SKINNING 101

[AZ Rail Rat]

This thread will get you started on skinning. Right now for me, it's the most interesting part of the "expansion" pack. PJay and others will get deeper, but for now, here are some basics:

DEFINITION: "Skinning" is the term used to apply or change the outer graphics of game elements such as engines, tenders, cars, buildings, etc.

The new pack has tools that allow you to change graphics for the locos, tenders, two loco pictures (described later) and also insert new company logos and even the portrait of players. There is no skinning tool yet for the rolling stock and PJay and others have modded buildings. Tools for logos and portraits are relatively simple and if someone else does not beat me to it, I'll cover them in another thread.

BASIC TRAIN GRAPHIC CONCEPT: (feel free to correct anything here PJay or others)

Elements:

Locomotives you see in the game use four tga files you can change. They are:

Loco File - The engine body. Right now even though you see wheels, rods and cylinders in the graphic, if you change them, they get overridden by other game processing.

Tender File - If the locomotive has one

Beauty Shot - This is the picture that pops up each time a new engine is introduced or if you click to get the info.

Profile - This is the small graphic on the train selection list and I think the one on the main train list. Have not gotten deep into changing it.

You update these files with a paint program. K and Mobius have detailed instructions using Paint Shop, so this 101 primer will not go into details.

Routines in TrainSkins take these four files, packs them into one file you name, and places them in a folder called \Data\UserExtractContent. In the game, if it detects more than one skin for a loco, scroll buttons appear when you buy a train.

Sounds simple, don't it. WAIT UNTIL YOU TRY IT. I spent MANY a sleepless night during Beta Testing playing with them. At first, they would not even work on WIN98. Then - OH!!! THE BUGS. Many are still there.

But, for now, just start digging in. There is a ReadMe file in UserSkinningTools that goes into more detail. Check it out and START SKINNING.

8) 8) 8)

[AZ Rail Rat]

This is copy from the other thread:

After you download the new version, COPY all train skin tga files to another location. Unless you are REALLY GOOD, you will want some original files back, and unless you copy them BEFORE you start painting, you will have to download, or at leas reload again.

Next make another folder, I called mine PAINT SHED. Copy skins you want to change from your saved folder and paint away. When ready, put your new files in the game skinning folder for loading into the game.

Taking these simple little steps could save you lots of time later. Hope you have as much fun skinning as we did.

By the way, the Duke with JUST WHEELS was a painting MISTAKE. I have NO CLUE how I did it. When I duplicate it (my first project), will pass it along for those who like funny looking locos.

Oh, one more thing. The Numbered Shay was my method of trying to figure out the loco tga. I put numbers on different sections so I could tell what part to paint.

[hawkdawg]

Hey Rat,
Honestly, I don't see the big hoopla about skinning. I don't pay that much attention to the looks of the trains in RRT. MSTS, Yes!, but not RRT.
I tend to concentrate more on the scenario than what the engines look like, and I really don't care what the manager looks like.
I think PopTop's time could have been spent a lot better fixing the bugs.
To me, personally, the skinning add-on is a waste of time and hard drive space. I'll probably never use it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to delete the 1.04 final patch and go back to the beta, since everything they had intentions of fixing is already fixed in the beta.
The extra maps are ok, but I wasn't all that impressed by them.
Just my 2 cents worth. :wink:

Edit 1: Come to think of it, that would be silly. I did notice one or two things in the final that wasn't in the beta, I think. Like, turning off the train arrival chime. :roll: :lol:

[Stoneman]

Arizona: Thanks for the tutorial on skinning. It sounds like fun but a little past my skills level for right now. :D I have spent a lot of time sailing in the FL Keys, so I am playing that scenario now. Then perhaps I will try the Irish Free State... Great fun; it is like having my own gallon of Cherry Garcia. .... Hey, I like your AZ map. I hope you are plotting a scenario to go with it!! :D Cheers. Stoneman.

[Stoneman]

Arizona, Well, I now see that the AZRR map scenario is operational. I misunderstood that it was a view only "map" until official release. .... I really AM going to have to quit my job to have enough playing time. Cheers. Stoneman.

[AZ Rail Rat]

Stoneman,

I have not touched debugging on my AZRR scenario for over a month now. Part of the reason was the contest and my participation in beta testing THE THING. However, the biggest reason is I'm just slightly less disappointed than Hawk. I got those feelings early on when I saw they were, as Hawk said, spending time on things to take our minds off of what REALLY needed to be fixed. New maps were not bad, but skinning had and still does have LOTS of bugs.

Because I do like to watch the trains, skinning interested me a bit, but only to put numbers on the locos and my AZRR logo on tenders. I'm not into full paint jobs like some are.

Even those are not bug free. They mirror a lot of parts so if you put letters on the one graphic, it reads backwards on one side.

Putting in new company logos is fast and easy thanks to the hundreds Mobius and others are posting. When I find my railroad cap, I might take a couple of pictures of myself for a portrait. Also going to experiment putting a picture of myself in some locos.

I'll try to get back to Arizona Railroad soon. Frankly, you are the first one that's shown any interest all month. I sent out a few copies for beta testing - two revisions, but nobody has said boo one way or another this last time.

I was about to bail and jump to Age of Mythology. Tried to download the demo, but it bombed after hours of trying to get it to work. I took that as an omin and got into RRT again.

Keep playing and learning there Stoneman.

Hawk, give your madness a few more weeks. You know as well as I do neither of us can get away, no matter how hard we try.

[hawkdawg]

You know as well as I do neither of us can get away, no matter how hard we try.

You got me pegged there, Rat. :lol:
Actually, I've already started trying to clean up papmap. Why :?: I don't know :!:
I reckon I'm blindly thinking there might be some interest in it.
I found where I made a major mistake when making the map. That's why the industry is acting crazy. I loaded it in the editor and all the houses and industry were there.
WRONG :!:
So, I fired up the bulldozer and went to work. After wiping out everything but the cities and a few trees, I set all the city and region industry settings to zero. Set the building density to zero and set the general industry to zero industries.
Saved as papmap V2. I now have a clean palette to work with.
Well-Let's see. What do I do now :?: :lol:

[COl Klink]

Hi Guys
I hear a lot about the skinning features and how some folks like the Paint Shop Pro for the help they need and even how some of you build a file in the RRT3 folder to do all this. BUT, I have the expansion pack, too, and somewhere in another forum, someone mentioned the FREEBIE for train skins called "GIMP" and it's a program to help with putting the skins together for the trains.

Have you heard of this and since I have had to download it to help me, I haven't tried it yet. Some of the files are very large .zip files and if you have dial-up, it'll take a while. Once the .zip 's are in the computer, it only takes about 2-3 minutes to un-zip and winds up being a neat tool.

It has an icon to use as an .exe file to bring it up fast. So now I wondered if anyone here has seen it or has had a chance to use it.

Thanks for being here.

Col Klink :D

[Wolverine@MSU]

I tried it out and it has the look and feel of PhotoShop. For a freebie it's a good deal, just takes a while to learn how to do things. As I recall though, it has a pretty good HELP section. Went back to Photoshop cause I had it and know how to use it better. Also, with a plug-in, Photoshop will open, edit and save .dds (DirectDraw Surface) files, allowing one to edit the buildings, cars, and other graphics in the PK4 files.

[kriss]

Wolvie puts it pretty well, it's harder to use than most paint progs, lots of context menus & you have to build it up from lots of different plug ins to do all that PSP or Photoshop will do. My favoured prog for skinning is PSP 8.1. The Gimp is for somewhat more expert people than me I feel.