Reskinning Trains

Kris94

Banned
Is there any way of reskinning trains in a simple way because I tried reskinning trains and it didn't go so well. I want plain red on the sides, and green on the nose, rear nose, and the top of the train and the fuel tank. Can you convert train files in to Trainz Paintshed? If not is there any program that can set up the locomotive parts the way that Paintshed does, because in Paint Shop it has a lot of different pieces and can be confusing and when I finsih it looks really messed up. Can I set up my reskin like Paintshop does with the simple parts? The front, the side, the top, the back, and the fuel tank?
 
I've looked at your other threads and I have come to a conclusion that you are expecting the content creation process to be very quick. I'll give you some tips. NOTHING can be built overnight in 3D world, NOTHING can take less than 10 minutes to build. I know, I've done it and even if you work at your most efficient way, it takes weeks or it takes months to produce an object with a reasonable feature list and it takes YEARS to produce everything you want. Everything has to go through a design, development, test cycle and you need to be thorough, I am sure you would find work of mine on this forum everywhere and you can clearly see how long it takes. And I am studying at a local university, so I have piles of work to deal with as well.

To your original question:
Is there any way of reskinning trains in a simple way because I tried reskinning trains and it didn't go so well. I want plain red on the sides, and green on the nose, rear nose, and the top of the train and the fuel tank. Can you convert train files in to Trainz Paintshed?

Yes, but textures can be very confusing, it is trial and error. DO NOT use Paint Shed, its limited, and it has other problems. Also, Paint Shed gives you a false impression about textures and most locos are not supported. If you have Adobe's Photoshop (Or even The GIMP), use that, believe me, it is a lot easier as you have a lot of freedom.

If not is there any program that can set up the locomotive parts the way that Paintshed does, because in Paint Shop it has a lot of different pieces and can be confusing and when I finsih it looks really messed up.
Paintshop is a tool that is designed to a wide variety of tasks, like touching up photos, creating 3D artwork etc. So the answer to your question is yes, BUT only if you made the asset. IF someone else made it, unfortunately not and this is where you have to do some trial an error. Not everything will be in one texture file, not everything will be laid out logically either. So, you need to learn a few things. Oh, make a copy of the asset before you change anything.

In Photoshop, you need to look at Layers, the select tool and the paint bucket tool. This may help: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/Basic_Reskinning_for_beginners (Note it uses the GIMP, but the tools are pretty much similar to Photoshop, but the icons will look different).
Or this: http://www.gaurc.us/files/info/ReskinningForDummies.pdf
The other thing, do NOT get stuck into a routine of asking "what does this tool do?", go around, experiment and play with the tools, see what it does, that is the only way you will learn. Look at other photoshop tutorials. And if you can't be bothered to do a Google search for tutorials. I'm going to put it bluntly. Good luck, you WILL NOT learn how to reskin.

(And believe me, there are a lot of tutorials out there for pretty much everything to do with photoshop, GMAX and 3D Studio Max.)

Laziness gets you nowhere.

Can I set up my reskin like Paintshop does with the simple parts? The front, the side, the top, the back, and the fuel tank?

No, not unless you do a lot of coding and that is a bigger project in itself. Each person has a different layout to their skin, so even if you do create a plugin, you need a data file that will point to the positions of each map, the size and the scaling.
 
I had a go using Paint Shop Pro. Rather than try and fill various areas of of the subject with different colours, which didn't work as they bled from one area to another, or didn't cover sufficiently, I used the option, Colorize.

Colorize used in conjunction with Brightness, allows you to change the colour of anything, to anything.

I haven't got a suitable Trainz subject to hand, but here is a photo of mine.

The original

0709.jpg


I then colourized the whole photograph red and brightened it

0709b.jpg


I then applied the colour to the areas to be changed

0709c.jpg


You can see how easy it would be to apply this technique to alter Trainz content and it retains, the shade of colour. I'm sure you could do this in PhotoShop.

Only had time to recolour a little of the loco, as I should be in the garden.
 
I can vouch for what the others are saying here. The process can be done easily, but does take time and a lot of practice. I am not a modeler, but have done 3D modeling in the past using 3DS Max and 3DS R4 for MS-DOS, which was the predecessor for MAX and GMAX. The process takes patience once you learn to use the tools. GMAX is a "lite" version of MAX and is still available on TurboSquid. www.turbosquid.com

Reskinning is, by far, the easiest thing to do and probably a good way to ease into asset creation since the model is already done. Think of reskinning and texturing as placing the paint and decals on the plastic model. Since the UV mapping is already done, this is one step out of the way, and now the only thing to be done is painting. Reskinning can be done to buildings as well, and I have done that with a few mill buildings, among them being the VFUK Textile Mill 01. I blocked out the windows with an aluminum-colored paint to represent a mill that was turned into a storage company.

There are various programs available that range in price from free to really expensive. Personally I use ACD System's Canvas 11. This is a professional page layout and imaging program that I happen to have since I worked in the printing and graphics industry, and happened to be installed on my system. Once I create my reskins, I use Gimp to convert the TGA to uncompressed RLE, and resave it out from there.

Here is a resking I did recently.

http://www.orbitfiles.com/_thumbscache/157593/8977075.jpg

I took TBob's former Conrail GP-9 that has been retired from the Housatonic Railroad, and put the SBIR on it along with a new road number for the South Bristol Industrial Railway, which is a fictional shortline that connects to my Enfield and Eastern.

Reskinning and modeling is something that is only inhibited by impatience and lack of imagination. Once you get used to the tools, a whole world awaits you.

John
 
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I'm no genius but I managed to get to grips with GIMP and create reskins with not too much effort. Even better as it's free.
 
I'm no genius but I managed to get to grips with GIMP and create reskins with not too much effort. Even better as it's free.

Initially I had used only Gimp, but I needed Canvas for something else so I'm using that instead because the layers are a bit easier to handle. Gimp is still needed to convert the TGA to uncompressed RLE.

John
 
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