Custom skins are not mandatory in this league so noone is expected to create a skin, however they are more than welcome.
Since Ive read quite often in the forum that some wish to have a skin but dont know how to create one, I thought it would maybe be a useful thing to have a tutorial on how to create a skin with the freeware Paint.NET and without having any knowledge about skinning.
Im not the most experienced skinner myself but it should help to create a working skin of good quality without spending too much time.
This doesnt include any paint techniques but Paint.NET is quite handy so with a bit of practise that shouldnt be too hard.
Note: The Renault templates are missing and the Ferrari templates are incorrect so I didnt include them, if anyone knows correct templates of both cars post a link.
Skin Tutorial
1. Prepare
- download and install Paint.NET
- download 2 Paint.NET plugins
- move AlphaMask.dll into "...\Paint.NET\Effects" and PhotoShop.dll
into "...\Paint.NET\Filetypes"
- download my tutorial templates
- choose the folder of the car you want to use
(I recommend deleting all other carfolders to have a better overview)
- open the psd file you want to paint first
- double click the "LIGHTING" layer and make sure it says "multiply"
- click on layer "PAINT HERE" and paint your car
- turn "optional" layers on or off
- save psd file when finished with the design
- select menu Image and Flatten
- (this step only if the .psd file you're editing has "SWITCH" in its name)
select menu Layers and Flip Horizontal
- select menu Effects, Alpha Mask, Browse and choose one of the alpha .jpg files in the folder with the .psd files
- options Invert Alpha ON, Mix Alpha OFF, Paste to Clipboard OFF and click OK
(image is hardly or not visible anymore, thats normal)
- choose Save As > File Type "dds" > double click "SKINFOLDER ..." , keep the filename (e.g. rightSWITCH.psd must have the name rightSWITCH.dds)
and save
- choose the same Save Configurations as in the picture below and click OK
- exit and do the same steps with the other psd files in the folder
3. INI File
- open the file "skindata.ini" with the texteditor
- enter teamname inside the brakets in the first line
- enter name inside the brakets in the second line
- choose T-Cam colour: Leave it as it is for red or change in
the line "cam=..." the word "red" to "yellow"
- save and close the editor
- rename the folder "SKINFOLDER ..." into for example your name
- move the renamed folder to:
"C:\...\Documents\SimBin\RACE 07\CustomSkins"
