Best software for Reskins

TimSYoung40145 · Post by **TimSYoung40145** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 10:28 am

What is the best, but cheapest software for repainting reskins?

bdy26 · Post by **bdy26** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 10:35 am

Gimp is free http://www.gimp.org/

You could probably get Photoshop elements fairly cheaply, but I know many reskinners are more than happy with the functionality of gimp. Painshop Pro is the other frequently used editor. I prefer photoshop, but only because I use it for photo editing.

RW Tools is pretty much an essential if you don't have it already, though if you are reskinning anything with 2048x2048 textures you will need an alternative. Not many models use textures that size though.

Hope that helps

Ben

Darpor · Post by **Darpor** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:04 am

Paint.net is also good value for money at £0p. It also supports .dds format as well.

nobkins · Post by **nobkins** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 12:32 pm

Take a look at the tutorials I created:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB5GlhT1i00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf26z9PJ2aI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBsYYBOAeE0

And why not donate your skins to the UKTS Freeware Packs if they are of default content:
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewforum.php?f=337

Jim

Chock · Post by **Chock** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 5:00 pm

Photoshop would be the best bet, but it is expensive, however, you can download a trial version from Adobe.com which will run for thirty days and which will in that time be fully functional, although you will need to create an Adobe ID in order to download it (just an email address is all they need though). Note that it is my job to train people on software and amongst other things, I am an Adobe Certified Expert Trainer on Photoshop, so if you get stuck you could PM me for help! It would of course then be up to you whether you wanted to spring for the full version, however, if you know anyone who works in higher education, you can be sneaky and get them to buy it for you, because they'll get a massive discount. You will find a lot of really cool Photoshop tutorials at http://www.hongkiat.com which will teach you a lot of nice tricks. Be very wary of tutorials on youtube, although most are well-intentioned and many are pretty good, more than a few you find on there will teach you stuff the long-winded way of doing things and some even have very bad practices in them which will create bad habits and potentially cause problems.

There are some freeware alternatives to Photoshop, among these the best one is probably Paint.net, since it is regularly updated, has native support for DDS files (which is an increasingly common texture format on more recent sims as opposed to older bitmap-based texture formats), is very professionally designed and has a lot of good tutorials kicking around for it which you can find on the forum which is linked to from the page where you can download Paint.net from, just do a Google search for 'paint.net' and you will find all that stuff.

Al

TimSYoung40145 · Post by **TimSYoung40145** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 7:59 pm

Thanks for this info.

Acorncomputer · Post by **Acorncomputer** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 8:19 pm

I use GIMP almost exclusively now. It is free, still being developed and does lot of things without overloading people who only need a few of the features.

You can get many plug-ins including a .dds one.

TimSYoung40145 · Post by **TimSYoung40145** » Sun Jul 10, 2011 7:59 am

One last question, how do I put logos onto the loco bodysides? eg BR arrows, EWS or DB Schenker.

Kromaatikse · Post by **Kromaatikse** » Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:20 pm

By reskinning... natch. But it may prove difficult if the original author didn't think to provide separate textures for each side, and if the logo is assymetrical (as it usually is).

PWHolmes · Post by **PWHolmes** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:06 pm

I have got paint.net and I am trying to reskin a loco for my own use.

I seem to have an alpha channel in the way, shown by grey squares over the textures but cant find any detail anywhere to why they are here or how to work round it. In previous experiences with texturing using good ol' psp7 and TSM, these were for transparencies and could be edited as separate layers. In this application (trying to retexture dds files from a model from RW) the alpha channel seems to be over areas of solid steel and when I try to colour replace I seem to get funny rust patches and my efforts to replace blue with black results in a dirty purple shade.

I have been intermittently messing around with this for weeks now. Can anyone point me in the right direction or preferably some sort of suitable tutorial perhaps??

Kromaatikse · Post by **Kromaatikse** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:30 pm

Try using GIMP instead of Paint.NET. It supports layers and proper painting tools.

