[Tutorial] How to skin your own vehicle.

I had alot of problems understanding the part of skin editing in Beam. After alot of tries, I finally figured it out.
So here I am, to teach everyone else who had the same problem as me.

To start, you'll need "Photoshop" or "Gimp".
I used and I will use Gimp in this tutorial.

Step 1. Download
Download Gimp: Download link to GIMP.
Download DDS plugin: Download link to DDS Plugin.



Step 2. Installation
How to install these two is pretty simple.
Just install Gimp, either by the simple way, or the custom way. (you can choose when you run the installer)
Download the DDS .rar file. When you open it, you'll see two files, one called "dds.exe" and another one called "readme.txt".
What you want to do is to take your "dds.exe" file and drag - drop it into your gimp's plugin folder.
Hard-drive:\Folder\Folder you installed gimp in\GIMP 2\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins
(drop it into the one I have marked)

(imported from here)

If you don't understand what I mean, follow this tutorial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DShghCwIM8


Step 3. Finding the file and start making your skin
Here's the easy part.
Open up Gimp. (might take a while and windows might say its not responding, however, this only happends the first time you start it on your computer)
Locate the BeamNG folder, and then locate vehicles.

(imported from here)

Now find the vehicle you want to re-skin.
I'm going to go with the "van".
Once you are in the right folder, locate "vehicle"_c.dds. (in this case, "van_c.dds")
Open up that file in Gimp, and you'll see this.

(imported from here)

Make sure you have them all selected, then press ok.
Then its just to start adding decals and other stuff.



(imported from here)

When you think you are done, Export it. Do not save it with the save button, because that'll only save it with gimps files. (.xcf)
Make sure you export it. That will save it in any file you want. (export it as a .dds)


(imported from here)

Now just export everything with defualt settings. Make sure to replace the old file.

Have fun ingame!



(imported from here)

(imported from here)


MAKE SURE TO BACKUP THE ORIGINAL FILES

 

Great work. nice effort!

 

more and more Tutorials, you all rock \o/

 

Awesome, will use this soon to make a decal or something...lol

 

I followed the steps and got this

 

This tutorial was great, thanks man! I put my company's logo on the van and went for a drive in different maps and of course crashed it! LOL

 

Did you want to have it like that?
If not, you might have saved/opened the wrong file.

Awesome.

Thanks.

 

You obviously messed up something.
Run the updater, try to reskin it again and see what happends.

Please send me a pic of the file in gimp.

 

Okay, I can skin everything else fine but when it comes to the covet it just, doesen't align properly unless I download a skin off here and edit that

 

Thank you Zeddie for this good and helpfull tutorial.

More difficult: somebody knows how to add a texture as additionnal part of the car (able - disable in the part list)?

 

Do you happen to know what the other letters are? eg: van_d.dds

 

Anyone have a reliable link to a dds plugin for photoshop? I've always had trouble with changing the color of brushes on gimp. Thanks.

 

Would anyone be able to provide a similar tutorial for Photoshop? The nVidia DDS plugin doesn't seem to work properly, or I am using the incorrect options! Please help!

 

For photoshop is the same thing.

You need the Nviidia driver for create dds, after your have make your modifications, save/dds, check DXT5 is choose, replace and play.

 

It's just that, when I go to modify, and add things onto the texture, it's all a bit odd, for example;

http://prntscr.com/1s4ekn

That is how it looks when I open the DDS file. To view the model outline, I have to "view" the alpha channel. No problem, so I do that, write some text, and save it as DDS, with like you say DXT5. Then copy paste the file over my existing one in the vehicle folder. And it doesn't show anything in game at all.

Thanks for your help so far Maybe I am being silly.

 

Yours modifications are on the alpha channel or the Rgb?

 

I believe the RGB channel, however I can't see anything without looking at the alpha channel. If that makes any sense to you

 

Tha alpha channel is here to indicate game what is the value of britness. Be sure to make your modification on RGB, try and post the answer.

 

I made sure of it, and it still doesn't work! I am definitely doing something wrong it seems, could you give me step by step instructions, from loading the DDS file onward? Thanks a LOT for your help so far!

- - - Updated - - -

Update!

It only applies in a certain camera angle; see here!

http://prntscr.com/1s6of1