Yah. I'll get it fixed at some point (eye roll)
And okay. 1. Are they free? And 2. You can't use paint? I don't mind the project, I just want the easiest alternative
Gimp and Paint.net are free; Photoshop is not and quite expensive.
You need to use a program that will handle TGA files and save them uncompressed and Paint does not. I think that will handle Tiff, Jpg, and BMP, but not TGA.
The process its self is easy. Your best bet is to clone the original asset so you have your own copy to work with. If you mess up your copy, you can delete and start over without losing or messing up the original.
When you clone an asset, it's automatically opened for edit. You can the right-click on the asset and chose open for edit in Explorer. (It doesn't hurt to open twice since it only opens one copy anyway. You can then see the various bits, and the texture files you will need are in there, or maybe even in a body folder.
The image files will vary in layout. There will be some which are one continuous texture map which you will need to edit only the parts you need - it's laid out like those old decal sheets you get with plastic models. Other models, mostly older ones, will have a texture for numbers, a texture for windows, etc. You need to find these. I'm sorry I can't be specific; it's just the way it is with this stuff because there are many ways of doing a similar thing.
Once you've made your changes to the texture, save it. You will need to ensure that the textures are uncompressed. There are options to do this when you save, at least in Gimp where the textures are exported and not saved. Don't ask me why they did it this way, it's just the way it is.
When you are sure all is done, you can then close any open folders and Commit the asset. highlight the asset and press CTRL+M at the same time. The asset will, hopefully with fingers and toes crossed, not have any errors.
You can then check it in Trainz and see how it looks. If you don't like it, you can then edit that asset again by starting up CM-plus, right-clicking, and choosing open for edit in Explorer then fix and commit again.
This is basically an overview of the process. Remember you can't break anything and if you mess up you can always start again.
Have fun.
John
