livery design advices

Hey guys, Calligaris here, rookie GPSL driver and thankful follower of these forums.

As I previously stated in another thread asking for modding advice, I am very thankful for the work many of you put into creating modding tools, models and even full mods.
Thanks to all of this content I was finally able to privately run my personal fantasy F1 championship now in its third season.

Now getting to the point...
As I see the great liveries some of you create, especially each season in the GPSL. I was looking for some advice ton improve my own craft as I am a beginner, I'll probably post some of the liveries I've made to show my level. I apologise in advance for the amount of questions asked ad thank those who will answer for their patience one or more questions.

Firstly, some technical questions.

I use MDBSnake's models and paint them with Gimp, while using Zmodeler to keep an eye on the final result. Problem is Gimp isn't very useful when it comes to Alpha channels, I haven't used alpha channels much for now, but it is necessary as cars tend to become mirrors with realistic skyes. I have another program (DXTBMP) which I use to modify Alpha channels usually, but it isn't the most practical thing, and liveries tend to become a little bit transparent when i darken the Alpha channel.

So my questions regarding this are, would you advise me to use a different image editor altogether, which one would you recommend. ? Do you use a separate editor for the alpha channels, how dark do you usually set them to be and do your liveries get a bit transparent as well ?

Now some less technical and more artistic questions (although i realise the answers to these will be more dependent on personal taste)

I have a slightly hard time drawing lines and curves across different car parts, making the transitions smooth and the lines straight (for example while drawing a line starting on the sidepod and going all the way up the engine cover). Do you have any advice on how to help the process if there is any way of doing so through handy tools or techniques (although i do realise it is in the end down to patience and perfectionism).

How sponsor-filled do you like your liveries to be ? My championship has a sponsor system, teams sign contracts with sponsors to increase their budget and those sponsors appear on the liveries. I started with three sponsors per team, but the cars felt a bit empty (i will post examples), so i upped the number. Now each car shows 5 sponsors,the engine provider logo,the team logo,the nose number and at list either the number again or the pilot's name (again, i will post examples).

Out of curiosity I wanted to ask how do you guys make those awesome renders i often see.

No other precise question comes to mind, so I'll just post a few liveries and see what advice the experts have. (I'll put the oldest livery attempts first and the newest later, hopefully saving the better attempts for last).

Some cars from season 1, my very first attempts.

Spyker-Mercedes
Livery based on actual Spyker liveries of course.


Brabham-Climax
Based on the 1992 pink brabham


Surtees-BRM
Based on 1970-71 Surtees TS7


Shadow-Vanwall
Based on historical Shadow Liveries


Übermacht-BMW
(A car manufacturer from the GTA games) based on nothing in particular, liked the colors.

A few attempts from season 2 now


Ferguson-Toyota
Based on the 1961 Ferguson P99 entered by Rob Walker Racing at the British GP


Übermacht-Ford
Attempted to improve previous year livery with some inspiration from BMW liveries


Vaillante-Renault
Based on a French comic book racing team.

A few more attempts from the 3rd season


Brabham-Maserati
Based on historical Racing Green and Gold liveries


Lec-Renault
One of my favourites despite it being very VERY simplistic, based on historical Lec F1 team


RAM-Yamaha
Based on RAM F1 liveries


Surtees-Supermarine
Based on historical Surtees TS16

And finally (i promise) current season, my most recent attempts


Cisitalia-Ferrari
inspired by several AGIP racing liveries


Escuderia Real-Vanwall
The livery this one is based on needs no introduction


Ferguson-Honda
Inspired by 1985 Brabham Livery


Vaillante-Matra
based on retro Vaillante livery (again from the same comic book)

Thank you for reading, race on!



Edited 13 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2019 04:21PM by Calligaris.

In the meantime i'll try to understand why the images don't show on the post XD

Edit: solved



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2019 04:21PM by Calligaris.

For first attempts at painting cars it definitely shows that you have some natural artistic talent. Well done mate.

