1. When should I use skinning, and when is rendering needed? Is rendering for creating a totally new car shape, whereas with skinning is for just changing the looks of existing cars? Or do I need rendering for more advanced skinning features (like defining materials, etc.)?

2. Once I have created a skin (and it works fine in my local copy of LfS) how does the skin become publicly available (so that other racers will see the same skin I do)?

3. If the skin is uploaded to some public server, can then anybody use that skin on their own cars as well?

I tried searching the FAQ, the LfS-Wiki, and even the old forum, but I didn't have much luck finding basic information like this. Did I just not look in the right places???

1. renderings is just a very nice visual representation of a skin. At this point, you cannot create new cars.

2. You can upload your skin to a website, and hand out links or upload it here onto the forums. If you were S2 licensed, you could upload you skin to LFSWorld, where it would auto-download when you use it online.

3. Technically, anyone can use any skin they have access to, but if someone auto-downloads a skin (S2 only) it goes into their skins-x folder, so they can't use it, rather only view it.

Hope that helps.
MAGGOT

Thanks!

I'm sure I'll get my license soon. Just need a bit more on-track practice before I make a fool out of myself...

Just one more question - is there a tools available that would make it a bit easier to skin across edges? I find it quite a pain to align the roof with the two edges on the left and right, for example (I'm using Photoshop). Would 3DSMax or something similar make the job easier?

Do you use Bunta's Skin Kits?
you can find them at Master Skinnerz or here Skin Kits
there is no easier way then using good tamplates.


And i would never buy an expenisve software like 3DSMax to make some skins (render). If i remeber and converted it right it costs about 4000 canadian dollars.illepall

yea, about $3500 USD I believe.

Also, use the skin viewer available at the LFS website to view the skins. It'll save you the hassle of going into the game to view you skin every time u make a change.

MAGGOT

Yeah, I got some good templates (with the wireframes, shadows, etc.) and the viewer, but if you have a lot of stuff going on at those edges it's still quite a pain to do the alignments.

And I think I still have an old demo version of 3DSMax somewhere, but I'm not sure whether it's worth digging it out.

Well, I guess it's back to pixel pushing...