Skinning Tutorial

[Ramon van Rijn]

I started this tutorial some months ago on RaceSimCentral, but after a while the graphics were lost. At the moment even the startpost was gone.

Recovered the text and reformatted it into a PDF.

Hope it is still useful for our members.

 

[Steven De Greveleer]

thx all for the advice, my first test car did his first km.
thx

 

[Andy Marsden]

Hey quick question - i have the dds pugin and have flattened the image but when I try and save as a dds file it tells me that i need PS 3.0 or greater...I have 5.5

 

[Jarrod Crossley]

I thought 5.5 was a powerbook version?, either way Im unsure yo may have to seek assistance from Nvidia.

 

[Andy Marsden]

Nope its deffo a windows version, Stu T mailed it to me.
I have been PMing him and he said he recalls how to sort it but can't remember exactly and will get back to me tomorrow.

 

[Jarrod Crossley]

Nope its deffo a windows version, Stu T mailed it to me.
I have been PMing him and he said he recalls how to sort it but can't remember exactly and will get back to me tomorrow.

Have you tried downloading and installing the legacy version of the dds plugin?

 

[Andy Marsden]

nope will try that mate, thanks for the help, BIG thanks if it works!

 

[Andy Marsden]

nope still being a pig

 

[Jarrod Crossley]

nope still being a pig

Silly question and a bit of reverse thinking. Can you open a dds file within Photoshop?

other things to try:

Flatten the image and save as a TGA, open TGA in PS and resave as a DDS. Its a long way round but you never know.

 

[Andy Marsden]

Nope that is doing the same thing as saving from a .psd and I can't open a .dds either.
Would it be related to Vista by any chance?

Error screengrab attached.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I've seen this before mate - I'm desperately wracking the old crust to remember what it was.

If you haven't already, try uninstalling and re-installing both the plug-in AND PS.

Also, do try using PSP - it's not quite as picky as PS in certain respects, and one of my mates is a web designer, and he swears it's better than PS for the actual drawing/painting side of things. I suspect that is familiarity talking but they do have something ridiculous like 96% shared functionality.

That's about as close as a human is to a gorilla, genetically speaking.

That last bit's no help is it?

 

[Andy Marsden]

Can the .DDS plugin be used for PSP as well then?

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Yep :good:

You can use it in GIMP, Paint.net, PSP etc.

PSP was designed from the ground up to be a "PS Lite" (cost, not function), so it mirrors the PS functionality, including plug-ins.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Here's the developer's (nvidia) how-to guide on getting dds working in PSP.

http://http.download.nvidia.com/developer/NVTextureSuite/Paint_Shop_Pro_Steps.pdf

 

[Andy Marsden]

Clicked the link in that guide and found the .dds plugin but can't see the DLL downloads...or are they include in the dds DL?

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Hmmmm....not sure - trying to find out now

 

[Andy Marsden]

Sorry for being a pain guys, feel like a right noob lol, just want to get everything working properly and you guys seem the best to pester with queries :thumb:

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Well, one simpler way of doing it if you want to stick the Photoshop route (which is understandable), just save the files in Photoshop and then convert them with this:

http://dds-converter.software.informer.com/

It's not as elegant as keeping it all internal to PS or PSP, but it works :good:

 

[Andy Marsden]

I'll have to try all this once I get home - I WILL get it working properly so I can show off and upload my skins

 

[Andy Marsden]

Gah I can't seem to find the PSP download and i've re-installed it for PS and it is still being a pain in the arse! GRRR

EDIT: Scratch that, I downloaded the DDS converter and BOOF! I have my first skin in the game
Just need to tidy it up a bit now, thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated :thumb:

 

[Ross Balfour]

Cheers, Im gonna try it, wish me luck