New NR2003 Artist Seeks Instructor

[AGNT009]

Hey guys,

Im a complete noob to painting NR2003 cars. Im a good painter in Microsoft paint, and thats it. I just DL GIMP. Thats all I can afford right now is free, lol. Can you give me the best places to DL GIMP friendly templates. Also, I want to know how to take an existing paintscheme from cars Ive DL to NR2003 and alter the cars here and there. I just DL Gimp, and tried to open a cup car file right out of my game folder, needless to say, GIMP did not open it. Im sure that gave you a laugh. Well, thats how noob I am right now. I have a great attention to detail and I think I would make a great painter. I want to learn how to paint the old cup cars. My pc is too slow for the COT cars, so Im not going to bother with those. Id like to get good enough to rip the schemes from the COT cars, and modify them back to the original cars. Everyone has passed by the old car series as far as cars you can DL. Nobody paints new schemes for the old car. Id like to be that supplier some day. I also have a few basic ideas for cars Id like to start from scratch. So, Id appreciate the help on how to get started. Ive viewed a few youtube tutorials, but right now, the guy might as well be speaking german. Let me know what my limitations are on gimp. Thanks for allthose replying with help in advance.

 

[JeffJordan]

Just export the car into a .tga, so GIMP can open it. I use GIMP for most purposes.

 

[AGNT009]

Ok. Ive edited a few front bumper skirts to my liking. What I would like to know is if theres a place to dl cars that have all the layers on them. The cars I export straight out of the game come into gimp as one layer. I have the bad feeling Im going to have to totally reconstruct a car, just to change a number or something. Can anyone let me know how to take someone elses work and tweak it to your liking?

 

[Michael James]

gimp is compatable with most types of files that photoshop is
i think the file type you should use for your projects would be .psd then when you are done with your car re save them as .tga
reason psd uses layers tga doesnt:arghh:

 

[CraziRich]

gimp is compatable with most types of files that photoshop is
i think the file type you should use for your projects would be .psd then when you are done with your car re save them as .tga
reason psd uses layers tga doesnt:arghh:

only thing is the cars coming from the game if you convert them to psd.. do they have layers... I'm at work right now so i can't test it. I too am new at the paint game and recently downloaded GIMP.. however i can't use gimp at home since I don't have SP2 installed. I can't use CS4 either SINCE I DON'T HAVE XP SP2 grrr, I'm far too lazy to re-install windows right now... gimme a few weeks maybe

 

[88fan]

Huh thats strange i installed GIMP without SP2 what opereating system you have ?

 

[Jeff24fan]

With gimp, you can't open psp files (paint shop pro images)
Only thing I hate about gimp!:arghh:

 

[CraziRich]

Huh thats strange i installed GIMP without SP2 what opereating system you have ?

I just installed it last night.. and it won't run... it comes up with an error and tries to send error info to microsoft... So i'm still noobing with tGIMP I'll check again later tonight or maybe tomorrow.. since i won't get back online maybe for a bit. Gimp works fine on my work computer but its a fully licensed version fully updated version of XP Pro. I might just finish putting together my spare tower and update it and make it my painting work station... but first i must set up my network to b able to access both computers with each other... got my work cut out to be able to paint :arghh:

 

[88fan]

Oh maybes its because of the different OS i have XP home edition ( i know its old ) :lol: maybe thats the cause.

 

[AGNT009]

Thanks for all the offers of help so far. I have successfully opened a file to paint now after getting the tips Ive received so far. Im so glad there is a way to change paint schemes and maintain the points. My second season offline I changed cars for 3 races and to my horror, lost the points lead. The one backwards glitch to importing a paintscheme on a car, is that whatever skin is on the car at the time I play back one of my replays, thats the skin I see. This disapoints me because I love the nostalgic feeling I get when I look at replays of earlier seasons and see the paintschemes running "back then".

I have opened up and repainted Dale Jr's National Guard car that someone did right as his two new cars were announced. Since seeing the real car, it always bothered me the red skirt they had on the front of the car. I have went in pixel by pixel and changed this the hard way.

