hi skinners,
how do i use the reference points or define any? there are some templates from master skinnerz out there in the web and there are those little squares (reference points?) to get the coloring in sync even if i draw 90° turned from spoiler to right/left side... but how do i manage this? are there any tutorials out there for this?

regards
DrFred

I am not sure what you are asking but to help clear things up - Are you talking about the blue wireframe that comes in the master skinner kits?

hmm no i meant how can i do - let's say some exact lines from front spoiler over the side doors, top to the back down to the rear bumper without any clipping or offset... hmm how should i explain... one continous line over two or three layers that are not in the same alignment...
another example.. those two white viper stripes... one line from front to the back, but how do i do that exactly! in photoshop with the lfs skins?
the upper part is no problem, just make 2 lines through the whole thing...
but how do i place them on the wings below exactly! and on the rear bumper?
lets take XRT skin for example...

regards
DrFred

You mean lining up stripes/decals/etc over 2 skinning areas?

Its easy, with photoshop, just nudge the stripe or decal pixel by pixel until it lines up.

Sometimes you might need to resize the stripe too.

yes and that is i dont want! resize is ok because that would be difficult... here's an example, i'm looking for a function that can align my lines or stripes etc. automatically... this example from me is simple (see attachment) but what, if i want to make stripes from left door over top to the right door in ONE line WITHOUT manual alignment (just automatically by some photoshop tools/tricks)...

To make skins you have to manually line everything up over the sections of the car, there is no program to do it for you. The way to do the spoiler would be to
-Copy a section of the stripes to use on the spoiler
-Rotate it so it is the right direction
-Use the cursor keys to nudge left or right until it lines up on one edge (keep checking with cmx viewer)
- make a selection too add or remove part of the stripes
-save and check in cmx viewer to see if it is lined up properly
-repeat the last two steps untill the lines are correctly lined up

isn't there a smarter solution? because saving and viewing in cmx viewer is very time-consuming...
i imagine for example to define a "virtual centerline" for the two side skins and roof, so if i paint on the one side it mirrors it and paints the same on the other side... this should be possible with photoshop?

i did an example screenshot (see attachments). the white lines are no problem because they are "in line" in the skin... but the yellow ones are not. this i want to be automated (if possible, so how do i do that?).

You have already been told that it is not possible. You must do the alignment work yourself.

that is the art of skinning DrFred...modify save, modify save, until u have a perfect fit. if u want a detaild good skin you have to do this and it will cost you most of the time i was panicd to at first with this, but belive me after a while u get used to it.

Another (easier - especially when working with logos etc.) way of doing it, is do figure out the pixel aspect for the various parts of the UV's.

I've re-installed Windows, so I don't have Photoshop set up for LFS skinning yet, but I used to have at least 1 cutoms pixel aspect for the side view - I think it was set to 1.85, but I'm not sure.

If you paint a perfectly round circle on the side and top, and then look in the Viewer, the top one especially will be oval.

But if you paint after having applied the pixel aspect correction, then it will look perfect (provided that you entered the right aspect value :P ).


The really cool thing is that if you want something to fit, all you have to do is to copy it to the clipboard - once its in the clipboard, it will compensate for whatever pixel aspekt ratio you chose.

So if you chose to have it on the side - paste it in (new layer gets created) - then you change aspect to top.. paste it in again - all you have to do now is to align it.

Depending on how precise your aspect ratio was, you wont have to resize, but just nudge it into place.

It's simple with stripes to do it manually, but can become tedious to work with complex decals.

Did that make any sense? :P

you really need to use photoshop or paint shop pro to take advantage of the layers in the master skinnerz kits. IMO, that is the best way to make skinning "easy"

Turn on the wireframe layer and its pretty darn easy to line things up from top to side. Dont get me wrong though, you probably will have to tweak it a few times to get it to look just right.