Post by Redneck on Oct 5, 2004 8:56:50 GMT -5
Now that you once again have both, your new Base, and Work Layer in psp, I want you to take a break, and have some coffee, or whatever until I give you an idea Why we are doing this like this.
I found this way of skinning in 18-WoS:AA, but probubly not the first to discover it, but none the less, it is the easiest way I've found to skin any game yet, plus, it gives you a good chance to try skinning in this game, without alot of mistakes, hair pulling, ect. this way, you have a base image, and a work layer to do all the work for you, without flood filling and pixel painting right off the bat, like yours truely learned how to paint, which is the way, long way to do it, especially being new at it.
Also, when you do a paint like this, unless your going to do some major face lifting on it, a basic color/graphix/text job, can take all of 15 minuets, and thats taking your time, plus, you keep most rivits, body lines ect., along with doing it this way, your painting on a clear base, and the game throws another clear coat over your paint, so it comes out looking like a shiney default game paint, which I find cool, but some may not. Either way, this is the result if you follow me, but while following me, if you pay close attention, you'll see where in the future, you can branch out at any time, and come out with something totally different, and more your style and taste, so I'm not trying to get everyone to paint like me, I totally encourage all to get a little trial of their own going, but this way of starting you, you'll have to agree that I've cut the error factor down tremendously.
Now, if your not asleep yet, we can continue,lol.:hehe:
Now, where were we,,,,,ok, minimize the base layer, and upsize the Work Layer, Go to the top, hit "Selection" tab again, click load Alpha channel again, and now we should all be looking at out Work Layer, with the dot/slashes moving around the Alpha layer of the image, this is why it will be our work layer, you'll only paint the truck body panels, you won't harm windows, frame sections, nothing but the body panels, plus you'll see later how you will also still have default logos, body lines, and most rivits.
Now, before I confuse you, as we continue, I'm going to show you how to add color fast, and still keep all I listed above. Here is where in the future, you can branch off the tutorial, and pave your own road so to speak. You can follow this to the tee, and proceed with the tutorial, you can go to the left, and choose the paint can, or paint brush, choose your color, or scheme, and so on to put to the truck as paint, but if your new, I'll continue, and get you familiar with changing the Alpha's color, not just the images texture color.
Above you'll see that funky looking thing in the screen's middle, this is the hue/saturation/light leveling tool, this allows you to paint the alpha channel itself, and leaves the layer transparent, for copying later, anyway. To get where I am, go to top, choose the "Colors" tab, choose adjust, move down the list to choose "Hue/Saturation/Lightness"
now we should all be looking the same.
By playing with those levelers, you can choose a color, it's saturation, and light levels, all at once. Granted, if you can't get the color as dark as you want, you'll need to ok as close as you can get it, Re-do the process, and put a lighter shade over it to darken it on the alpha. When you've chosen your color for this trial, Go to the top, Hit the "Edit" Tab, choose copy(this will copy the painted body panels you just colored).
Revision: You can take one of two routes at this point. Now that you've got your body panels painted, you can continue in this tutorial, and copy the Work Layer, onto the Base Layer, and save it then, Or, you can simple Go back up to "Selections" choose "Load from Alpha", then delete the Alpha in the Work Layer, you will get the same result:
Now, minimize your Work Layer, upsize your Base Layer, Go to the top and hit the "Edit" tab again, select paste as "New Selection", slide your copied Work Layer over the Base until you line it up currectly. (Hint, keep your eyes on the two bunk lights on the Base image, make slight movements until they are seen clearly threw the bunk light holes on the Work Layer.) And thats it. Now depending on how light it looks, you can put as many copied Work Layers on the Base as you get the color shade you want. When you like what you see, from a first trip crash course in skinning stand point anyway, you can now save all changes, close out of it all if you want.
Note: As I mentioned before, if this is to lame for you, you can choose another color, or mixed scheme with the paint-brush, or paint can, which is a flood fill. I'm doing it this way just to show the newbie how to add a color, but more importantly, how to name it properly, how to put it in the game, and how to keep back-ups, for an easy, pain-less process to skinning, also, it's alot easier this way for one to find there groove, and technic, instead of learning threw basement trial and error.
Now you can drift back into your edits folder, and view your first skinned truck. (ain't she purdy?,lol.) Go ahead, pat yourself on the back, you just survived Outlaw's Skinning crash course without a scratch,lol, but it is only the first step in my series,lol. Get your helmet ready for text and graphix when it hits the block,lol.
