Re-skinning for beginners (that's me)
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 2:32 pm
I thought I'd try a couple of easy re-skins, just to get into practice. I've been reading up on the pitfalls, and one thing that caught my eye is this:
In the "Four Northerns" re-skin pack (which I took a look at first) the A image is 512x512, going all the way down to the E image at 32x32 (which frankly seems pretty pointless for detail).
Is it necessary to make a 1024x1024 image? Will it result in a noticeable difference in quality when zoomed in, or are the limits of RRT3's gfx going to make it look as rough as a 512x512 rough anyway?
I suppose the real question is what are the game default sizes? I haven't tried unpacking any of the default Popop loco files from inside the game itself. What sizes do they use for the different skins?
ETA: Oh yeah. Pictures. This is what I've been playing with.
I understand about the alpha channel, and am in the process of cleaning that up for a basic Northern 4-8-4 re-skin (tedious, but not difficult). Once I have the basics of producing simple skins sorted, I intend to re-alpha some of my favourite user-created locomotives so I can enjoy looking at them even at night. Of course, I'll make the cleaned up alpha masks available for anyone once I've finished.WPandP wrote:I know what causes it, but it is a pain to rectify.
Basically, it is because of how the game uses the alpha channel, in the skins that paint the sides of the cars and locos. Normally, the alpha channel is used only for levels of transparency. But in RRT3, transparency is all or nothing; any portion of the image where the alpha channel value is between 0 and 100% is treated as if it is to be lighted at night, and fully opaque. The windows that glow on a passenger car are just regular windows that have been set to about a 70% "transparency" in the alpha channel.
The .TGA's provided by the game in the User Skinning folder are 512x512. There isn't any 1024x1024.The other factor is that the game uses multiple skins for each car, usually an "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", and sometimes more versions of the skin file. Each iteration of the skin is half as large as the first in each direction, so they step down from 1024x1024 to 512x512 to 256x256, etc. The game swaps out these versions of the skins based on how close you are zoomed in; you only see the A skin when you are right at trackside; most of the time you're seeing a C or D skin while zoomed out. So, to create a skin, you have to resize it and save it to all these versions.
In the "Four Northerns" re-skin pack (which I took a look at first) the A image is 512x512, going all the way down to the E image at 32x32 (which frankly seems pretty pointless for detail).
Is it necessary to make a 1024x1024 image? Will it result in a noticeable difference in quality when zoomed in, or are the limits of RRT3's gfx going to make it look as rough as a 512x512 rough anyway?
I suppose the real question is what are the game default sizes? I haven't tried unpacking any of the default Popop loco files from inside the game itself. What sizes do they use for the different skins?
ETA: Oh yeah. Pictures. This is what I've been playing with.