Thanks for the idea – however I do not have Photoshop either. The bit I have seen on it looks way beyond me I’m afraid (like I said – bit of a dumb ass on computers really).

Looks like my efforts are not worth the talents of anyone, however I live in hope, so if some kind person takes pity on me…..

OK Guys n Gals, not knowing what to do but taking up on tristancliffe’s suggestion that I needed to tidy up some things, I have spent the afternoon with “Paint” tying to do what I can.

Here are the results which I hope is at least on the right track (get the pun). I have now taken it about as far as I can go.

I do hope that my efforts have at least gone some way towards making them acceptable for some other person to take up the challenge

At least you're trying But might I suggest you download Gimp or Paint Shop Pro (free trial) and learn them. They're not as hard as you'd think, and in many ways much easier for making skins...

Anyway, hope this is good enough for you...

That's fantastic, thanks a lot.
There already up on my desktop
Yes will do as suggested and get "Gimp"

Hope I can figure it all outillepall

vanirl just play with it, and you'll learn!
try diff settings, filters, tools, etc.

OK guys, I got "Gimp" and have had a quick bash with it. Basically I botched it up big time and it seems to me a bit complicated (I’m a simple fellow really).
I also happen to be one of those types that HATES reading a manual – I like to have someone show me and then I get a better feeling for it. Little chance of that happening so I guess a bit of reading is unavoidable.

I also now see that a little bit more colour in the skin (as suggested) would be nice. So I’ll strugle on a bit more and see what I can do (either in paint or in Gimp).
Having said that I am really chuffed and again my thanks.

As usual the LFS community shows it’s real strength

If you want to, I can tell you what little knowledge I got from making my skins with The GIMP... But then, you still wouldn't get any good skins, 'cause I really suck at skinning...

Taken a while to get it done, but here is a render of the Norway XFR. Sorry for the delay.

very nice! had a look at your renders on master skinnerz.... very impressive

Trustancliffe & Ramtech.

I took your advise and spent some time using Gimp. To be honest I still haven’t got much of a clue and spent more time re doing stuff rather than making any progress. However will keep at it.

In the meantime I took you advise Trustancliffe and re did my skin from scratch with a bit more colour – hope you think I am heading in the right direction.

It was done with good old paint (gave up in frustration with Gimp), but I still have not managed to get things tidy. Every time I reopen it all the lines seem to be “smudged”, I tidy it up and it then goes back again.

However have a look and if ya feel it is worthy of a render ???????
I would love to see the differance

Vanirl - I think it looks better with the colour, but the smudged effect is because of how paint compresses jpgs. The more compression (and paint uses high compression) the more smudged the file becomes.

Gimp (and other software like it) will allow you to control the compression level, so you can control the smudgedness. I don't know gimp, but in paint shop pro when you click save as jpg there is a button called Options, and in there you can move a compression slider.

If you can find out how to control the compression in Gimp then brilliant. What you would need to do is either make the skin in gimp and save as a low compression jpg, or make the skin in Paint, save it as a bmp, then open the bmp in Gimp and save it as a low compression jpg.

I know it sounds complicated, but you'll get used to gimp and all these options I promise you. At the moment that skin isn't really worthy of a render, but I might do it later just to show you the difference the colour has added. Hope this helps, and I wish you the best of luck.

Tristan

edit: Also, always make your skins AT LEAST 1024*1024 pixels. Any less is just a waste of effort. For renders it's better to use 2048 or even bigger (depending on the quality of the render you're after), but 1024 is fine for most people.

Ta for the tips. will try that

vanirl, in gimp, and other progs of that style:
u gotta get used to be working with layers
learn how to use the tools (brush, eraser, pencil, cut etc.)
learn how to modify selections
learn how to change the resolution of a file (to 1024x1024 @ 300dpi)
and learn how to save proper .jpg's

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ <--check this link out, im sure it will save you ALOT of time

then, u can make a renderable skin

Quote from Righteous :

Taken a while to get it done, but here is a render of the Norway XFR. Sorry for the delay.

not bad man, not bad.. i like it
you could use a little bump map on the asphalt though
(and a better resolution texture maybe)

Tristan
I THINK I got it - looks a bit better ????

Quote from vanirl :

Tristan
I THINK I got it - looks a bit better ????

no vanirl.. its still 512x512 at 72dpi i guess
u must do a 1024x1024 at 300dpi

@Vanirl: You are using gimp or paint? Do you understand what are layers? I suggest that you find some tutorial(s) about layers and then download the masterskinnerz layouts and use them.

Using paint has several cons which will make your skinning process slower and the outcome worse. I use Paint shop pro myself but there are good freeware progs for the task (other than gimp): http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=5339

If you want to use paint shop pro, send me PM and I'll help you starting with it. I am by no means a good skinner but I can help you with the basics

It (paint shop pro X) has a 30 day limit so choose wisely

Ta for the replies so far.

Hey guess what, just discovered that I actually have Jasc Paint shop pro 8 on my PC. Have tried messing with it for a bit and to be honest it has me beat so far.
It seems to be complicated – just like gimp. (like I say a simple chap am I)
The only handy thing I see is that you can overlay a grid which would make it easier to map out the design.
All this talk of layers, dpi’s, anti-alaising, vector lines had me baffled at the moment. I guess I need to get a hold of someone who can sit with me and show me the ropes. However I will bash away at it and see what I can do

Quote from vanirl :

I guess I need to get a hold of someone who can sit with me and show me the ropes.

That'd be an online tutorial.

Vain

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ <--- Vanirl go there

Quote from Righteous :

Taken a while to get it done, but here is a render of the Norway XFR. Sorry for the delay.

ty very much..very nice indeed

Quote from ramtech :

not bad man, not bad.. i like it
you could use a little bump map on the asphalt though
(and a better resolution texture maybe)

Yeah i could But its just a ingame texture sooo.... was never designed for this sort of thing.

It is just a simple scene I set up for things like this. Not to long to render, looks good enough

I save bump maps and displacement maps, incident angles etc for my own work

Glad you like though

ok ok
no worries
(btw, u can search on google for good texture maps, remember to go to advanced image search, and select large images)

Having spent most of tonight getting to grips with paint shop pro and producing a skin (see picture fox paddy) I then added a little bit more and the whole dam think went askew.

Any one got any ideas what I did wrong. Al I did was save the file
I also include the skin file (fox paddy 2)


Talk about frustrated:twirl:

you rotated it (shift-S I think). You should be able to rotate it the other way 90 degrees to correct it. But looking a lot better with colour now. Try to make them bigger in future, that one is 512x512, you really need at least twice that.

And if you can save as jpg in paint shop pro. Click Save As..., then choose jpg. Before you click save, click options (bottom right of save window) and lower the compression to 1 or 2 (smaller number = better quality but bigger files).