Corel Draw files look. Don't look at the mess, I have worse in fact.

 

 

Looks great, and trust me my Photoshop tabs when I'm working on jerseys is insane as well.

 

What I've run into when working on uniforms is that the kerning (letter spacing) sucks. I'm thoroughly convinced 2K had different artists do the uniforms and never maintained consistency among all 30 teams where it matters. I would personally try to not use the stock uniforms as a base to work with though.

 

Instead, feel free to use my own sets as a base which I've addressed several little issues with the kerning, the fonts, and additionally, even though it was a small touch, I removed name plates for all teams that do not use them (Oakland is one of those teams). The 2015 uniform sets I released along with @raidersbball20's work is a fantastic place to start. What might be a bit of a challenge is rendering the logos and figuring out where to draw the seam on the logos, but for some uniforms, if you use a particular set as a "base", the seam will be in a common place and on others, it will be somewhere else.  Some uniforms have wordmark logos like "Rockies", "Mariners", or "Chicago",  and others have bigger logos, like the "Mets" script or the "Cardinals" script St. Louis uses. 

 

The bigger picture as you get deeper into uniforms and working on several teams is ultimately preserving the fonts, font style, and nameplates across all relevant uniforms for the sake of consistency. They might be small things and I hate that it sounds like extra work, but just in my experience, all of this takes time. When you wrap up on a team, you really want to wrap up 😁

When I work on unis, my understanding is that every baseball uniform has 6 buttons. One button usually below the belt line in real life so I don't use all 6 buttons, but each jersey should always have 5 and the spacing as far as where the buttons will go varies depending on the size of the logo (or even where it's placed, like the interlocking "NY" on the Yankees home unis). Wordmark logos (Like "Mariners") should have the bottom three spaced up a bit higher than the larger logos across the chest (like "Braves", "Cardinals" or "DBacks"), as an example.

 

I've ranted for too long, sorry 😂

 

[Umachines]

Ok, KC. Thanks. I'll check them. I remember I already used your Astro's new look uniforms as a base for my versions, BTW. So I have to download your lastest MLB sets, then?.

[picklebrad]

Umachines, I sent you some Stance socks. Check your PM

[Kccitystar]

love ittttt

[Umachines]

A's set is ready, guys. Now I'm starting to work with the Rangers. I like this "Rangers" wordmark for these two new uniforms:

 

 

 

Again, this is a WIP picture, and several things can change. Rangers cap logo is too small. But that's in the uniform programming. It's not easy to find a better base uniform for them, because of the names font, that's unique in the game. Can't wait to make the light blue one.