As you see, I didn't make a back-up set of Bone Layers, but no fear, those are in one of my folders,lol. You really want to keep a set of Bone Layers Like I mentioned, it saves you from making another new Base Layer everytime you want to skin that truck.
Now, I'll show you how to add a paint job into the game.
Go into your edits folder, and into your first skinned truck folder, or where ever you have it, Right-click the image, select "Rename", and rename the image: paint
Now if it is named paint right-click again, select "Copy"
Go to your 18 WoS:AA folder, click makes, truck, truck you painted, acc, and open any folder named "paint0" There are four paint folders for each game truck. Now, you can overwrite one of the defualt truck paints, by going into any paint folder, find a blank space in the folder, right-click, select "Paste", and you can overwrite a default paint with yours. Any your done, and ready to ride.
This is what the paint folder will look like with your paint in there.
Note: Some of you may not want to overwrite a default paint, that is ok too. While your in the acc file, simple copy a paint folder, paste, and rename the paint folder : paint4
Go into the folder, delete the old image, paste your new image in it, open the desc.def in wordpad, and it will look like this:
extdefs "/makes/truck/acc_base.def"
def accessory:/accessory_base {
name:"@@tn_p362@@ @@a_paint@@"
type:"paint"
shop_type:"acc"
shader:"paint.shd"
shader_int:"paint_int.shd"
power:0
handling:0
maint:0
prestige:1
}
(NOTE: This is just a sample, adding this directly in any game desc.def will cause a confliction.)
Simply change the line of the name:
From: name:"@@tn_p362@@ @@a_paint@@"
To: name:"@@tn_p363@@ @@my_Paint1@@"
Or what ever, as long as it's short.
This way you can see the new listing for your new skin ingame, when browsing the parts section in the games notepad.
Also, if you put your name in the def, your name will show up in the showroom when veiwing it.
In the desc.def, add the line:
author:Your name or handle
between the "Name", and "Type" lines above.
This concludes Outlaw's Newbie Skinning Stage 1 Tutorial.
If it is followed word for word, currectly, you will have no problum having first time victory. For some, it isn't an overnight sensation. Please print this out, study it, give it atleast two good readings, before attempting to follow.
Keep'em Rollin', and look out for Stage 2.
As posted in bible 1, if you are having trouble raising alpha channels from the images, go here where Phantom explains it best.
dixiecustom.proboards2.com/index.cgi?board=DCTFTAA&action=display&n=1&thread=180
I found this way of skinning in 18-WoS:AA, but probubly not the first to discover it, but none the less, it is the easiest way I've found to skin any game yet, plus, it gives you a good chance to try skinning in this game, without alot of mistakes, hair pulling, ect. this way, you have a base image, and a work layer to do all the work for you, without flood filling and pixel painting right off the bat, like yours truely learned how to paint, which is the way, long way to do it, especially being new at it.
Also, when you do a paint like this, unless your going to do some major face lifting on it, a basic color/graphix/text job, can take all of 15 minuets, and thats taking your time, plus, you keep most rivits, body lines ect., along with doing it this way, your painting on a clear base, and the game throws another clear coat over your paint, so it comes out looking like a shiney default game paint, which I find cool, but some may not. Either way, this is the result if you follow me, but while following me, if you pay close attention, you'll see where in the future, you can branch out at any time, and come out with something totally different, and more your style and taste, so I'm not trying to get everyone to paint like me, I totally encourage all to get a little trial of their own going, but this way of starting you, you'll have to agree that I've cut the error factor down tremendously.
Now, if your not asleep yet, we can continue,lol.:hehe:
Now, where were we,,,,,ok, minimize the base layer, and upsize the Work Layer, Go to the top, hit "Selection" tab again, click load Alpha channel again, and now we should all be looking at out Work Layer, with the dot/slashes moving around the Alpha layer of the image, this is why it will be our work layer, you'll only paint the truck body panels, you won't harm windows, frame sections, nothing but the body panels, plus you'll see later how you will also still have default logos, body lines, and most rivits.
Now, before I confuse you, as we continue, I'm going to show you how to add color fast, and still keep all I listed above. Here is where in the future, you can branch off the tutorial, and pave your own road so to speak. You can follow this to the tee, and proceed with the tutorial, you can go to the left, and choose the paint can, or paint brush, choose your color, or scheme, and so on to put to the truck as paint, but if your new, I'll continue, and get you familiar with changing the Alpha's color, not just the images texture color.
