nGTL skins v1

[PaulW]

Hey guys. Been a busy bee the past few nights and created some car skins for the nGT Legends team. Currently our sponsorship includes use of Ford Escorts, Ford Capris and both makes of BMW CSL. We are also proud to announce that sponsorship deals signed and in place for the coming GTL season are Dunlop, Valvoline, Brut aftershave, TAG Heuer watches, Lucky Strike and Camel cigarettes, Castrol and Cinzano. At the 11th hour, the deal with Black Fly, um, 'serum' fell through but we feel, with all those ciggies and the timeless class of Cinzano on tap we'll be OK from a 'lady' point of view nonetheless.

Here are some pics of the Legends getting the laps in during recent tests:








(n.b. none of these skins can actually be shared and used until Blimey allow us to create new cars by decrypting their .car files... )

[Don]

Looking real sweet.
Any room for me? I'am partial to a splash of brut and a camel or 2.
Don.

[Aagramn]

Very good Paul, although for a moment I misread one of your sponsers as 'vaseline'. 

[popabawa]

Cinzano & lemonade? Don't mind if I do old chap!

Awesome job Paul. Really excellent 

[fozzmeister]

Delightful, Ugly 70's.

Wonderful!

[picnic]

(n.b. none of these skins can actually be shared and used until Blimey allow us to create new cars by decrypting their .car files... )

Excuse my ignorance then, how can you run them if we can't?

BTW nice job 

[PaulW]

I'm reading between the lines a bit, after doing a bit of research on RSC mate but, essentially, GTR has always let us create unique car folders on top of the car folders that came with the game. This has meant that each driver can have his/her own car (by copy pasting, for example, the Lambo folder and changing the graphic content inside). For GTR to recognise this new folder as a unique car though it needs the info in the .car file inside each folder has to be correct. I.e. have a unique number , like the teams numbers we decided on recently.
At the moment, GTL's .car files are encrypted and just look like random characters if you open them in wordpad. The result is that you can't tell GTL that you've made a new car folder and what number that car is so that you can use it in game. So until we can edit the .car file and make new car folders we couldn't have the situation we've got with the team skins for GTR at the moment. Blimey have to decide to not encrypt those files in future patches. Fingers crossed!

We can still use skins we make but the method is different at the mo' with GTL. You can only edit content within existing folders because those existing folders are the only things the game will recognise. The structure is exactly the same as a normal game (with .gtl files containing .dds (design) files inside them and dictating what the car looks like) but skinning is a bit easier because you just make your design and save it as a .dds file into the folder for the car you're working on. As long as it's named correctly the game overides the stock artwork with your own stuff that you just plonked into the folder. The result is that you can install and use skins but only on existing cars, meaning, I can use all the skins I've made above but then basically any time a Capri appears in game it will have my skin, whether tht's someone using one online or an AI driver in the single player cup. I was having good fun chasing SBG the other night because, he didn't know it, but was wearing my Escort skin and I was checking it out form every angle... mostly behind though

[ginsters sponsored]

In true legends tradition I was all over the place .

Nice work Paul a full set of team skins would look amazing. For mine, I would have find to the biggest pasty supllier during the 70's. 

[PaulW]

Lol Ginsters... I dunno were Pukka Pies about then? A skin based around them would be hilarious (for about 5 minutes ).



I've finished the Capri and Escort skins and properly sorted out the visors inside and out. Have added a tiny bit of transparency to the visors, which some of the original cars don't have from the outside.

Also, added a country flag and 'signature' for each driver on to the windows 

[Don]

Can't wait till I get mine. Hint Hint...

[LEUVEN]

 

New car skins are really gonna make the cars look great in GTL, with the standard ones looking reasonably plain and simple by todays standard

[PaulW]

Showing as much potential as we do I guess car companies could be forgiven for chasing The Legends in a bid to get on board. Porsche are the latest to sucumn to the lure of a swimming pool full of Cinzano Bianco, garnished with bond girls




Pleased with this one. Pretty quick to put together and it just seems to work with the body shape fairly well. I've figured out skinning driver helmets and seat belts too but, without being able to release skins as a single compiled package, it would start to prove really fiddling to install all this stuff file by file. The BMW CSL's are proving the most fiddly of all to skin, with graphic files in odd places and then the alpha channels for transparency hidden in others. I'm just looking to sort the visors out on the CSL's and add driver names and flags to the windows and then we're done. Really enjoyable this skinning, if a bit pointless at the moment

[picnic]

Only partially pointless

I like viewing your work  Keep it up 

[fozzmeister]

just include everything relative to the root of GTR in a zip file

This is where UI's make it pretty much impossible tho, and with windows cmd prompt is rubish.

[Rich_A]

Looks excellent Paul.

I'm not going to start painting until the standalone situation is clarified. One thing to remember is to make sure normal rez and hi rez are done and also the low rez one.. you can always spend time touching the car up a little if there is some spare time, make em look real special. Can't wait to race in my own team colours again.