Paint it Yourself (Tutorial)

[fourteenbones]

A little help for those that want to get started painting their own rigs in rFactor. Feel free to post any questions.

Things you'll need:
A graphics editor: If you dont have photoshop. Download GIMP. Works great, and it's free. I use GIMP, so this explanation stems from that. I'm sure Photoshop has it's equivalent.

The free DDS plugin from NVidia. This is the file type that the cars use. Gotta have that plugin.

A Blank Template. You can find all kinds of blank templates for almost any car you want. It's just the shadow layer and the necessary car parts. They come as a PSD file
Oh look, here's a couple:
users.eastlink.ca/~timporter/FG_BODY_BASE.psd
users.eastlink.ca/~timporter/VE_BODY_BASE.psd

What now?
Open up that blank template in your choice of graphic editors.
At this point you will see how easy it is to paint.

Paint your car how you like. (you can cut and paste right from the internet.) layers go on just like Forza, only better.
(every time you want to put something new on, I suggest creating a new layer to do it, that way you can move it independently of the layers below it, for some last minute touch ups. And, the number of layers you use does not matter, because you will be flattening the image before you save, into one. But, the size of each layer matters. I always "Autocrop layer", to make them as small as reasonable so my system isn't trying to handle a bunch of big layers during the process. I got an old machine.)

**Fast Forward:**

In order to save you must first "Flatten Image", after you finish your design of course.
"Save As" name it what you want.
"Select File Type" - "DDS" This will only be there if you installed the plugin.
"Save"

Next window:
Check the "Generate MipMaps" radio button.
Compression should be set to "BX3/DXT5"
"SAVE"

You will at this point saved your design in a format that is understood by rFactor.

More to come.

[fourteenbones]

Where does it go?

In the rFactor file system the "vehicles" folder is kept in the "Game Data" folder. Within that folder, you have to find the car within the race series that you want. It does not matter what team you put it under, just as long as you know where it is. Oh, and you have to buy that car too, to have your skin come up as default.

Once you get to a car, or, you car, create another folder called "skins". This is where you save your skin. Once there, you will be able to select your skin from the team/car combination that you saved it under once you start the game.
For example: This is where my skin sits.

C:\Program Files\rfactorV8\GameData\Vehicles\ORSM\V8factor11\Teams_Ford\Stone Brothers Racing\11_SBR_09Skins\skins\bonesv8

You don't HAVE to make a skins folder, but let's leave it at that for now.

Everyone you want to see your car, must have your skin on their machine as well. Must follow the same path from the "Vehicles" folder in, so their machine can find it.

You gotta have theirs as well.

[fourteenbones]

What about windows?

No problem. Whatever car file you chose to put your skin in, will have a corresponding window file.

It will say xxxWindow.dds.

Grab that. It's only one layer anyway. Paint over it.

Paint the windows how you like. The window file also has some of the pillars in it as well, so you should make it match the colour of your car.

There might be two window files. Only if the car designers did it that way. That is so you can paint on the outside of the window, and then paint the translucent reverse on the inside of the window, for the driver to see. Don't believe any of the V8 cars do. Pretty cool though. It's possible to paint a brick wall on the outside of your window, and be able to see right through it from the inside.
Don't try this at home.

Save the window file just as you would normally save a car file, but, you have to have "Window" in the name, and, whatever you named your car file.
Here's mine for example:
Car file:: bonesv8.dds
Window file:: bonesv8Window.dds (caps are important)
Now the game knows you have a specific Window file for your snazzy new skin. Keep that in the "skins" folder as well.

Nice!

I omitted an important part here on purpose.
It has to do with making the windows transparent, other than what you painted on them. Shouldn't have a problem with the standard window files, so mostly, you can leave them be.
It's a bit tricky, so I'm getting back to this later.

[fourteenbones]

Why is one small part of my car not the same colour as the rest?

Not only are there the general car files, and the window files. There are "extra" files as well. You'll see them in the vehicles folders as you're snooping around.

These "extra" files fill in some gaps like: the A pillars....some details around the lights....inside roof....whatever. It's trial and error with these in order to find the right one that your car references. (the V8 templates work fine without them). You must treat them exactly like you would the Window file. Must have the name of your car DDS and the "extra value along with it.
Getting back to my car::

Car file: bonesv8.dds
Window file: bonesv8Window.dds
Extra file: bonesv8extra7.dds

The "extra?" portion of the name does not follow any kind of naming convention that I can follow. Just whatever extra file you grab, you must keep that number so the game knows which to pick.

So paint 'er up, save it, and stick it in your skins folder so all the parts of your car are in the same spot.

[fourteenbones]

What if I want to paint a shiney green lightning bolt on the side?


Can do.

The green of the lightning bolt, is exactly the same green as the rest of the car.
What makes it different?
How reflective it is.
AHA!

