Hello,

I've been trying to make a decent skin for my XRR quite some time now. And every time I give it a shot it turns out just....ugh...well...let's put it this way, when I look at some of the skins up here, they seem just so much better than my own. And I have no idea how to improve my skinning.

Here is an example of my latest skin:
XRR Skin

What would you do to improve it? And how?

Kind regards,
Thomas

P.S: I use GIMP

Search for the skin stretching files, iirc JazzOn made them. They will help out with the stretching of logos.

Stick to making simple stuff and then move on to harder and more complicated designs, you should try and do some replicas of real liveries too.

Straight lines and big gaps between details tend to give that effect.

Also you seem to have some stretching going on, badly on the motorola logo.

Try moving the hood Gulf logo halfway onto the orange lines and then fill out the gap made with some linear logos in a vertical line. Perhaps in the same direction as the Gulf logo is turned to liven it up.

Quote from LineR32 :

Search for the skin stretching files, iirc JazzOn made them. They will help out with the stretching of logos.

Stick to making simple stuff and then move on to harder and more complicated designs, you should try and do some replicas of real liveries too.

I've found that stretching thread just before I posted this, sorry for not mentioning it. I haven't implemented it yet because I'm just on my lunch break and will have a looksy on it when I get home from work.

About the liveries, I've tried it. Wanted to put a Corvette Racing GT2 skin on the XRT. Boy did it turn out bad.

For the laughs:
XRR Skin 2

@daloonie: what effect? The "ugh" effect?

And thank you both for the tips.

More like the "mnah" effect. Making you think "naah doesn't look that spectacular/good/interesting".

Also doing a proper preview counts ALOT. Most of the great skinners here rely alot on editing the previews and renders making them stand out even more. Not saying the skins are bad, quite the contrary, it just does that extra bit.

I know, but I don't want to be bothering with the 3d renders right now. Not until I'm fully satisfied with my skin.

Quote from xfirestorm :

For the laughs:
XRR Skin 2

That's not bad at all. Another advice would be, to use high resolution. Minimum is 2048 x 2048. Better is 4096 (depending on your available RAM or CPU)
Further seems, in this example of an existing reallife livery, the color tone of the yellow base is too bright, which gives to me an "ugh" effect

As foir the stretching, if you have trouble to understand the issue, feel free to say something. I or someone else could make an another graphic to show whats happening there. The temnplates i made are just for the generell stretching for each car; basically everywhere where the shape of the car is curved the stretching is more or less.

It doesn't seem "bad" from this angle, but if you look carefully at the rear fender, where the skin wraps from side to top to side and to top again, the lines aren't aligned good. I remember back then I've done something with the settings that the skins looked more blurry and when I was making it, it was aligned,then when I fixed those fuxed up settings the lines just got messed up.
I also made a mistake when saving that I didn't save an .xcf copy of it and then didn't bother anymore to fix it, so I just scratched that skin. I know the colors aren't right either.

I think Iv'e got the hang of the stretching now. I've downloaded the XRR template from master skinerz, converted it to xcf(image magic, export all layers, and assemble them again in GIMP) and begun on a new skin. I'm really taking my time with this one, and so far I must say it looks good, at least in my eyes. I'll have to come home and see it again after sleeping it over to see if I'll still like it.

I didn't have any inspiration on what to do, so I just started drawing some lines on the car, and pop, inspiration came up, now I'm working on from there

there is no need to convert the skin kit before working with it. GIMP can work good with PSD files and save them too.

Whats important too is a good source for logos. Try Brandoftheworld, download the eps files and just drag them onto your skin (you may need a plugin for gimp, I'm not sure).

Let them render at a rather big size, delete all the white with the magic brush, and then shrink them to your needs, not the other way around.

The only real difference between GMIP and Photoshop in terms of image quality I found is that Photoshop is better at anti aliasing stuff you draw, mostly lines and curves at 45° angles.

edit: just saw how old this thread is, nvm ..

Quote from ACCAkut :

edit: just saw how old this thread is, nvm ..

No no, no problem with that. Always open for suggestions.
I'm sure it will help me and also someone else if we keep the thread bump'd up all the time.

Quote from ACCAkut :

*delete all the white with the magic brush*

In most cases ends up in jagged edges and white artifacts in the corners. You might get by with it on bright backgrounds but more often than not, it's not the best idea.

Get a vector editing software that supports the eps/ai formats(example: http://inkscape.org/) then either copy the shapes, if supported by the editor or remove the white background and save as transparent png.