How to paint liveries?
Posted by SPOKES
Ok heres a step by step tutorial of how to paint a car and get it into the game. This is one way of doing it, probably not the most efficient i realise that, and may be parts of it are wrong, but its a tutorial and it works, i have tried it.
Programs needed
-Gimp (or another image editing software, but i use gimp, so this tutorial shall be with gimp
): here
-Zmodeler (I highly advise using v1.07, i find it the best for what i need, its a little bit down the page): here
-GP4Builder: here
-Slimtex (from ZaZ tools, there a probably alternatives to this): here
-Grand Prix 4: You should have that
-Yourself (is that a program?)
The actual tutorial
1. The first step is to find yourself a template. I shall be using the X1 template by soulbringer, but there are plenty of other templates you can use. When you extract this template from its rar, there will be two files: X1_templ.psd and X1_cpit_templ.psd. The one we shall use is the X1_templ, as i believe the other one is the cockpit, and we don't need to worry about that yet!
2. After that, its time to open up the file. Open up Gimp now (i don't need to tell you how to do that?) and incase you've never used gimp before, click file, then open and navigate to the folder you extract the X1 template to. Open up the X1_templ.psd file, you should be greeted by this:
That blue square thing in the middle is the car, well the flat version of the car, and that is the thing you shall be painting!
3. Now to begin some actual painting. First of all you need to select the correct layer to paint, and you do this in the layers menu. If that has disappeared somehow, press ctrl+L to make it appear again. In this layers menu, scroll up or down until you find a layer called "car_colour" and select it, so its highlighted like in the picture below (in other templates it may not be called the same, maybe something like "main_part" or "colour", but generally it is pretty obvious, and if not, then you select them all and try to paint until you find the one that works). Once you have selected this layer you can paint the car in any way you like. For this ive just selected the red fill tool and filled in a few sections. The template itself has different distinct sections as can be seen, and these represent different sections of the car: the nose cone, the engine cover, the rear wing etc etc. Some can easily be seen, ie the nose cone, but some areas of the car will be slightly more difficult, and will take trial and error to work it out.
4. The car then needs to be saved in an appropriate way once you are done painting, or even if you want to see what its like so far. To do this, go the file, then go to save as, not save, it needs to be save as. There will be a little window appear that will have the file name, the folder you want to save it in, then two other options: "browse for other folders" and "select file type (by extension". Click the plus on the select file type, and you will get a choice of save formats. The one we are looking for is TarGA image (extension tga). Click it, so the file name now says X1_templ.tga and click save. Another window will pop up and say about TGA files cannot handle multiple layers. On this window make sure that Merge visible layers is selected (the bottom one), then click export. Yet another window will appear, this time a small one. On this one leave that box ticked at the top (RLE compression), and make sure the origin has "Bottom left" selected from the drop down menu. Its the first choice in the list. Finally click save and the file is saved!
5. Now to check how the car looks/will look in the game. This step isn't necessary, but i find it useful to check if everything looks right on the car as i go. To view the car you need to lod files of the original shape. For the X1 this means you need to download the redbull x1, and use the lod files from that folder. Now open up the zmodeler program you downloaded. In this you need to click file, and the import (or ctrl-I if you like shortcuts). Find the folder that the redbull x1 lods are in. Then you need to open the lod that is named "car_(teamname)_car1_lod_0.GP4, like highlighted below
6. Time to get the livery onto the model. To do this click that red ball on zmodeler, or press E (highlighted by the black box). The window in the picture will appear. In the drop-down menu highlighted by the red box, and choose the option X1.tga (for other liveries it should be obvious which option to select, hopefully). In the place highlighted by the blue box, tick the box next to "primarytexture".