TimSYoung40145 · Post by **TimSYoung40145** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 3:36 am

What's the easiest way to reskin a loco into e.g. Civil Engineers Dutch using Photoshop?

yerkes · Post by **yerkes** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:03 am

PWHolmes wrote:I have got paint.net and I am trying to reskin a loco for my own use.

I seem to have an alpha channel in the way, shown by grey squares over the textures but cant find any detail anywhere to why they are here or how to work round it. In previous experiences with texturing using good ol' psp7 and TSM, these were for transparencies and could be edited as separate layers. In this application (trying to retexture dds files from a model from RW) the alpha channel seems to be over areas of solid steel and when I try to colour replace I seem to get funny rust patches and my efforts to replace blue with black results in a dirty purple shade.

I have been intermittently messing around with this for weeks now. Can anyone point me in the right direction or preferably some sort of suitable tutorial perhaps??

This thread may be of help:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 4&t=111853

bdy26 · Post by **bdy26** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:27 am

TimSYoung40145 wrote:What's the easiest way to reskin a loco into e.g. Civil Engineers Dutch using Photoshop?

Thats the $64,000 question!

In an ideal world, you would start with a nice plain grey texture, but including the useful bits of shading detail. Sadly, there aren't many locos that come with a painting kit, so you have to improvise. One place to start might be the lovely fastline tankers, as there is a painting kit on their site you can download. Probably not a bad model to learn to reskin with as its quite simple.

Its a big learning curve. Start simple, and be prepared to research and experiment.

A couple of ways of doing this:

If you have a look at the alpha channel, the model maker may have been kind enough to provide an alpha channel that you could use as a base texture. I understand the 156 has such a texture. To use it as a base, in the channels selection deselect RGB and select alpha so just the alpha channel is visible. CTRL+A, copy, reselect the RGB, deselect Alpha, back into the layers tab and then paste and you should have a layer to start painting on.

If not, you need to improvise. Find a texture that is close to what you want - say a rail blue 37. If you copy the background as a new layer (and layers are everything in reskinning) and then desaturate, you should have a grey base to work with. If you are working on the nose, you will want to keep the yellow - either select the bits you want and put them in another layer above the desaturated layer, or cut the same bits out of the desaturated layer so they show. Picking the right model in the first place is important, as is working out the mapping i.e. which bit goes where on the model.

Painting itself:

The first rule is don't just slap a load of paint on it. it will look horrendous in game. Good reskinning involves painting on new layers and using the right blend mode to keep the detail that is already there but getting the right colour in game. Some of my skins use 3 layers in different blend modes to get the right shade. You can also use actual textures (i.e. pictures of metal) overlaid with colour to create extra detail. This takes time and patience.

Weathering:

My pet hate is bright over saturated ex-works stock - it just doesn't look right to me. use adjustment layers, especially hue/saturation and brightness/contrast to get the right effect and compare it in-game against other stock. Try it in different lights. Alter the darkness of the alpha channel to adjust the reflection... this is all stuff that is trial and error.

Get some grunge brushes (lots of free ones available) and use them to add weathering. Do everything in new layers so you can fade them in and out.

Some useful tips on weathering here: http://www.3dtrains.com/guides/

Useful tutorials: http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/forum34-general/

Some very useful general tutorials here http://www.cgtextures.com/ particularly on layers.

Multiple textures:

Most locos use more than 1 texture. This means that if you don’t do exactly the same steps in terms of layers they won’t look right on the loco. This includes lining being in exactly the right place. This has driven many reskinners to tears, including me.

Getting textures in and out of the game:

Once you have got your texture as a DDS file in photoshop, save it as a copy as a PSD file. Do all your work on the PSD file, and when you’re happy with it select all the layers, hold down shift and drag it onto your DDS file. All the layers will be aligned. Flatten the image and save the DDS file in the normal way. That way you can amend it as much as you like without having to repeat any texturing work.

Hope that helps

B

PWHolmes · Post by **PWHolmes** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 10:45 am

I have been told that PSP7 will not deal with dds files but a later version will (maybe v8??).

Does anyone know how I can upgrade my version to one that is suitable?

Atomic Systems