how to create and add THUMBNAILS for liveries?

Discussion in 'Modding' started by rocafella1978, Jan 20, 2019.

  1. rocafella1978

    rocafella1978 Registered

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    how does one find out, to add THUMBNAILS to a custom livery? icon.dds? alticon.dds? smicon.dds? how? where?

    thank you all.
     
  2. Coutie

    Coutie Moderator Staff Member

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    Just put it with your skin in a mas file, and it needs to be the same name as the skin, so something like alt42_icon.dds.
     
  3. D.Painter

    D.Painter Registered

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    Add-on skins that are placed in the settings folder. ICON, They "Don't " work! Never have. Open file or in a Mas.

    Those you see that are working are made as a skins pack. That's a completely different way of doing it. Not a good idea to do it with individual skins.
     
  4. rocafella1978

    rocafella1978 Registered

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    i understand all arguments, but is there no way to have preview/ thumbnail for own skins/ liveries? how would one go at creating a complete livery? with helmet, suit and etc.? it all looks so unfinished and half made in rF2, when you create and want to add your custom skins...
    in every almost all other sims, simple FOLDER with its content files, copy and past, and that’s it.
    just trying to learn best practice and best approach for rF2, creating complete custom liveries. (with preview)
     
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  5. MaD_King

    MaD_King Registered

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    I think this is an issue since the beginning, need a game fix for VirtualRide or Alternative skins.
     
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  6. rocafella1978

    rocafella1978 Registered

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    tried this a few times, didn't work.
     
  7. Coutie

    Coutie Moderator Staff Member

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    Ya, I think it only works for virtual rides. I don't think you can do it for alt skins now that I think about it.
     
  8. MaD_King

    MaD_King Registered

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    I'm sure it's not working for virtual drives, if you add the alticon (or smicon) into the alt.mas the icon is not visible in the game menu.
     
  9. Alex72

    Alex72 Registered

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    I think we need this at some point. It degrades the product a abit when people make great skins but the presentation is a blank preview image. Looks a bit unfinished and unpolished.
     
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  10. D.Painter

    D.Painter Registered

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    Two different ways to add skins.
    First; Alt, Alternative is a change of livery to the original one. Choose a car livery, add a alternative to it.
    upload_2019-1-23_13-23-41.png
    Change livery by using the side arrows. Note; Loose Skin Directory.
    upload_2019-1-23_13-25-38.png
    The ALTERNATIVE livery I just placed in for this example only.
    I don't use this method at all but can be utilized if a mod what's to use round changes to liveries for the same team/driver.
    NOTE; ICON only works for the original livery, Not the Alternative.

    Second, Virtual Ride. This method creates a NEW Driver/Team. This is the method I use all the time because the cars/ liveries add to the grid.
    upload_2019-1-23_13-33-35.png
    Again! ICON does not work.
    upload_2019-1-23_13-38-6.png
    Note; The loose Skin Directory as a stand alone livery.

    The ALTERNATIVE skins revert back to the default as AI. If you drive the car using a ALT skin it will revert back to default livery in the replay make this method next to useless for leagues and league replay videos.

    Virtual ride ; Adds to the grid. Runs as AI, shows when viewing replays.

    A third method is to create a skins pack. This method is basically a second teams folder. The teams have all the texture files but unlike the ALT skins they use the VEH.ini. file for identification. This pack is not recommended for one off skins. League use this as team members create their own liveries, add to a skins pack. This pack is then incorporated into a download and add-on for league members only. Some have created skins pack for certain mods when there is a large number off liveries available. ICON's do/will work under this method to add new driver/teams only.

    HOPEFULLY!!! The new UI will end all this. No need for ICON's at all would be proffered. A showroom with a select function so the liveries show on the 3D model and change on select would be best IMO. Yes,, Like rFactor 1, GT-R and Asseto Corsa can in showroom view.
     
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  11. Frank Murphy

    Frank Murphy Registered

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    If I want to create a skin package (I'm still working on a GT3 VLN'18 livery pack), how and where do I have to place the icons? It doesn't work with only putting it into the .MAS file. Do I have to add an comment to the .RCD file?

    PS: Nice showroom feature to include the driver.
     
  12. rocafella1978

    rocafella1978 Registered

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    tried this now with few people, and we gave up. such a user unfriendly way of implementing liveries into the sim itself...this is really the opposite of all other sims...too bad and one can only hope that this is on the radar of the developers also. (allows series creation, controlling and etc. also much more effective and time consuming)
     
  13. Chris Lesperance

    Chris Lesperance Registered

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    It is a bit of a pain to add a skin. The virtual rides system, while nice, isn't fully complete. Looking at the Endurance Series Mod for example, if you create a custom paint, you can't utilize all of the GENString settings to fully customize your car. You have to use an existing one as a base. It would be great to see if you could use a .veh file instead of the .rcd in the custom skin .mas.

    With that said, I hope that when the new UI is finally released, it will get rid of the preview .jpeg and bring back the 3d spinner car. It is just wasted time to create a preview .jpeg and the 3d spinner car would be standard on all cars, 1st party and 3rd party.
     
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  14. Brent

    Brent Registered

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    Totally agree the icon should be a 3D spinner car and I hope that is put into the new UI. I get so frustrated with mods that don't include a preview icon, I make sure I create them for mine. I take a screenshot of each car in the showroom, not moving the orientation of course. Then in whatever photoshop program you use I create a macro to size and copy the image. Then I paste it into the size format for the icon, center the image, save it off as the dds, then do the same for the rest, when I paste the next image I move it so it snaps and aligns with the previous image so they are consistent in placement. After that's done I open all the dds I created and run another macro to resize them smaller for small icon images, save as with the SMicon name. Not sure if those are ever used, maybe for low video resolutions but I create them anyway.
     
  15. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    Brent you should package those up and release them!
     
  16. ReaperNZ

    ReaperNZ Registered

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    do you know if there is a file size or image size restriction ?
     
  17. Coutie

    Coutie Moderator Staff Member

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    I don't think so.
     

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