Click the button that has chrome written on in next to the tickbox you just ticked, and the window in the picture will appear. As the green box shows, click the button called Add. Then you find the place that you saved the X1_templ.tga, and double click it to open it. In the list x1_templ.tga will appear, as highlighted by the purple box. Click that tga file in the list, and then click the ok button in the bottom corner of the window. That windows disappears and leaves the materials window. Simply click ok on the bottom of that window and voila your livery on the model!
Then you get a professional level livery in the 3d section, such as on my screen
.
7. Ok so if you have done all of that and you are happy with how you car looks, i guess you want to get it into the game? Before you do this, i would advice moving the tga file for your livery into the same folder as your lod's for the car, it makes stuff easier. Time to open up GP4Builder, when you do so it will ask you to choose a file to open. Open the lod_0 file that you are using, and your car will appear in the builder, thats a good start. Now go to the tools menu in the top bar, and in that menu there is an option called "Rename Textures", thats the choice you want. A list of all the textures for the car will appear, the one you want is the X1.tga, same as in zmodeler. Double click that one and rename it to X1_templ.tga (or whatever your tga file is called so far), then click apply. This may need to be done to lod_0 for car1 and lod_0 for car2. Now you can close GP4Builder.
8. Final stage! Open up slimtex in ZaZ tools. There is a bar at the top with 4 options. we want the second choice, "Batch to TEX" (its in black). You will have a grid with a few choices at the top like below. You need to drag and drop the tga you've been working on and drop it into the grid. Now click it so its highlighted like in the picture by clicking the name. Now to work on the choices, in the red box the first once is "macro", which you should cars from the menu (2nd option). Now select "prefix" (the blue box) and choose "hi" from the drop-down menu. Its the last one. If you want to choose a specific place for the TEX file your about to make, then click the button on the orange box and choose a folder. Then make sure the box in the purple square is ticked then click convert!
9. Its done. Now all the you need to do is take that tex file you have just created, take the lod's of the car (all 4 or just the lod_0, its your choice), and put them in a wad. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do that
Sorry this tutorial is so long and not reallllly organised, but its step by step of what i do to paint a car. If you need help then contact me, but yes i realise that its not the best guide ever so yeh... Hope it helps
_________________________________________________
For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here: [docs.google.com]
Programs needed
-Gimp (or another image editing software, but i use gimp, so this tutorial shall be with gimp
): here-Zmodeler (I highly advise using v1.07, i find it the best for what i need, its a little bit down the page): here
-GP4Builder: here
-Slimtex (from ZaZ tools, there a probably alternatives to this): here
-Grand Prix 4: You should have that
-Yourself (is that a program?)
The actual tutorial
1. The first step is to find yourself a template. I shall be using the X1 template by soulbringer, but there are plenty of other templates you can use. When you extract this template from its rar, there will be two files: X1_templ.psd and X1_cpit_templ.psd. The one we shall use is the X1_templ, as i believe the other one is the cockpit, and we don't need to worry about that yet!
2. After that, its time to open up the file. Open up Gimp now (i don't need to tell you how to do that?
) and incase you've never used gimp before, click file, then open and navigate to the folder you extract the X1 template to. Open up the X1_templ.psd file, you should be greeted by this:That blue square thing in the middle is the car, well the flat version of the car, and that is the thing you shall be painting!
3. Now to begin some actual painting. First of all you need to select the correct layer to paint, and you do this in the layers menu. If that has disappeared somehow, press ctrl+L to make it appear again. In this layers menu, scroll up or down until you find a layer called "car_colour" and select it, so its highlighted like in the picture below (in other templates it may not be called the same, maybe something like "main_part" or "colour", but generally it is pretty obvious, and if not, then you select them all and try to paint until you find the one that works). Once you have selected this layer you can paint the car in any way you like. For this ive just selected the red fill tool and filled in a few sections. The template itself has different distinct sections as can be seen, and these represent different sections of the car: the nose cone, the engine cover, the rear wing etc etc. Some can easily be seen, ie the nose cone, but some areas of the car will be slightly more difficult, and will take trial and error to work it out.