So now, a few important questions.
1. Is there a place to DL the PSD versions of the finished cars so that users can go in and tweak them to their liking when the original painter puts a skirt on you dont like, lol. Or are painters stingy with the editable file?
2. Now, I think I did a decent job fixing this car, and I have no problems sharing it. What is the etiquette for this. I would obviously give credit to the original painter, but is posting "adjustments" just not done?
3. Can anyone give me a link to the best place to learn how to do shading and such for cars? I know there may not be a tutorial for gimp exactly, but looking at the photoshop tutorials, I can get the basic idea. I would like to make a template for a car other than Monte Carlo etc. I want to learn how to paint from the ground up.
4. Why do guys paint a Monte Carlo onto a pontiac body? What are the pros and cons in this?
5. I need help with taking one thing off a tga file I like, and making it a layer all by itself. Can you save layers to the hard drive? So that everytime I just want a particular item to go on another car exactly where it is on the first car, I can just snag it? To do it the hard way, I just erased everything around it, saved it as its own psd, then pasted it into the new car as a layer. Maybe thats the only way to do it?

I will think of some more questions later. My goal is to make some 18 Kyle Busch cars that look more manly, because I really dislike his kiddie M&M cars.

 

[Michael James]

WOW alot of talk jk
ok what i can help you with is really only to experiment with everything
there is a tool on the newest gimp that you choose point to point and that is a great way to make easy bases

 

[John Gregorio]

1. Is there a place to DL the PSD versions of the finished cars so that users can go in and tweak them to their liking when the original painter puts a skirt on you dont like, lol. Or are painters stingy with the editable file?

- Painters don't give away PSDs. That is like throwing you a bag of money and allowing you to pull out your paycheck.

2. Now, I think I did a decent job fixing this car, and I have no problems sharing it. What is the etiquette for this. I would obviously give credit to the original painter, but is posting "adjustments" just not done?

- Make sure you give the guy his credit.


4. Why do guys paint a Monte Carlo onto a pontiac body? What are the pros and cons in this?

- The Pontiac model suits the actual look of the Monte Carlo, now Impala.

5. I need help with taking one thing off a tga file I like, and making it a layer all by itself. Can you save layers to the hard drive? So that everytime I just want a particular item to go on another car exactly where it is on the first car, I can just snag it? To do it the hard way, I just erased everything around it, saved it as its own psd, then pasted it into the new car as a layer. Maybe thats the only way to do it?

-No, you can't save a layer like that. TGA's are a single layer btw.

 

[AGNT009]

Thanks for the advice. stinks about the no sharing psd files though. the thought of making money never occurred to me. I guess I see the point, but still stinks. So, since Im the only painter interested in deconstructing a COT paintjob and slapping it on an old car, whats the best way to go about this? Anyone try it? Is it too insanely hard to attempt? From everything Ive read, I likely wont be able to run a new COT mod. Heres my stats, am I better off staying with the old cars to race with? AMD Athlon 1.10 ghz, 512 ram, Radeon 9600 video card. I run 16 cars in front and 10 cars in rearview pretty well. I turn off the blimps, and track shadows. i had to stop racing on road courses because the framerate couldnt keep up and i couldnt be smooth on the course because my screen wasnt displaying smoothly. i guess that last fact pretty much answers it, but Im asking for a second opinion. Stay away from COT with these specs?

Ive heard a few guys asking for new schemes on old cars. How much demand is there? Im not in it for money. Im going to school at nights while working full time so I have no time for requests and such. But I think when I do turn out a car, it would be appreciated. I guess I would have to paint em fast enough to stay current with the season, lol. it looks like if I have to paint these cars from the ground up, I need to get good at painting lines and curves and such. from what I understand so far, and what I hope, I can paint a base, then apply the monte carlo shading and such over it? i noticed the shading in other areas like the front bumper, etc. Does that come in the templates? well, time to go finish my season. Already won the title with two races to go. My season finishes with Phoenix, Homestead, and Texas for my finale.

 

[John Gregorio]

I didn't mean charging for it. A lot of painters work hard on cars and don't give their PSDs for that reason.

