Railworks America

Newbie asking for help....

Does any one know where there is a tutorial on how to re-paint and or re-skin freight cars.

I am planning on doing some coal hoppers.

Also what type of programs would I require?

Thanks

Kevin

Kevin,

Seeing as you're looking to do the repainting, you're going to need a few tools. The first being you're going to need a program to paint with. For my Artwork, I prefer Jasc Software's (now Adobe) Paint Shop Pro. I'm using Version 7 still. Some modelers also use Adobe Photoshop.

You'll also need a few Rail Simulator related programs: RSBinTool (which can be found at UK Trainsim), and ToAce.

typically, out of the image program, you're going to need to save the file as a dds file for RSBintool to convert it back. Now how do we do that? That's a good question, with an easier answer: you'll want to also download a DDS Conversion plugin which can open or save files as a dds file. I highly recommend Nvidia's DDS Program, Found at this link:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/phot ... ugins.html

I hope this helps you out some,

TVRRMAN wrote:I prefer Jasc Software's (now Adobe) Paint Shop Pro.

Paint Shop Pro is now owned by Corel, not Adobe.

Hi all

Does the Nvidia plugun work with PSP 7?

If so how do you install it?

Kevin

Kevin,

Kevin, the Nvidia plugin indeed works with PSP 7. Should be placed under the plugins folder of PSP7. If PSP7 is installed directly to the default location, it would be: C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 7\Plugins.

@Hawk: Thanks for the Correction on Jasc Software's ownership. Not entirely sure why I thought adobe..

Hope this helps.

Hi TVRRMAN,

I went to the link that you gave. What version of the plugin do I need?

Download Current Version (8.23.1101)
or
Download Legacy Version (7.83.0628)

thanx

Kevin

TVRRMAN wrote:@Hawk: Thanks for the Correction on Jasc Software's ownership. Not entirely sure why I thought adobe..

Not a problem.

Clinchfieldfanatic wrote:Hi TVRRMAN,

I went to the link that you gave. What version of the plugin do I need?

Download Current Version (8.23.1101)
or
Download Legacy Version (7.83.0628)

Kevin,

I think I'm still using the Legacy version.

Good luck,

Any luck finding any tutorials on repainting or are you just doing it trial and error. I would also like to dabble in it a little just for fun. thanks, Mike

I'm trying to reskin a freight car and the free GP9 set from Dickyjim.com

I have yet to find a tutorial (including the one that comes with the GP9 set ironically) that actually shows you what to modify in the image files.

When I open the files, I see a large "canvas" with a number of sections including what look to be livery, color swatches, designs, and other things.

Am I to simply modify those in place, change the colours, etc?

Are they of a specific size? If I wanted to change them geometrically, is there a bound that I need to keep within?

Thank you for your advice.

Chris

It's also worth noting that there is absolutely no requirement anymore to use Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop... nor to create the special "tga" files. At least none that I can see.

The "RWAceTool" will take any image file, even a lowly jpg, and convert it to an ACE file. So while fancy tools are nice to make multi-layered images that are easy to edit, they are by no means a requirement, and "vector" based graphics program will do. If you're looking for something free on Windows, The GIMP (Graphics Image Manipulation Program) is good.

My main machine is actually a Mac, so I use Pixelmator and simply export out to TIFF files.