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Retro Liveries on the SMD-ZG02![www.grandprixgames.org]
Retro Renders 2.0 on the SMD-ZG02LN![www.grandprixgames.org]

hey Nathan , could you please upload your retro liveries again?

quickslick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hey Nathan , could you please upload your retro
> liveries again?


If I can find them I will do that for sure.

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Retro Liveries on the SMD-ZG02![www.grandprixgames.org]
Retro Renders 2.0 on the SMD-ZG02LN![www.grandprixgames.org]

Yep, some excellent efforts right here in this thread! Good work....

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GPGSL Team Owner Debut - Melbourne, Season 8 - present
GPGSL Test Debut - Hungary, Season 4. GPGSL Race Debut - Adelaide, Season 5.

thank you very much in advance, Nathan

I use Photoshop for painting. Obviously impossible to afford, but well... there are ways.
Gimp I used in the past, by far the best free program (back then at least), but it had its shortcomings.


Alpha layers I normally keep the original one, unless I want to get some special effect (like chrome or matte). Easy to handle in PS, seem to recall they were a bit of a pain in Gimp.

As for the drawing stuff on different car parts and getting smooth transitions, I work with paths and vector masks. Allows you to simply drag the section of the path until it fits, without having to redo anything. Not sure if there's something similar in Gimp. Also always gives smooth colour transitions, which right now you don't seem to have. Just a small thing really, but imo with a big effect on the overall look of a livery. Example for comparison [i.imgur.com]

Amount of sponsors is up to personal taste really. Also the livery itself, some work well with plenty, others look better with a few only.

I use Blender for renders since it's free. There's quite a bit work to be done to set up a render scene. Watched many hours of tutorials (this series [www.youtube.com]) to learn the basics, then many many more hours to set up the scene, modify the car to fix some issues etc. It was a long road to get from this [i.imgur.com] to this [i.imgur.com]

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Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2019 12:39PM by kedy89.

Some pretty nice liveries you've made, especially the Brabham Maserati one.

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Thanks a lot Kedy, that was exactly the kind of advice i was looking for.

I started playing around with blender to see how it works. Still have to find my way around tyres, i got the wheel models from the wad, but they are really ugly.

Yeah I clearly can't afford photoshop. See what i can do, otherwise i'll just do my best with gimp, see if I can find any equivalent to the tools you mentioned. You're right about the color transition, they do look awkward.

Oh and thanks for the links, time for some tutorial watching I guess.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2019 04:05PM by Calligaris.

You can use Photoshop CS2 which is free nowadays.

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My Grand Prix 4 Files
I'm a total dick. How many people can say that?

Wow good to know, thanks Turbo ! I'll check it out when i get my internet back.
(Or use my university's wifi)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2019 04:29PM by Calligaris.

Very nice looking cars... you should make a mod from those.

Would like to drive those cars

Job well done my friend, a new painter is born



GPGSL-3: VTR Driver, S4~S11 (2nd, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3th, 4th, 3th, 2nd)(Constructorstitel S7 & S9)
GPGSL-4: ONE Racing Driver, S8~S11 // TYRANT Racing Driver, S12:1st, S13:13th, S14:1st, S15:13th //
WREXHAM Motorsports Racing Driver S16: ?

I'm working on the fifth season now and I'll post the liveries when I'm done.
I've developed a rather complex system for my fantasy league with sponsor and engine contracts, end of year bonuses, team prestige, marketing and technical departments, pilot contracts and such. I'll share some details if someone is interested.
If someone actually wants a mod like Brett suggested, hell, I can give it a shot, right now my modding skills are limited to, design liveries and helmets, putting them in the game, modifying the team stats with team editor and run the races. I can learn the rest though.

On another note, anyone got some advice on rendering tyres/wheels with blender ? The game's 3D models aren't very... round, and are very unpractical. Have you guys designed your own 3D wheel models, feels like this is what I'll end up having to do.

Calligaris

Don't use the original tyres, simple as that. I use 2011 shapes made by Mpad. Most modded ones will do a decent job tbh, be it by Lee, Enzo, etc. Same for textures.

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Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018