So I've just started skinning, and I've hit my first problem. That is, I'm not sure how to texture the exhaust tip on the XFG. I can't seem to find where the part is for the bumper indent where the exhaust tip comes from, and the actual exhaust tip itself.

Figure A shows what I have, and Figure B shows roughly what I'm trying to achieve:


For reference, the template I am working from is 4096² pixels

Hey, if it's the MasterSkinnerz kit, just flick the wireframe on. It also comes with a default texture called 'Pipes' in the layers as shown.

That is one of the weird areas to skin, you cannot get the pipes a different colour from the backbox of the exhaust because there is a sorta overlap in the wireframe.

Quote from Subphonic :

Hey, if it's the MasterSkinnerz kit, just flick the wireframe on. It also comes with a default texture called 'Pipes' in the layers as shown.

I believe it's the one from r4ptor. I guess I'll just have to have the whole thing as one colour :L

The thing that the pipes are attached to is the muffler, so it's generally ok for that to be the same colour as the pipes. There is certainly a texture overlap between the muffler and the pipes so you can never skin one without affecting the other. There are few places in LFS skinning where this is an issue (the driver's suit being the most extreme example).

Hopefully the images below will help to highlight how this part of the car is mapped.

Here is an example of just colouring the tips. It's far from perfect, but depending on which colours you choose, you might be able to disguise it a little more than I have here...

Thanks for all the help

It seems like it isn't worth trying to skin them separately and I think everyone else does it all as one.

Also, as an off topic question, instead of putting my skins in the finished skins post, would it be okay to make a general post in the WIP section to put all my skins in? It just makes more sense to do that to me.

Quote from CommandoAir :

Thanks for all the help

It seems like it isn't worth trying to skin them separately and I think everyone else does it all as one.

Also, as an off topic question, instead of putting my skins in the finished skins post, would it be okay to make a general post in the WIP section to put all my skins in? It just makes more sense to do that to me.

Yeah WIP section is probably the best. I haven't answered this question in a while but basically we wanted to keep the main skins section uncluttered.

An alternative would be to create an account on a image sharing site where you could maintain a permanent gallery (as opposed to using the forum attatchment function). This way the storage and bandwidth load isn't being carried by the LFS forum server. So, if you are planning on posting a lot of content, please consider the above option.

Quote from Gunn :

An alternative would be to create an account on a image sharing site where you could maintain a permanent gallery (as opposed to using the forum attatchment function). This way the storage and bandwidth load isn't being carried by the LFS forum server. So, if you are planning on posting a lot of content, please consider the above option.

The drawback with this though, is that should the 3rd party site disappear, then there are a load of dead links in the skins threads. This has happened with the life4pixel skins, which were all very good.

I put my skins on the forum and on my own site just in case

I'm lucky I went with Photobucket in the early days, but one day that will go, too, I'm sure.
I've made over 400 skins and most of them are large files so it's probably a good thing I didn't post them on the forum as attachments
Actually, I think I might have only posted one skin here ever

Is it the attachment that takes up the bandwidth? If so, I'll probably put the skin and a few screenshots on something like imgur and then just use [IMG] tags to put a screenshot/preview on the forum post, along with a link to the imgur page. I'll keep all the skins on my external HDD so that if the page does get taken down, I should still have them to re-upload.

Also for those that want to see what I'm actually making, progress has been slow and I haven't worked on it much, but hopefully soon I'll start working on it a lot more, and probably more skins (especially as I have a 2 week break coming up).

Thanks for the help

Quote from CommandoAir :

Is it the attachment that takes up the bandwidth?

Only if it's viewed or downloaded

Quote from CommandoAir :

Is it the attachment that takes up the bandwidth? If so, I'll probably put the skin and a few screenshots on something like imgur and then just use [IMG] tags to put a screenshot/preview on the forum post, along with a link to the imgur page. I'll keep all the skins on my external HDD so that if the page does get taken down, I should still have them to re-upload.

Also for those that want to see what I'm actually making, progress has been slow and I haven't worked on it much, but hopefully soon I'll start working on it a lot more, and probably more skins (especially as I have a 2 week break coming up).

Thanks for the help

imgur is fine for previews but is a bad choice for skins as it does not keep the original filename. You want everyone who uses the skin to have the same filename really so that people don't need to upload many versions of it to LFSWorld and then download many versions of it in-game.

Quote from Bean0 :

imgur is fine for previews but is a bad choice for skins as it does not keep the original filename.

Not only that, but the picture itself also gets compressed by imgur.
I uploaded a 1.1 MB jpg picture. Downloaded it again from imgur and it is only 0.5MB
By naked eye I could not tell any difference in this case, but it is not the same file anymore.

Would uploading it to another location like mediafire in a zip file be okay?

Quote from Bean0 :

imgur is fine for previews but is a bad choice for skins as it does not keep the original filename.

It does keep the original name, but only if you use the download button. If you right-click and save-as it won't, but most people don't know this. Hell, I only found it by accident

Quote from CommandoAir :

Would uploading it to another location like mediafire in a zip file be okay?

It would work, but there'd be no way to preview it from there. You'd still need to upload a small attachment as a preview image as a lot of people won't download anything without seeing it first...

What if I used imgur to link some previews via [img] and offered the link below? Or some better site than imgur to use? I only said that one 'cause it's the only one I know

That would definitely work - and I use Imgur too - by far the easiest to use, and the least amount of advertising and other junk.

Okay, thanks for the help everyone