Unmasked Wrestler Textures?

[RagDas]

While lots of masks actually have faces underneath that correspond to usable faces in the game (Tiger Mask II is Kanemaru, Strong Machine is Bas Rutten, yadda yadda yadda), some faces are actually unique to the unmasked textures. This isn't a project so much as it is a simple push for inspiration, but here's something I did for Mil Mascaras, who has one such texture:

I should hope that it's clear what I did, but as a rough guideline, I can explain:

1. Rip an all black version of the mask in question (all black makes it easier to distinguish skin from mask)
2. Resize the 'face' portion of the mask to standard dimensions (should be 26x64 to 32x64)
3. Purely cut out all the parts of the mask, leaving behind only shadow and skin
4. Selectively remove shadow so that only evenly shaded skin remains (i.e. no brown outlines)
5. Try and complete as much of the face as possible by reversing the image, and then layering the original on top
6. Do minor editing to preserve details of the original face (in this case, the single white pixel on the nose would have disappeared; I restored it alongside other minor details lost in the process
7. Overlay the texture over any face texture of your choosing (I chose the default)
8. This part is kind of up to you, but basically remove any irregularities in the texture as you see fit. You can keep the integrity of the original to whatever degree that you want to. I did take quite a few liberties in trying to match the two textures up, but I think the resemblance to the original is sufficient enough.

Dunno if I did the cleanest job, but I hope you guys like this and are inspired to do the same!

EDIT: Here's the final product:

I'm pretty happy with it, so I put the final touches by adding Shawn Michaels' fringe (in brown). If anyone cares or followed that AKI Facts thread I made a little while ago, I'm of the belief that Shawn's moveset is actually a variation of Mil's, so as a slight nod to that, I figured it would be a nice combination. The final final product is this:

I managed somehow to get it working, so this is what he looks like in WWF Wrestlemania 2000:

I find it funny that he shares a resemblance with Alberto Del Rio, considering he's his uncle and stuff. I'm 100% certain that was unintentional.

A closeup comparison of the new face and Mil's original face in VPW2:

Hope you guys enjoyed all of this!

 

[bluntfello]

So that's how Mil looks like in real life huh?

Don't know if you use it but the "fill" tool is great for reconstructing parts that are missing since it fills in missing areas with the textures that are surrounding it.

 

[RagDas]

The real life Mil has a mustache, I believe. He has a flat top too, from that one photo of him and Dos Caras with out their masks. I'm fairly certain this isn't what Mil actually looks like, haha. As for your tool, could you show me an example? I did all of this in Paint, for the most part, save for the transparent background.

 

[bluntfello]

You have to use photoshop to use the fill tool. Look it up on google and watch some videos on it, comes in real handy.

Here's a quick example though. You see how I drew a green line around his forehead? With the fill tool I just select around that line and use the tool and it gets rid of it and textures over it with whatever is surrounding it so you don't have to cut and paste stuff to cover it. The hairline is still messed up a bit but it is much easier now to fix it.

 

[Gotham]

I have tried in the past for hours to rip a mask and it would never rip. How does this mechanic even work?

 

[RagDas]

I wouldn't know. Freem is the genius who managed to do it. These revealed all sorts of cool stuff, like Terry Funk being behind the Patriot mask. It opens up a lot of doors for creativity with costumes (e.g. unedited Patriot attire for Terry Funk's third costume, Strong Machine mask for Bas Rutten, etc.)

Here are the other two unique faces. I thought there were more of these, but I guess there aren't. The rest of the unmasked faces can be found in the game. You can use these for texture edits or even try your own if you believe you can do a better job (you can).

I'm not a fan of the Hayabusa one, especially because I'm not certain that's a Hayabusa mask. The lighting on the face makes it very confusing, so I have left two interpretations of the finished product up for use/further editing. Hope you guys like these, find them useful, or even some day implement them into the game!

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Relevant bump!

It's bothered me for a long time that the Great Muta's facepaint texture doesn't look anything like Keiji Mutoh. It's clear why that is, but I felt confident enough to give this edit a go. Here are the results:

I am very proud of how this one turned out. The methodology was considerably simpler in theory, but much harder in some ways to execute in terms of getting it to look right. In short, I saved Mutoh's texture as a 24 Color Bitmap (I think that's the term?), which gave a considerably less detailed, incredibly contrasted palette. From there, it was simply mixing and matching from the original Muta texture until all the reds were in place. I'm not sure how to explain what I did beyond that point, but it involved a lot of comparing contours with the Mutoh texture, whilst simultaneously using the Muta texture as a palette.

Hope you found this bump useful!