4. The car then needs to be saved in an appropriate way once you are done painting, or even if you want to see what its like so far. To do this, go the file, then go to save as, not save, it needs to be save as. There will be a little window appear that will have the file name, the folder you want to save it in, then two other options: "browse for other folders" and "select file type (by extension". Click the plus on the select file type, and you will get a choice of save formats. The one we are looking for is TarGA image (extension tga). Click it, so the file name now says X1_templ.tga and click save. Another window will pop up and say about TGA files cannot handle multiple layers. On this window make sure that Merge visible layers is selected (the bottom one), then click export. Yet another window will appear, this time a small one. On this one leave that box ticked at the top (RLE compression), and make sure the origin has "Bottom left" selected from the drop down menu. Its the first choice in the list. Finally click save and the file is saved!
5. Now to check how the car looks/will look in the game. This step isn't necessary, but i find it useful to check if everything looks right on the car as i go. To view the car you need to lod files of the original shape. For the X1 this means you need to download the redbull x1, and use the lod files from that folder. Now open up the zmodeler program you downloaded. In this you need to click file, and the import (or ctrl-I if you like shortcuts). Find the folder that the redbull x1 lods are in. Then you need to open the lod that is named "car_(teamname)_car1_lod_0.GP4, like highlighted below
6. Time to get the livery onto the model. To do this click that red ball on zmodeler, or press E (highlighted by the black box). The window in the picture will appear. In the drop-down menu highlighted by the red box, and choose the option X1.tga (for other liveries it should be obvious which option to select, hopefully
). In the place highlighted by the blue box, tick the box next to "primarytexture".Click the button that has chrome written on in next to the tickbox you just ticked, and the window in the picture will appear. As the green box shows, click the button called Add. Then you find the place that you saved the X1_templ.tga, and double click it to open it. In the list x1_templ.tga will appear, as highlighted by the purple box. Click that tga file in the list, and then click the ok button in the bottom corner of the window. That windows disappears and leaves the materials window. Simply click ok on the bottom of that window and voila your livery on the model!
Then you get a professional level livery in the 3d section, such as on my screen
.7. Ok so if you have done all of that and you are happy with how you car looks, i guess you want to get it into the game? Before you do this, i would advice moving the tga file for your livery into the same folder as your lod's for the car, it makes stuff easier. Time to open up GP4Builder, when you do so it will ask you to choose a file to open. Open the lod_0 file that you are using, and your car will appear in the builder, thats a good start. Now go to the tools menu in the top bar, and in that menu there is an option called "Rename Textures", thats the choice you want. A list of all the textures for the car will appear, the one you want is the X1.tga, same as in zmodeler. Double click that one and rename it to X1_templ.tga (or whatever your tga file is called so far), then click apply. This may need to be done to lod_0 for car1 and lod_0 for car2. Now you can close GP4Builder.
8. Final stage! Open up slimtex in ZaZ tools. There is a bar at the top with 4 options. we want the second choice, "Batch to TEX" (its in black). You will have a grid with a few choices at the top like below. You need to drag and drop the tga you've been working on and drop it into the grid. Now click it so its highlighted like in the picture by clicking the name. Now to work on the choices, in the red box the first once is "macro", which you should cars from the menu (2nd option). Now select "prefix" (the blue box) and choose "hi" from the drop-down menu. Its the last one. If you want to choose a specific place for the TEX file your about to make, then click the button on the orange box and choose a folder. Then make sure the box in the purple square is ticked then click convert!
9. Its done. Now all the you need to do is take that tex file you have just created, take the lod's of the car (all 4 or just the lod_0, its your choice), and put them in a wad. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do that
Sorry this tutorial is so long and not reallllly organised, but its step by step of what i do to paint a car. If you need help then contact me, but yes i realise that its not the best guide ever so yeh... Hope it helps
_________________________________________________
For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here: [docs.google.com]
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