I have followed the guide here to create team coloured skins, but am encountering multiple errors whilst doing so, I think the best way to solve this is to describe what I am doing and ask for help on what I'm doing wrong.

1. Open GCFScape and open/navigate to "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\" and open "team fortress 2 content.gcf". 2. Within "team fortress 2 content.gcf", navigate to "tf\models\weapons\cmodels\cclaymore" and extract the following:

I navigate to the steamapps folder and open team fortress 2 materials.gcf, from there I navigate to tf\models\weapons\cmodels\ and extract the cmailbox folder to my desktop, all is going well so far.

1. Open "team fortress 2 materials.gcf" in GCFScape. 4. Within "team fortress 2 materials.gcf", navigate to "tf\materials\models\weapons\citems"

I navigate to tf\materials\models\weapons\citems and extract cmailbox.vmt and cmailbox.vtf and place them in my cmailbox folder.

1. Open "cclaymore.mdl" from your "Team-Colored Eyelander" folder in Notepad++. 2. In the beginning of all of the jibberish there should be "IDST0". Change this to "IDST,".

I open my c_mailbox.mdl file and delete the 0, replacing it with a comma.

1. Close Notepad++ and open MDL Decompiler. 4. In the first selection area navigate to "cclaymore.mdl". 5. In the second selection area navigate to your "Team-Colored Eyelander" folder and add a new folder called "output". Select your new "output" folder. 6. Click "Extract".

I create a folder named "output" in my cmailbox folder, then open mdlcompiler. I select the cmailbox.mdl, choose the output folder and click extract. All works fine.

1. Navigate to your "output" folder in your "Team-Colored Eyelander" folder. 2. Open the newly found "mdldecompiler.qc" in Notepad++. 3. You should now see the following script-type thing:

I see the script type thing upon opening the .qc file with notepad++ except mine looks like this:

$cd "D:\user\Desktop\c_mailbox\output"
$modelname "weapons/c_models/c_mailbox/c_mailbox.mdl"
$model "body" "c_mailbox.dmx.smd"
$cdmaterials ""
$hboxset "default"
$hbox 0 "weapon_bone" -5.055  -9.880  -5.193  4.680  34.739  10.666
// Model uses material "models/weapons/c_items/c_mailbox.vmt"
$surfaceprop "metal"
$illumposition 2.736 -0.188 12.429
$sequence ref "ref" fps 30.00
$collisionmodel "phymodel.smd" {

                $mass 6.3
                $inertia 1.00
                $damping 0.00
                $rotdamping 0.00
}

I change the things stated in the tutorial, replacing cclaymore with c_mailbox, so it now looks like this:

$cd "D:\user\Desktop\c_mailbox\output"
$modelname "weapons/c_models/c_mailbox/c_mailbox.mdl"
$model "body" "c_mailbox.dmx.smd"
$cdmaterials ""
$texturegroup skinfamilies {{
"models/weapons/c_items/c_mailbox.vmt"} { "c_mailboxblue.vmt" } }
$hboxset "default"
$hbox 0 "weapon_bone" -5.055  -9.880  -5.193  4.680  34.739  10.666
// Model uses material "models/weapons/c_items/c_mailbox.vmt"
// Model uses material "c_mailboxblue.vmt"
$surfaceprop "metal"
$illumposition 2.736 -0.188 12.429
$sequence ref "ref" fps 30.00
$collisionmodel "phymodel.smd" {

        $mass 6.3
        $inertia 1.00
        $damping 0.00
        $rotdamping 0.00
}

1. Place the following files in "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\team fortress 2\tf\models\weapons\cmodels\cclaymore" (if this directory does not exist, create the folders to make it):

I place the files that I extracted with gcfscape in D:\user\Desktop\~Steam\Steam\SteamApps\\team fortress 2\tf\models\weapons\cmodels\cmailbox (with extensions .vtx .sw.vtx .vvd .mdl .phy

1. Open GUIStudioMDL and open your "mdldecompiler.qc" file. Select "Orange Box" under SDK Version. Then "Team Fortress 2" as the target mod. 9. Hit compile.

I do so, it loads the .qc file and I hit orange box then compile (yes, my orange box folder is configed properly) this completes successfully and everything seems to be going correctly.

1. After this step if you are BLU and use the Eyelander, it should have an error texture on it (pink and black checkers), but that means everything compiled correctly, you just need a BLU texture!

At this point I start tf2 and create a training server, entering blue and equipping my postal pummeler, here the postal pummeler does not show a black and purple chequered texture, but the default one, I continue with the tutorial anyway.

1. Open your "cclaymore.vmt" in your "Team-Colored Eyelander" folder in VTFEdit. 6. You will now see a script-type thing similar to your .QC file, find the following: "$baseTexture" "models\weapons\citems/cclaymore" Replace that with: "$baseTexture" "models\weapons\citems/cclaymoreblue"

I open my cmailbox.vmt in vtfedit and replace "$baseTexture" "models/weapons/citems/cmailbox" with "$baseTexture" "models/weapons/citems/c_mailboxblue"

I then save the file as c_mailboxblue.vmt

1. Take both the "cclaymoreblue.vmt" and "cclaymoreblue.vtf" and place them both in the "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\team fortress 2\tf\materials\models\weapons\citems" (create the directory if it doesn't exist). 9. Congratulations! Your skin /should/ be fully functional!

I take my skin vtf file and vmt and place it in weapons\citems\cmailbox\

so now I have cmailboxblue.vmt and cmailboxblue.vtf in \citems\cmailbox\

Then I start tf2 and go into a training game again, entering blue team and equipping my postal pummeler.

However the skin is just shown as the default :[ if anyone could take the time to help me with this it would be very appreciated, thank you.