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.

 

[Christophe Berton]

Cheers, Im gonna try it, wish me luck

i wish you luck :highfive:

 

[Ross Balfour]

Thank you, Ill need it

 

[Manuel Abel]

while a lot of you guys busy with photoshop.. ive been looking for a car viewer all this time..

i do skinning on my free times at work..
evo's not installed here so i cant view my personalized car skins.
you guys know where i could get one and a tutorial if needed.

i can see from the car skin download section that a lot have been using the same viewer where you can see two cars with the other one facing the other side.
very nice.

please help..
thanks in advance

 

[Dave Stephenson]

Manuel, those are usually rendered scenes. Not sure how quick it is just for quickly viewing WIP.

If they are the ones I think you mean (like those here) then you can check out the thread below for more info c/o Jarrod.
http://forum.racedepartment.com/gtr-evolution-skins/6584-3d-max-you.html

 

[Manuel Abel]

thats exactly what i want dave
so its not as simple as i thought..
i will try working on it.. thanks for the info man
your really helpfull.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

I think if you want to just have aquick view then you should be able to miss some steps out maybe and just load the mesh and apply the texture. Lighting stuff is more for the public ones so they look ice cool

 

[javiporfuera]

thank you, good job all

 

[Steven De Greveleer]

hi all,

I have troubles with putting the good number on my car?

Can somebody help me ?

 

[Jim Cole]

Manuel, most folks use xview for viewing their cars quickly without loading the game up. I am limited on my net usage right now so can't provide links, but I am sure others have them. There are car files for xview on other servers as well and you will want them to be able to load your skins on them.
The program in it's demo mode still does a good job of letting you see roughly what the car will look like when done, and a lot of us still use it to aid in getting tough lines lined up on the templates. You can also do renders from that program which look nice, but not quite as nice as what Jarrod is doing.

while a lot of you guys busy with photoshop.. ive been looking for a car viewer all this time..

i do skinning on my free times at work..
evo's not installed here so i cant view my personalized car skins.
you guys know where i could get one and a tutorial if needed.

i can see from the car skin download section that a lot have been using the same viewer where you can see two cars with the other one facing the other side.
very nice.

please help..
thanks in advance

 

[Sean Vohs]

I'm having an issue with saving my windows. It all looks fine on the window file, I save it as the ddx5 or whatever, but when I look at my car in game it shows my windows, but kind of transparent, and some other windows. I'm guessing windows from the default skin. I'm using the BMS in STCC, and have Photoshop CS3

 

[Stuart Thomson]

@ Steven - I'm not sure I understand what you are after - could you clarify using pictures if possible, please? Are you talking about lettering/font handling or something else?

@ Sean - same for you Sean, if you could supply a picture, it'd make it a bit clearer for us. I suspect that you haven't changed the alpha channel to reflect "your" windows (leaving what you added as see through, and the "opaqueness" from the default windows there), but seeing it would confirm or deny my theory.

 

[Sean Vohs]

@ Steven - I'm not sure I understand what you are after - could you clarify using pictures if possible, please? Are you talking about lettering/font handling or something else?

@ Sean - same for you Sean, if you could supply a picture, it'd make it a bit clearer for us. I suspect that you haven't changed the alpha channel to reflect "your" windows (leaving what you added as see through, and the "opaqueness" from the default windows there), but seeing it would confirm or deny my theory.

I wasn't aware the alpha channel had to be modified. Every time I make the alpha visible it just whites out the whole skin.

Here's a picture of what I have in Photoshop, and below that a picture of what the window is doing in-game right now.

 

[Jarrod Crossley]

If you look in your layers you'll notice a folder called Alpha. The layers contained within that folder will build an exact copy of the Alpha channel.

So if you edit the layers in the alpha folder to hide the premade text and then meger those on to a new layer and copy that layer and transfer it over to channel (delete old Alpha channel, make new one and paste).

 

[Sean Vohs]

If you look in your layers you'll notice a folder called Alpha. The layers contained within that folder will build an exact copy of the Alpha channel.

So if you edit the layers in the alpha folder to hide the premade text and then meger those on to a new layer and copy that layer and transfer it over to channel (delete old Alpha channel, make new one and paste).

I think I understand the first half of that, but the copy and transfer stuff I'm fuzzy on. Also, the only way I know if it works and the premade text is gone is if I view the car in-game. Why doesn't it show up in photoshop?

 

[Jarrod Crossley]

Ok hers a few pics may clear things up:

hide all layers bar those in the "Alpha" Folder:


Make a new layer and goto "Image" "Apply Image" and on your new layer you'll get a copy of all the layers that are visable:


Once layer is done hit CTRL+A to select all on layer:


And right click and select "Copy" now open up the channels folder. Delete the original Alpha Channel and now make a new one and goto "Edit" and select "Paste":



If your ever unsure if there is anything allready on the "Alpha" Channel go to channells and make the alpha channel along with the "RGB" channel viewable this will soon highlight any differances:

 

[Sean Vohs]

Great! I'll give this a shot when I get home! Thanks

 

[Sean Vohs]

Alright! That worked out! Thanks Jarrod! The old name is gone!

 

[Jim Cole]

Jarrod strikes again Great going on getting those skinners help that they require.

 

[Mark Guy]

How do I select a single part in PS to be painted? eg: bumper. and if I only wanted to paint the roof how do I do this??? or a section of the roof.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

you need to select the section you want to paint - the selection tools are your friends here.

you see Jarrod's posts above about the window, the vertical toolbar on the left of the screenshots, the 2nd & 3rd tools from the top.