 

[Snoopy0626]

I have paint 45 cars out of 86 cars set, each cars take 2.5-4 hours to complete when you do the sums that is a hell lot of time complete with pit crews.

Work out the man hours that has taken, if I started given away the psd file for the cars , plus I have started making it hard just to lift on item off a layer by mergeing layer together.

I found a while ago a pit crew the I had done use to make around 8 other pit crew on the internet and all I did was email psd file to a mate interstate, who is no longer a mate. That is one reason why psd file are never given away

 

[AGNT009]

Well, so much for getting cars the easy way. Looks like I'll have to take a COT to the chopping block and resconstruct it on an old car. Sounds time consuming already and I dont even know what to do yet. I guess I could see why guys are so protective of their stuff. My opinion is, what I make is for my little offline racing world anyways. If a guy wants to part my stuff out, I really dont care. Again, Im not in it for money. The stuff that annoys me the most is having to go find fictional cars to represent when a guy changes numbers and such, example, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman. Alot of my field is filled with friends and family members I put in fictional cars too. But guys like Stewart (driving a #14 Wranger car) and Newman (driving a #39 DHL car) just doesnt look right. Im going to try and do Stewarts car first, that looks the easiest in a way. Time for more questions.

1. Whats with the line going down the middle of the rear spoiler? Ive tried to research this and I see cars with and without it. But to me, its just a linme, there is no actual opening in the center of the spoiler. On some guys paintjobs, its just gray, or you can see the border logo the guy built his car on. Thats lame. Im systematically removing that line on most of my cars.

2. I need to get better at making adjustments for weather. I have won three straight titles but with weather off (difficulty at 88% and competitors engines at 93-95) . I need to take the training wheels off, but I kind of noticed that if I want to keep my current race length, 20% about 40 minutes of racing at 2x tire wear, the weather conditions seem to run in real time and nothing changes in 40 minutes weather wise forcing me to adjust. I guess I should run longer races, but thats just too long to race by myself imo. What is everyone elses experience with weather adjustments, how long does a race need to be to see the full affect of changing track conditions?

Confessions: I took my opponents pit crew speed down to 40-60 range depending on the team. I feel that if the pc can cheat and let the cars magically slide in sideways and backwards to fit into their stall, I should get to even the odds for being forced to do it the real way.

3. Has anyone mastered the flat black paintjob of Newmans Army car? I never saw flat black look so good on a stock car.

 

[Snoopy0626]

I am not paint cars for the money, I paint for a group that race online.

There are heaps of base scheme all over the internet and logos, the only thing is that you have to be come a member at most site to download them.

In about a month I will be paint a set of cars that will work with the default car that you use when finished along with the pace cars they will be up load so everyone can download them, they will be car file.

 

[Hotshot]

QUOTE=AGNT009;64470]Hey guys,

Im a complete noob to painting NR2003 cars. Im a good painter in Microsoft paint, and thats it. I just DL GIMP. Thats all I can afford right now is free, lol. Can you give me the best places to DL GIMP friendly templates. Also, I want to know how to take an existing paintscheme from cars Ive DL to NR2003 and alter the cars here and there. I just DL Gimp, and tried to open a cup car file right out of my game folder, needless to say, GIMP did not open it. Im sure that gave you a laugh. Well, thats how noob I am right now. I have a great attention to detail and I think I would make a great painter. I want to learn how to paint the old cup cars. My pc is too slow for the COT cars, so Im not going to bother with those. Id like to get good enough to rip the schemes from the COT cars, and modify them back to the original cars. Everyone has passed by the old car series as far as cars you can DL. Nobody paints new schemes for the old car. Id like to be that supplier some day. I also have a few basic ideas for cars Id like to start from scratch. So, Id appreciate the help on how to get started. Ive viewed a few youtube tutorials, but right now, the guy might as well be speaking german. Let me know what my limitations are on gimp. Thanks for allthose replying with help in advance.[/QUOTE]

Yea there is a program called winmip that can save it as a .tga or .bmp!:arghh::twitcy::elvis::elvis::spinny::spinny::arghh::swoon::notworthy::notworthy::notworthy::elvis::elvis::elvis::elvis::elvis: