How does the skinning system work?

Firstly, I'm not talking about the one for full car designs... I'm talking about the one used for changing the interior colour.

I'd really appreciate some clear instructions on how to use this new system. I've been trying to add a skin to a part for hours with no luck.

 

I know that, but do the materials have to be named a certain way for them to work?

I've created a part with a slot for the skin and have also created a skin with material for that slot.
It shows up in the selector, but the skin material doesn't get loaded.

 

I'm having no luck.

Here's the relevant lines in my materials.cs:

Code:

singleton Material("pessima.skin_bumper_F.test"){
    mapTo = "pessima.skin_bumper_F.test";

Here's the skin's jbeam:

Code:

"pessima_skin_bumper_F_test": {
    "information":{
        "authors":"mumboking",
        "name":"Test",
        "value":10,
    },
    "slotType" : "skin_bumper_F",
    "skinName" : "test",
},

Yes, I have added a "skin_bumper_F" slot to a duplicated front bumper jbeam.

What am I missing?

 

Note, the skin starts with skin_ in gabesters example not pessima_

EDIT:
ignore me, although you might have typoed the name as you appear to have pessima. rather than pessima_


EDIT AGAIN:
Yeah had a look, I see nothing wrong

 

The "skin_bumper_F" slot doesn't exist. Try applying a skin to a part that actually has a skin slot.

 

I have already duplicated the front bumper's jbeam and added the slot to it. The skin shows up in the selector but the material doesn't get loaded.

 

Although for a different reason, my advice stands: it could be that the bumper is simply not UV mapped for it to be correctly shown. If you try to apply these same changes to a part that's already skinnable, that would make them a lot easier to get working. Once they're working, you can actually try to make the bumper skinnable.

This isn't criticism or me telling you you're being an idiot by the way: it's honest advice about working order. Change only one thing at a time, so that when things break, you know what caused it. If you've already managed to successfully apply skins and make other parts skinnable, I can't help you.

 

AH! It works now! Now I've just got to make some adjustments to the material name so I only skin the particular part.
It would be nice if the skin selection worked from inside the part, instead of having to modify the main jbeam. You wouldn't have to worry about re-adding the slot after an update then.
It's actually easier to just duplicate a part's mesh and jbeam, which is what I think I'll do now.