Paintshed template missing?

Why?...I mean come ON, some people want custom roadnames and paint schemes for their steam locomotives.

Very simple the question has been ask many times before, it’s easier to reskin existing items for your personal use than it is to create templates for paintshed

There is always the possibility you could make your personal contribution to the general community in the form of templates

Bob V
 
There are none !
Send an e-mail to helpdesk and/or post in the suggestion forum .
There are none !
 
You could always download a steam loco off the DLS and re-skin it yourself using dxtbmp (with the creators permission of course!) It might be a bit more complicated to use than Paint Shed but it can be done.

Lastly, I always find that you tend to get better results if you ask nicely. Having a 'gimme gimme gimme' attitude tends to rub people up the wrong way. If you want assistance in re-skinning stuff there are plenty of forum members who I am sure would be quite willing to help.

Best wishes,
Padster
 
...I'm a skinning nub...I can barely use PaintShed (lol does that tell you how bad I am?)...

Ionno. I wasn't trying to be all "gimme" I just kind of thought that since Auran claims to be "customer oriented" they'd have either come out with some that somehow just didn't make it onto my disc or they'd be willing to at least actually show me how to create a mask for say the UP Big Boy.
 
Well, fair enough. Let me try and help you.

You want to re-skin the Big Boy right? Well, you can still do that. It's a bit long-winded, but here's how.....

1) Download the aforementioned dxtbmp (it's free off the web)
2) Next, download a program called 'Irfan View' (this is also free) You will need this if you have only got MS Paint as your paint program as you require any lettering to be fully transparent, and MSP doesn't do that.
3) Find the folder with the Big Boy in it and make a copy of it. Paste in the copy and rename it (eg BigBoy2) This is the folder you will use to repaint the loco. We make a copy so the original is unaffected by any modifications.
4) Go into dxtbmp and open up the new file. You will have to go through the various sub files to find you one you intend to re-skin, but normally it will have the words 'body_art' on it.
5) In dxtbmp, click on Image and click Send to Editor. This opens up the paint program you intend to use by default (you have to tell dxtbmp which one you intend to use by clicking on the paintbrushes icon on the far right of the screen.)
6) Now comes the modifying. We'll assume that you don't wish to re-skin the whole loco (this can be very time-consuming) but simply wish to add your own railroad name on the tender. First of all, we need to blank out the existing 'Union Pacific' lettering, so, click on the dashed rectangle icon on the left of MSP, drag a rectangular box over an area of the tender, right click, and click 'Copy' . Then click 'Paste'. The copied area appears in the top left hand corner of MS Paint. Drag it down and cover the 'Union Pacific' lettering. Next drag another rectangle over the same area, right click and click Copy To. Save it in My Pictures as BigBoy2tender.Minimise MSP
7) Open up Irfan View. Here is where we add the lettering. Drag a rectangle again in the middle and click Edit. Then click 'Insert Text selection' This will bring up a font toolbar where you can decide what colour, size and style you want your lettering to be. Type your railroad name in the blank box and click OK. You may have to experiment to get the lettering centred properly, but when you are finished click 'File' and 'Save'
8) Maximise MSP and right click. Then click 'Paste From', find BigBoy2tender in My Pictures and MSP will position the new lettering where the old one was. Then save the work.
9) Maximise dxtbmp. Click 'Image' and then click 'Reload After Edit' The new tender will be loaded up.
10) This is the tricky part. You have to get the correct Alpha channels in place or they could show up grey or white. Click 'File' and click 'Save As' Try the various formats. The ones that usually work are either Targa With Alpha or Extended Bitmap, but if it doesn't work first time, try the DXT3 one.

Thats it. Good luck and best wishes,
Padster
 
Haha umm well I must say that IS long-winded...

I can't FIND the folder with the Big Boy in it...

However...this editing program sounds like fun! Thanks!

Edit:

GRAAAAAAHG! I found the folder but dtxtbmp won't load any of the files! Help?
 
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OK. Adding your own lettering to a loco is probably easier and a lot less time consuming than doing a full re-skin. There are people on the forum that are far more experienced than I when it comes to this, but I can show you how to simply add your own railroad company name onto a loco. Take a look at this. I did this yesterday:
47pic.jpg


I used the same process to do this as described in the post above. What I have found is that files that have a bitmap file name do not seem to come out as well as those with .tga after them. That is because .tga files normally have an inbuilt alpha channel. I am still groping in the dark with this myself.

It is probably best to attempt to modify a downloaded loco instead of one of the default ones. To find out the exact KUID number of the loco you wish to edit, open up Content Manager (Start>All Programs>Auran>TRS2004/06>Content Manager) Write down the KUID number of the loco and then go into dxtbmp and locate the folder. (The folder for the loco in the pic was KUID 2512 1479>class47ic2body>main.tga) But before you do this you need to make a copy of the file if you want to keep the original too. It can be found by going to:My Computer>Local Disk>Program Files>Auran>TRS2004/06>World>Dispatcher>Downloads. Once there, start from step 3 in the above post. When you have finished, you might have to edit the config file, replacing the old name with the name you created, but this isn't always necessary.

As you can see, re-skinning and modifying locos isn't very easy to explain, which is why fellow Trainzers are often slow in coming forward to help! :D

Best wishes,
Padster
 
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