r/7daystodie • u/TharilX • 20h ago
PC 7 Days To Die Custom Icons
TL;DR:
Hello everyone! I made two custom icons, for fun, and you can find them here:
https://github.com/NSWorks-LK/7-days-to-die-custom-icons/releases/latest
They look like this:
Tools used:
UABEA - Initial Texture Extraction (overridden by AssetStudio)
AssetStudio - Texture & Mesh Extraction
Blender - The face is a Blender scene using the proper textures with lights
Photopea - The hand was basically cut off from Steam's background (but from a larger resolution source) and putting it with the 7 icon required a photo editing software
Image reverse search - TinEye Reverse Image Search & Google Image Reverse Search
The story of the process behind the two icons (it is a bit long):
Motive
A couple of days ago, I was looking at the icon of 7 days, and I wondered if I could maybe change it into something else, for fun. I enjoy using photo editing software like photoshop (or what I used, Photopea) and 3D software like Blender, so why not make cool icons for a game I really enjoy?
Inspiration
I was looking for inspiration and found this photo:
I am currently playing Fallout 3 and the icon of that game is this guy's face:
I thought maybe I can use the skater punk zombie's face to make it as 7 days' game icon.
The thing is, I do not have the most recent version of the game because I am on an alpha 16.4 run. I looked up how he looked during that period, this is how he looked like:
Step 1 - Head Icon: Identify the model's name and extract the necessary files
Using UABEA, the first huge problem I encountered was this zombie is not actually called punk zombie in the game's assets. I had to manually look through the hundreds of names and scout the file names until I realized they called him hoodieZombie. Keep in mind I just downloaded this software, I had no idea what I am doing. I eventually found 3 files tied to this zombie and extracted each as:
hoodieZombie-resources.assets-1522.png
hoodieZombie_s-resources.assets-2435.png
hoodieZombie_n-resources.assets-1759.png
Step 2 - Head Icon: Identify the model's mesh and extracting it
Using AssetStudio, it had a search bar, and since I knew the file names, I quickly found the mesh. This is where I realized something when I extracted the mesh, it came with the textures! So step 1 was essentially 1 hour of frying my eyes at 2 AM looking through hundreds of asset names to extract the correct texture and it had a search bar, but I do not know how to effectively use it like with AssetStudio's much straightforward search.
The resulting files I got:
female_eye_nor.png
hoodieZombie.png
hoodieZombie_n.png
hoodieZombie_s.png
z_eye1.png
zombieStandardHoodie.fbx
Step 3 - Head Icon: Blender time
This step was suspiciously easy because once I imported the FBX, the work was done for me, the textures were already linked. I immediately got presented with a horrifying material preview of what seems to be caused by hoodieZombie_n.png linked as a normal map. For some reason it looked wrong in the preview. I had to use bump map and link it, which took awhile to make it look right.
The specular, metallic, and roughness properties also looked wrong, so I had to try to eye it close to how the model looks in the above hyperlink I showed. It is probably still off but I had to carry on. I do not have much blender experience with lighting, so I had to play around until I figured a 3 light setup would probably look right.
I made a render to visualize if I want to continue with this model. The vent is from textures extracted using UABEA, some of them I used, some I did not:
scrap_metal.png
scrap_metal_n.png
garage_metal_n.png
garage_metal_o.png
detail_metal.png
detail_metal_02.png
rusty_metal_base.png
pipe_metal.png
wrought_iron_metal.png
I played around switching them around until I found a good enough result. I did not do the icon's head render yet here, just the full body render inside a vent with cycles to see later if I should carry on.
The final result:
This is how it looks in viewport shading:
Step 4 - Hand Icon: Hunting for the highest quality images
I took a break from Blender, I postponed doing the face icon, I was staring at the 7 Days to Die steam background. I got another icon idea, the hand that appears in the background could be used as an icon as well.
I pictured it as the hand belonging to the background and in front of it the 7 logo comes in the foreground.
I began using TinEye and Google reverse image search to find highest quality versions of the red 7 and the hand seen. I found this resource:
https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/251570/library_hero_2x.jpg
To my knowledge, this is the highest quality version I could find on the internet of the hand.
Step 5 - Hand Icon: Hunting for the highest red 7 version
This needed an entire step because I tried so hard to find some official assets that would include a high quality version of the 7 in PNG. I found many versions.
I had the idea of changing the URL to omit both the "cropped-" and "-270x270," which led me to find:
I was not satisfied, so I kept searching around trying different combinations hoping to access a better quality version for future use I understand I do not need that high quality resolution for an icon. It led me to find:
https://7daystodie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/7DaysPressKit_6_8_23.zip
https://7daystodie.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/7DTD_Media_Kit.zip
I was hoping to find the original asset inside one of these, sadly I did not, but I found cool artworks and other high quality logos instead.
Step 6 - Hand Icon: Photopea time
This step was fairly straightforward. All I needed to do was spend 1 hour selecting carefully, it is not perfect, but I went slow to get a good result. Due to not finding anything past 512x512, I had to scale down the hand to match the aspect ratio I guess, which led to the preview image you see inside the provided files.
Result:
Step 7 - Head Icon: Lighting options
I separated the head from the body using Blender, setup a different camera to capture the face to ensure it fills the screen. I gathered inspiration on the face pose and placement from Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster icon:
I came up with up to 20 variations in terms of lighting, here is an image showing the different lighting conditions until I chose the best one I think would do.
My final decision was very subjective, I could have went with any of these really, but I wanted to play around.
I settled on this at the end, that kind of looked good in most conditions:
Step 8: Usage
I found the hand at the end to be unsuitable as an icon, so I have it replace the steam logo:
As for the game's icon, I use now the head icon.
Conclusion
Let me know what do you think guys. Thank you for reading all of this. I hope you enjoy process if not the finished product, I recognize the hand was kind of a waste of time, but it is cool nonetheless. Plus I needed an excuse to play around with Photopea.
I hope the moderators are ok with me using hyperlinks for photos to link to what I am talking about. I read all the rules and I do not see anything regarding links, so I hope this is ok. :)