Newbie questions about skins-Photoshop

Discussion in 'Modding' started by 1959nikos, Dec 4, 2014.

  1. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    I noticed that scaling down logos reduces significantly their details.

    I turned them to Smart Objects before scaling them down and this conserves most of the detail when they are scaled down.

    The problem is, Image Size went up, from 2048X2048 to 7566X7566 and .psd file size from 16,9MB to 177MB.

    I then saved as .tga and then tried to save as .dds as I usually do.
    It didnt, instead it warned me that Image Size must be multiple of 4.
    So I changed down Image size to 7564X7564 but now it saves just a 0MB size .dds file.
    Any ideas?

    Also, I have seen around very detailed skins, how do they do it?
    I expect much detail will make Image Size bigger, doesnt this affect the servers?
    What is the optimum size for a skin?

    Thank you.
     
  2. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    Hello,

    I am no expert at skinning but I have done some.

    For logos I try to find them as .eps, and when I open them I choose a size close to the one I will use in the skin, and I have no problems.

    I use skins of 2048 by 2048 more than enough in game.
    I have downlaoded skins made for AC of 4000 x 4000 or even 8000 x 8000 that I have reduced to 2048 and they show nicely in RF2 (EGT skins).

    In some cases (see thread about Indycars in Post Your skins here thread) if you put a logo on a part of a template that will be expanded (mirror side of Indycar for instance) it will not be painted nice whatever resolution you try.

    Hope it helps.
     
  3. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    Im doing that right now thanks :)
     
  4. lordpantsington

    lordpantsington Registered

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    7564 is not 2^nth. Somehow you are scaling the entire image, use transform (Ctrl+T) on the Smart Object layer.
     
  5. Hectari

    Hectari Registered

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    Yeah if you scale a layer down from say 1000x1000 to 100x100 it doesn't matter if it's a smart object or a normal layer, there will be the same amount of detail in both, they look the same with the same pixel count. The purpose of a smart object is to retain the original image hidden from view so that you can do whatever you want to the layer and if you wanted to scale it back up it would return to its original quality, whereas a normal layer scaled back up has lost the detail since it only contains the lower number of pixels now. You can also double click the thumbnail of a smart object and it will open up the original in a new file so that you can reuse it. I personally don't bother using them but they can be useful depending on your workflow. I tend to paste a layer in a couple of times if I think I will reuse it or might need to start again after experimenting with it etc. and just hide the other, or create a duplicate and hide it.

    The only way I know to make a downsized layer look any better is to set the Image Interpolation to Bicubic Sharper, go to Edit -> Preferences -> General and you should see Image Interpolation there. This setting is used for any of the Transform functions, probably Free Transform you'll use mostly (Ctrl + T). Or if you have it open in its own file, click Image Size... (Alt + Ctrl + I), then tick Resample Image at the bottom and select Bicubic Sharper(I use this when scaling a skin from 4096 to 2048) . Likewise if you absolutely had to make a layer larger you should use Bicubic Smoother.

    I've no idea how you managed to do that with image size, I guess you somehow upscaled the rest of the image around the smart object.

    Also why do you save to TGA? Don't you just save the PSD then flatten the image and save to DDS?

    Something that I've done for a while now and others do too is always work on skins in 4096x4096. Can't remember who, might be Tosch that got me doing this, but it's the first thing I do to a skin when I open the template, even if I end up scaling down to 2048x2048 for use in sim. It's nice to have everything high quality so that if I want to reuse any layers later I can grab them and have the quality level to slap them straight in a 4096 skin. The downside to this is that if you're saving to DDS a lot it can take quite a while if you have a slower system, it does seem to take about 4 times as long(imagine that?!) for each save compared to 2048 saves regardless of how fast your system is anyway, so if you're going to use the skin in 2048 you might want to just stick working that way as the time really adds up.

    On file size, I took one of my skins and saved with different sizes:

    2048 DDS - 5.33MB
    4096 DDS - 21.3MB
    2048 DDS packed in MAS file - 2.07MB
    4096 DDS packed in MAS file - 6.02MB

    So as you can see if you utilise MAS files to compress skins then size is a non issue for servers. If you don't know how to pack a skin in a MAS file, just click start and type MAS2 and it should show(located in Userdata folder, rFactor2 -> Support -> Tools, I've got mine pinned to the taskbar for easy access) open it up and drag and drop the skin file into the window, then save the MAS file with the same name as the skin. If the skin is nikoalt just save the mas file as nikoalt. Added bonus of using MAS files is that this also where you put other files, like helmet, window, wheel, wing files and get them to transfer on servers so that others can see your skin in all its glory!

    The downside to using MAS files for skins just now is that they won't show in replays, hopefully this bug will be fixed in the next build.

    I'm also not sure about visible quality with player and opponent graphics settings when it comes to the detail level in skins. 4096 looks better undoubtedly than 2048 but I'm not sure when you start to lose the detail from 4096 when lowering settings from Full. Could check this at some point or if anyone knows they can chime in. Would also be good to know what the performance difference is between 2048 and 4096. Haven't seen either of these explained, if no one knows I guess I'll have to investigate at some point.

    A useful PS tip: Increase the number of History States available to Undo your work. Click Edit -> Preferences -> Performance and change the number, think the default is pretty low(50?). I use 500. Can come in handy depending on how you work.
     
  6. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    Got it, thats a good explanation and usage.

    Dont know either, I tried to do it again but couldnt, anyway its going good now.

    Heh, thats a good thought, Im glad I posted here :D
    Lately I couldnt go straight from psd to dds, I could before.

    Please clear this for me.
    If I do a 4096 skin and use it directly without turning to MAS, will its file size make game slow in the servers?

    Great tips here Hectari, great help, it would take me some time to digest all this ;)
     
  7. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    Thats the answer then :cool:
     
  8. Hectari

    Hectari Registered

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    Yeah, server bandwidth won't be getting tanked the way it would if everyone had uncompressed 4096 skins. No idea about fps performance hit with regards to using 4096 though.
     
  9. lordpantsington

    lordpantsington Registered

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    I agree that the smart object is only being rendered to 100 pixels either way, in actual use it is not the same amount of detail. I have run into a couple of instances where scaling a large logo Smart Object to something very small (<10% original size) resulted in a very blocky logo. I needed to scale by 50% or 25%, then make the Smart Object and re-scale the S.O. in order for the detail to be rendered flat in the final dds.
     
  10. Hectari

    Hectari Registered

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    Oh ok, I'd never noticed any difference myself so don't bother using smart objects. So smart objects aren't so smart after all?
     
  11. smbrm

    smbrm Registered

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    Does anyone know of a standalone Jpg to dds converter that works with windows 8.1?
     
  12. Leonardo1962

    Leonardo1962 Registered

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  13. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    Does this have any use if you use Photoshop?
     
  14. Juergen-BY

    Juergen-BY Registered

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  15. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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