How to create a custom livery and virtual ride

Create a Virtual Ride with your custom livery:

- use it online and your virtual ride will transfer to all other players
- enable "DOWNLOAD CUSTOM SKINS"

GRAB_002.JPG


 
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@Tapio Rinneaho made a nice tutorial:

How to adjust the transparency on car windows for text, window banners, logo's etc


1-minute tutorial to window textures

This tutorial is based on Photoshop CC but should work on any other Photoshop version with the nVidia Plug-in installed.

1. This is where you start at. You have your name and numbers on your window template but they show semi-transparent in game.
1-jpg.89934


2. Hold down Ctrl+shift and click on every "T" or thumbnail of any layer you want to be opaque. This will select the contents of the clicked layers. Everything in the selection has dashed line around them
2-jpg.89935


3. Click "Channels" on the right. Then click "Alpha 1". Make sure you still have the selection (dashed lines) visible and no white text.
3-jpg.89936


4. Select brush tool and pick white color (white means 0% transparent, black 100% transparent). Then just paint over the selection so the numbers and names become white.
4-jpg.89937


5. Select the "RGB" channel located above the Alpha channel. Alpha channel should NOT be visible. Save the image as DXT5.
5-jpg.89938


6. Relaod your car and enjoy the beautiful windows!
6-jpg.89939
 
Open rF2 in windowed mode with a small resoltion to preview the car in 3D works great!

Preview the car in the "tuning" menu:

- Save the alt.dds in the player/settings/car folder.
- Select the alt skin in the tuning menu
- preview the result.
- not happy yet.
- make changes
- save the alt.dds again
- click reload to preview the car again.

It's also a great and quick way to find out what body part is located in the template!
 
Share your complete car, driver, helmet, gloves, windows, rims, all the extra's a car.


Whist the ISI guide shows that you do not need to add the files to a .MAS file as we show below, but there are several benefits to do so:

  • If it is just a single body.dds you can skip the .mas creation however the skin file will be much larger than if compressed with the MAS tool thus taking longer for you to upload to the server and longer for drivers to download

  • If you have multiple .dds files which would cover e.g the skin, windows, driver, helmet etc these must be in a .MAS otherwise only the main body.dds will transfer.
How to Get your Skin in Game for: either a Single .dds file for just the car skin or multiple .dds for extra skinning (e.g. Car skin, Windows, Driver, Helmet etc)


  • After creating your .dds file(s), you will need to add them to a .MAS file so that they will be shared correctly (otherwise only the car skin itself will be shared)
    • Rename your .dds file(s) Like:
      • alt_XX.dds (XX is car number)
      • alt_XXwindows.dds
        alt_XXhelmet.dds
        alt_XXdriver.dds
        alt_XXextraX dds (if the car has extra's)
    • To test and preview the alt_xx.dd skin with it's driver, windows, etc
    • Just put the extra files in the same folder as the main alt_xx.dds
    • You can make adjustments and "reload" the car in the tuning menu / garage to preview the car.
To make the complete package transferable via custom skin sharing:

  • Open the Mas2.exe Utility via the rFactor 2 launcher
Schermafdruk 2015-04-30 21.30.05.jpg


  • Drag and Drop all your renamed .dds file(s) into the utility
Schermafdruk 2015-04-30 21.37.18.jpg


  • Set the Compression to High so that the file upload (and then download by others) is smaller by: Using the Options --> Use File Compression --> Level 9 (Highest) - this will compress a single 5MB .dds to under 1MB in size for transfer!
  • Go File -->Save As and save this with the same name as your main .dds livery: like alt_XX.mas
- Use that alt_XX.mas as alt skin like described in the posts above.

- Or create a virtual ride ==>
Name the driver: "XX your name" !!!
So you car will be available for other drivers both online as offline as AI.
Note: all your virtual ride driver names has to be unique.
 
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managed to make custom AI (virtual ride) but only works single player. How can i make them work online when I pay with my friend online?

Just login to the server and choose the virtual ride car. The car will transfer to the server and other clients (your friends).
- Make sure custom skin download is enabled. It's enabled by default
- Make sure the server allows custom skin sharing

Virtual rides can not be controlled by AI on the server by default.
But if you really want too: There is always a workaround with rF2. :)
But the server admin needs to allow you to switch between AI and human drivers like you can do in single player.

In the Multiplayer.json:
"Allow AI Toggle":false, ==> set it to true
"Allow AI Toggle#":"Whether users are allowed to toggle to AI control on the fly"

- Drive around with the car.
- Toggle to AI (like you can do in single player)
- Leave the server and join with another car.
 
So the custom AI made in single player cannot be used in Multiplayer online? What I mean is that for our championship we are just 8 humans and we are planning to have 8 addional ai with custom names. So this cannot be done like in single player?
 
So the custom AI made in single player cannot be used in Multiplayer online? What I mean is that for our championship we are just 8 humans and we are planning to have 8 addional ai with custom names. So this cannot be done like in single player?

No... The additional custom cars as AI's aren't usable on a server.
Only the cars that are come with the original package (.rfcmp file) are AI's on the server.
You'll need to make a new package with your cars to do the thing you wish for.
 
and to make a new package that means extract the original .veh files from the team MAS file, edit the file and create the mas file again. Then create an rfcmp file to update the mod.

Is that what you mean please?
 
What i love about RF2 is they make this REALLY, REALLY easy to make newly named AI drivers.........................................................................................................................................

Its ridiculous. Come S397, sort it out, its a joke compared to other titles like AMS/RF.
 

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