Railworks America

I am finaly trying to do my own repaint, i have got to the part where i open it in photoshop, but when i open it in photoshop i get this error message:

"could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document"

i have read around and i apparantly need a "plugin" to use the .DDS files?

My question is, where can i get this plugin, and where do i download it to/install it?

I think this is the plug-in you need:

http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-text ... -photoshop

It's a self extracting .exe, so it should go in the right place on install.

ok that's good, but now i have a new problem!

i can't figure out how to get my TgPcDx files into DDS files. i get a message that it must be saved in a dds format but i am kinda lost?

ok i got that part figured out now after at least an hour searching for solutions.

but now i am wondering how you "veteran" repainters make all those nice curves, lettering, and designs? all i can do is weather a car using the spraypaint tool atm. (and graffiti obviously)

For lettering I hunt for a font that gets close.
http://www.identifont.com/index.html

Don't forget that Hawk has posted a download for 500 fonts in the library

Then there are payware fonts:
http://www.railfonts.com/

For textures I refer to this site:
http://www.cgtextures.com/index.php

Here are some good tutorials:
http://www.3dtrains.com/guides/

The styckx has done a few tutorials here at RWA:
read this first: viewtopic.php?p=8384#p8384
read this when you are happy with your new repaint: viewtopic.php?p=21647#p21647

oi, I should write a blog post about this....

Good luck and don't give up!

Don't forget about RailSimStuff. That site is an invaluable resource for railroad fonts.

For creating the designs you just need to learn to use the shape and selection tools in Photoshop. Remember to do all of you new design elements in new layers so if you mess up, you don't lose too much work.

*smacks head* and I was just at RailSimStuff the other day.

I should ban myself from posting until at least three cups of coffee.

Most important thing you can do is learn how to use masks. Actually I use fill layers and masks so much now I'm considering using Illustrator instead of Photoshop for most of the work. Vector masks ( with the Pen tool ) are one of the best tools for liveries, used with gradient or adjustment layers the best tools for shading and used with flat colours and layer effects ( outer glow, stroke ) the best for panel lines and livery lining - and normal masks with colour fill layers for weathering or other similar paint effects.

Layers too, obviously - put everything in a new layer, label them ( hah if only I did that ) and group related layers so you can minimise the group and keep them out of the way.