The next time you are lapping WhiteWolf, take a look at the number "16" on the side of his car. It is highly reflective, whereas the rest of the car is not.
Whadupwitdat?

Why is my car all shiney? It looks like crap.

Have no fear. This is the same result of not reducing the reflectiveness of the paint on your car, just like I did with the lightning bolt.
You can fix this.

What you are going to do is "Add Layer Mask".
So, you will be adding a special layer to your paint, (after you flatten the image) in order to calm that thing down.

First though, some understanding.
The layer mask is black and white, and all the greys in between. No colour other than that.

If your mask is completely white, all the luminosity your paint can muster will shine through that bad boy, ruining your nicely detailed ride in a jumble of rainbow flourescence.
(having a white mask is the same as not putting any on)

If your mask is black, it will completely remove all luminosity and colour, so that the only thing you will see is the background of your canvass. Completely transparent. (First hint at windows there)

So, find a middle ground. If you make it grey, it will reduce the high reflection, but still maintain some of the colour.

We'll jump to GIMP for a minute.
Once you Flatten your image, right click on the single layer remaining.
Select "Add Layer Mask".
This will bring up a menu with some choices. The easiest, and most efficient selection is "Grayscale copy of layer". Select that, finalize with the "Add" button, and you will see a second layer pop into your layer editor, next to your single remaining layer. Not on top or below.

You'll see it change your layer, by removing some of its clarity...or whatever. You'll see what i mean.

Now, if you click on the layer mask, before you do anything else, you will be able to edit the mask to your liking.
You could cut a hole in it, in the shape of, oh I don't know, a lightning bolt? (this would be the same as painting a white lightning bolt on it)

Or you could paint on the layer mask, only in black, to make something transparent, like, oh I don't know, a window?

You have an "Undo" button. Try applying the masks and painting in different shades of grey, white or black. (are there different shades of black?). Use the paintbrush too, to see what kind of effects you can generate.

Now. Once you have the layer mask all dolled up the way you want it, right click on the thing.
Select "Apply Layer Mask".
This will merge your original layer, with your mask edits, into a single layer so you can then save, get it on your car, and drive in style.
Oh yeah!

[fourteenbones]

Advanced Windows

OK, here we go. Our goal here is to take an existing window file, edit it, and add the layer mask, so everything shines through and reflects nicely, just the way we want it. Got some pictures here to go along. Excuse the size/clarity.

Gotta go to the GIMP again. Open an existing window file. Before you do anything else, go to the channel editor, right click on the "Alpha Channel" and choose "Duplicate Layer". Think of the Alpha Channel as a layer mask. This will put a duplicate of the existing mask down below the existing channels. Leave it there, we'll come back to it.
Exhibit A, in the right hand column.


With that done, head back to the layer editor, right click on the "Main Surface" and choose "Remove Alpha Channel". We want to do this, because we wish to edit the window surface, without any layer mask on it. It would just get in the way.

You'll see your windows turn grey at this point. This is normal.
Since our previous driver got the boot, we'll want to remove any numbers or identifying marks that would sully our new window masterpiece.

To do this, use the colour select tool to get a match for the colour around the number or name you want to paint over. If the colours are not matched, you'll have streaky windows. Can't have that. Don't use the eraser. Feel free to try it though, see what it does. The back window is a different story though, because of the heating element embedded in the glass. No trouble. Just copy a square from the opposite corner of the window, flip it vertically, and slide it into place.
Observe this next slide where I had begun painting over all the old identifying features.


Finished removing the old drivers info, and ready to go for the new kid. Colours on the windows are nice and uniform. No sticky residue.


Paint on the words or numbers in the places you want, in the colours you want and the sizes you want.


Remember the duplicate channel we created at the very first? Go back there, use the Edit menu to copy it to the clipboard and past it in a new layer, so we can work on it.

"But 'bones, it still has the old numbers on it."

That's OK. We use the same process of painting over it, with exactly the same colours picked from the layer, as we did with the main surface. So we will be left with a nice clean slate to work with.
Exhibit 2


Next we go back to our main surface, turn off the visibility of the new layer we just cleaned up, but don't delete it. We just want it out of the way for now.
Use the fuzzy select tool while holding the shift key to select all the edits you had made on the main surface. Hard to see, but here it is.


So now, make your new layer visible and make sure it's highlighted. It will occlude the main surface, but you will notice that your selections are still present.


Go to the edit menu and choose "Fill with FG (or BG) colour". Whatever one of the foreground or background colour you have set to white. So, i guess, you wanna fill them with white.
Once you do, you have a ready to serve layer mask that you can apply to your main surface, with all the proper parts showing through, in the right place and the windows, remaining transparent. Just add water.
Remember the post about layer masks? White allows you to see your edits.