Above you'll see that funky looking thing in the screen's middle, this is the hue/saturation/light leveling tool, this allows you to paint the alpha channel itself, and leaves the layer transparent, for copying later, anyway. To get where I am, go to top, choose the "Colors" tab, choose adjust, move down the list to choose "Hue/Saturation/Lightness"
now we should all be looking the same.
By playing with those levelers, you can choose a color, it's saturation, and light levels, all at once. Granted, if you can't get the color as dark as you want, you'll need to ok as close as you can get it, Re-do the process, and put a lighter shade over it to darken it on the alpha. When you've chosen your color for this trial, Go to the top, Hit the "Edit" Tab, choose copy(this will copy the painted body panels you just colored).
Revision: You can take one of two routes at this point. Now that you've got your body panels painted, you can continue in this tutorial, and copy the Work Layer, onto the Base Layer, and save it then, Or, you can simple Go back up to "Selections" choose "Load from Alpha", then delete the Alpha in the Work Layer, you will get the same result:
Now, minimize your Work Layer, upsize your Base Layer, Go to the top and hit the "Edit" tab again, select paste as "New Selection", slide your copied Work Layer over the Base until you line it up currectly. (Hint, keep your eyes on the two bunk lights on the Base image, make slight movements until they are seen clearly threw the bunk light holes on the Work Layer.) And thats it. Now depending on how light it looks, you can put as many copied Work Layers on the Base as you get the color shade you want. When you like what you see, from a first trip crash course in skinning stand point anyway, you can now save all changes, close out of it all if you want.
Note: As I mentioned before, if this is to lame for you, you can choose another color, or mixed scheme with the paint-brush, or paint can, which is a flood fill. I'm doing it this way just to show the newbie how to add a color, but more importantly, how to name it properly, how to put it in the game, and how to keep back-ups, for an easy, pain-less process to skinning, also, it's alot easier this way for one to find there groove, and technic, instead of learning threw basement trial and error.
Now you can drift back into your edits folder, and view your first skinned truck. (ain't she purdy?,lol.) Go ahead, pat yourself on the back, you just survived Outlaw's Skinning crash course without a scratch,lol, but it is only the first step in my series,lol. Get your helmet ready for text and graphix when it hits the block,lol.
As you see, I didn't make a back-up set of Bone Layers, but no fear, those are in one of my folders,lol. You really want to keep a set of Bone Layers Like I mentioned, it saves you from making another new Base Layer everytime you want to skin that truck.
Now, I'll show you how to add a paint job into the game.
Go into your edits folder, and into your first skinned truck folder, or where ever you have it, Right-click the image, select "Rename", and rename the image: paint
Now if it is named paint right-click again, select "Copy"
Go to your 18 WoS:AA folder, click makes, truck, truck you painted, acc, and open any folder named "paint0" There are four paint folders for each game truck. Now, you can overwrite one of the defualt truck paints, by going into any paint folder, find a blank space in the folder, right-click, select "Paste", and you can overwrite a default paint with yours. Any your done, and ready to ride.
This is what the paint folder will look like with your paint in there.
Note: Some of you may not want to overwrite a default paint, that is ok too. While your in the acc file, simple copy a paint folder, paste, and rename the paint folder : paint4
Go into the folder, delete the old image, paste your new image in it, open the desc.def in wordpad, and it will look like this:
extdefs "/makes/truck/acc_base.def"
def accessory:/accessory_base {
name:"@@tn_p362@@ @@a_paint@@"
type:"paint"
shop_type:"acc"
shader:"paint.shd"
shader_int:"paint_int.shd"
power:0
handling:0
maint:0
prestige:1
}
(NOTE: This is just a sample, adding this directly in any game desc.def will cause a confliction.)
Simply change the line of the name:
From: name:"@@tn_p362@@ @@a_paint@@"
To: name:"@@tn_p363@@ @@my_Paint1@@"
Or what ever, as long as it's short.
This way you can see the new listing for your new skin ingame, when browsing the parts section in the games notepad.
Also, if you put your name in the def, your name will show up in the showroom when veiwing it.
In the desc.def, add the line:
author:Your name or handle
between the "Name", and "Type" lines above.
This concludes Outlaw's Newbie Skinning Stage 1 Tutorial.
If it is followed word for word, currectly, you will have no problum having first time victory. For some, it isn't an overnight sensation. Please print this out, study it, give it atleast two good readings, before attempting to follow.
Keep'em Rollin', and look out for Stage 2.
As posted in bible 1, if you are having trouble raising alpha channels from the images, go here where Phantom explains it best.
dixiecustom.proboards2.com/index.cgi?board=DCTFTAA&action=display&n=1&thread=180
