The instructions vary depending on what skin you are installing (or if you made your own) as the filenames would obviously be different. Here's a page on a custom knife skin from GameBanana: http://csgo.gamebanana.com/skins/130110
If you scroll down you can see detailed installation instructions which are:
Currently the only way to install this skin is by editing the main pak01_dir.vpk file. Before we start it's a good idea to backup your pak01_dir.vpk just to make sure you don't break your own game.
Extract the downloaded archive and select your texture variant.
Copy the material folder from your chosen texture variant.
Go back one folder and go inside the Required folder where you then Paste the materials folders you earlier copied.
Copy everything inside this folder and paste it into:
"steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo"
Open up the pak01_dir.vpk with a text editor like Notepad++
Press CTRL+H (Find and Replace) to replace the following:
v_knife_default_ct
With:
v_knife_default_cv
This will replace 7 instances, after this save the VPK and you're done!
Just change the instructions a bit to fit the skin you downloaded/made.
Keep in mind that Valve's official matchmaking servers along with a majority of the community servers, force the command sv_pure and so you will not be able to connect to the server if you have any custom skins installed.
It's fun to play around with custom skins but for the most part you lose functionality of the game since basically everybody forces the command. I would suggest making a backup of the default pak file so that when you want to get rid of the skin to play online on matchmaking or more community servers, you can just overwrite the modified file.
Alternatively if you don't want to make a backup or you forgot to, you can delete the pak file in the csgo folder then in your Steam Library, right click the name of the game and click Properties. From here, click on the Local Files tab, then choose "Verify integrity of game cache." This will scan the game folder and re-download the file you deleted thus allowing you to play the game normally again.
Replies
If you scroll down you can see detailed installation instructions which are:
Just change the instructions a bit to fit the skin you downloaded/made.
Keep in mind that Valve's official matchmaking servers along with a majority of the community servers, force the command sv_pure and so you will not be able to connect to the server if you have any custom skins installed.
It's fun to play around with custom skins but for the most part you lose functionality of the game since basically everybody forces the command. I would suggest making a backup of the default pak file so that when you want to get rid of the skin to play online on matchmaking or more community servers, you can just overwrite the modified file.
Alternatively if you don't want to make a backup or you forgot to, you can delete the pak file in the csgo folder then in your Steam Library, right click the name of the game and click Properties. From here, click on the Local Files tab, then choose "Verify integrity of game cache." This will scan the game folder and re-download the file you deleted thus allowing you to play the game normally again.
Good luck and have fun!