Finish 'er off. Just like in an earlier post, right click on the main surface, and choose "Add Layer Mask". Select "white" in the next window, so the layer mask appears to the right of your main layer.
Use the Edit menu once again, to copy your new layer to the clipboard.
Click on your layer mask to ensure it is highlighted, and make use of the Edit menu once more to paste the new layer you created onto the layer mask. At this point, all the opacity and transparent...nicity..ness will be where it should be on your new set of windows.


Don't forget to apply your layer mask, delete your new layer, 'cause you don't need it any more, and save that bad boy.

Congratulations. Nice windows.

[fourteenbones]

Bones, I downloaded this logo and I want to put it on my car, but it's got a stupid white background.

Easy.

Most pictures or logos you download to stick on your car are JPEG's. Makes it nice and easy to get on your car, but the background always gets in the way.
You can try and do a bucket fill to match your paint, but the edges of the downloaded item are rarely a uniform colour, so the result is knd of messy. Gets tougher if you are overlapping 2 or more colours.
Trying to colour around it manually is bogus, so we are going to do it the lazy way. My favorite.

We're going once again, to the GIMP.

Since I need this logo for Spaz's car, we are going to walk through it together.


I downloaded what I wanted, it happens to be a JPEG, so it's got a stupid white background. Not good for pasting on a car with other designs/colours underneath it.

First thing you do, is duplicate layer. We'll leave the original alone, and work some magic on the duplicate. Make sure you highlight the duplicate layer. Go to the menu bar, select "Colours" (or "colors" for silly Americans) and "Invert Colours". This leaves you with something like this. Well, exactly like this actually.

Cool. Go to the Colours menu again, choose "Components" and then select "Channel Mixer"
In the Channel Mixer window, there is a choice for Monochrome only. Do it. Then use the sliders that are there, to increase the saturation of each primary colour until the coloured components (not your now black background) are pretty much white.

Select OK to apply it to your duplicate layer.
Nice.

So you just made yourself a layer mask (i love layer masks) to apply to your original JPEG that makes the background transparent, because we are adding a black layer mask to those areas and leaving the picture or logo to shine through because the layer mask on those areas is white.
Because we want the whole logo to shine through, i touch up anything within the boundary of white with a pencil so it just looks like an oval, but it exactly matches the size and orientation of your original.(see the right hand column)
Copy it, "Add Layer Mask" to your original, paste it in there, and voila, you got yourself a nice logo, with clean boundaries that you can put anywhere.


At this point you have to save it as a file type that can handle transparency, as JPEG's cannot. I use PNG. Why? I don't know....becuase I found that it works. I'm sure there are others out there.

You're getting good at this.

[spazsterian]

Bones...thanks for doing all this. Just want you to know ...though i haven't tried it yet I'll be looking into your archived posts on this when i'm ready to try it out if i ever get caught up on my video work

[F1Fan07]

Thanks for consolidating this in one place. Even though I've done a few cars already, I've learned a few things.

Feb 3, 2012 15:27:50 GMT -8 @fourteenbones said:

At this point you have to save it as a file type that can handle transparency, as JPEG's cannot. I use PNG. Why? I don't know....becuase I found that it works. I'm sure there are others out there.

PNG is the best choice for this work. You could use GIF but that's often not wise because it'll restrict the logos to 256 colours. Not cool since we're often using anti-aliased JPEG logos as a starting point.

Your other option is to keep the logos in PSD.

[fourteenbones]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the appreciation.

[fourteenbones]

*&%#^!!$#@&{+# @#%$@&#!.

I know, I know. You make a good point there, but it's not that hard. We'll do it the lazy way.

In this example I have some white lettering on a yellow background. Doesn't stand out as much as I want it to, so I want to outline it.
No problemo.
I make another layer directly below the lettering, so I can work on the outline without bothering the original.
Making sure the lettered layer is selected, I use the "Fuzzy Select" tool or the "Select by colour" tool to pick the shapes and sizes of the original.
Highlight the layer directly under that, and, like a previous discussion, the selection is still highlighted.
Great.


Pick a colour you want(i used black), go to the Edit menu and choose "Stroke Selection". Yes that's right, "Stroke Selection".
Another window will pop up for choices with regards to thickness and style. Solid line is fine for me.
Click "OK" to finalize the stroking.
Line 1 of the next picture shows the finished product. Nice and tidy outline of my letters. You can do this with whatever shape or design you are inclined to do it to.
Easy
The other two lines demonstrate some other things you can do with this technique and a bit of the ol' "Perspective" tool.

Groovy.

[oldschool]

I now have a very shiny white V8 Super car with pink rockers, whale tail and trim.

I need to edit the windows for the proper # and such. It looks like an unsponsored race car during pre season testing.

[fourteenbones]

excellent. looking forward to the finished product.