Custom paintjob tutorial

[hulpje]

The custom paintjob is an item in the greencoin shop in MTA to decorate your cars with your own painted skin.

In this tutorial I will cover how to create and use the paintjob.

 

Step 1: Buy the Paintjob perk

You can buy the custom paintjob in the "GC perk" menu of F6, after buying the perk you can upload a skin and use it on all cars you have bought in the modshop. This means if you bought 50 cars you can decorate all 50 cars with 1 paintjob. If you don't like the skin you uploaded you can always update it to a new one.

 

 

Step 2: Create a skin

You probaly buy the custom paintjob because you want your vehicles to look cool. The problem is MTA unwraps the skin you use in different ways on different cars. To help you create your skin you can use the following example paintjobs:

 

Cars with default GTA SA paintjobs use this reference: (Sultan, flash, elegy)

 

Cars without paintjobs use this reference (You can't really make a good roof on these cars):

 

Because you want a paintjob that fits on cars both WITH and WITHOUT default GTA SA paintjobs you got to make a skin that suits in both situations. Thats where you can use the following reference skin for:

 

You can make the paintjob in pretty much any program, then just safe it as name.bmp / .png / .tga (doesn't really matter)

 

 

Step 3: Get the skin in-game

First click on the car you bought in the modshop, then click on upgrade this vehicle. It is possible to show any car you want by pressing View current vehicle (So you can upgrade cars your currently not racing with as well).

There are 2 ways to upload your paintjob,

 

1. From your local harddrive:

First you need to place the image you created in the following folder: \MTA San Andreas 1.5\mods\deathmatch\resources\gcshop. Then press on [Custom 1] in-game and write "name.bmp" (or whatever you name it) and click on upload. If the upload button doesn't work click on [No Paintjob] and then on [Custom 1] again. A miniature of your skin should appear. Now press on safe paintjob and it should work. (If it doesn't work click on [No Paintjob] and safe paintjob, then select [Custom 1] and safe it again). 

2. Imgur.com direct link:

Go to imgur.com, upload your image and paste that link into the gcshop and click on "Upload Paintjob"

Then you should be done.

Also works on imgur images that other people uploaded.

 

---

To display the original colors of the skin you created you have to drag the right bar in the color grid all the way up:

Edited November 20, 2017 by hulpje
Added Imgur to tutorial

[Ywa]

Pinned it.

[(O)_(O)]

Good job homie

[SDK]

pr0, nice work

[AfuSensi]

Very nice Hulpje, Now i just need 15k gc to buy the perk 

Edited January 26, 2013 by Solidbeatz

[Bob_Taylor]

i have one question, 15 euro= 15k gc?

[AfuSensi]

Yes, i just bought 15k and bought the custom paintjob, good job guys!

[AfuSensi]

Is it correct that this doesnt work in MIX?

[Bob_Taylor]

it works only race server.

[AfuSensi]

Oh thats a bummer since i mostly play on mix =(

[RofLoLmao10]

if i have steam for $20 can i buy GC 20K?

[Ruff]

Vehicles I found that it doesn't work with:

NRG-500

BMX

Jetmax

Bandito (then again, Bandito has no colors anyway)

RC Bandit

[HeArTBeaT]

does it work in Mix server too?

[Ruff]

does it work in Mix server too?

I would love to smack you to infinity and beyond.. has your species not evolved yet?

[AfuSensi]

does it work in Mix server too?

It doesnt.

 

I overheird something about that SDK needs to recode the whole thing for all the gametypes on mix or something a few months ago, but i didnt really understand it because i dont know lua or any games scripting.

[ChristinaRokker]

Here is a .psd file I've made for my own paintjobs. Opens with Photoshop.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/68017236/MTAMrGreen.psd

 

 

You can follow the general layout here for the most compromised turnouts for all your cars.

There's no way you can get each car to look perfect, as you will need to have exact same UVmaps for all cars, which of course is impossible.

So a compromise is made, and I've found that this is the best for most of the popular cars.

 

The sides will always be mirrored left and right. That's common with all models.

 

In the .psd file, The left-most sideways text, is the hood. Some cars e.g... Sultan will have this mirrored. Most other cars will not.

 

The top-most text is the side panels for some cars... e.g. Infernus...

The bottom-most text is the side panels for some other cars... e.g. Elegy...

 

Some cars have a bonus back texture which also originates from the side panel part.

 

You can use my file as a template, and change it to your own stuff! Happy texturing!

 

There is one more problem with the custom PJ, which I don't think is fixed yet.

If you uploaded your texture, the people who were NOT on the server who then later join, will NOT see your PJ. This is because they were not there to download it while you uploaded it.

 

The solution, and this is what I do, is to upload your texture file frequently. I usually reupload it when the map nears its end, so fresh joiners will see it next map.

 

Edited March 22, 2013 by ChristinaRokker

[AfuSensi]

Nice job christina.

Also when you die sometimes the pj disappears for some reason.

[Ruff]

I suggest using an abstract pattern for the best effect. This means it will fit no matter what the vehicle is. Adding logos/images of certain things will just fail your expectations.

For example, this is what I'm using:

[Rodrigo Moreno]

ROdrigo

 

[funnyguy]

Does work for Mix server?

[Ywa]

Does work for Mix server?

Currently not. Might add it at a later point.

[MegasXLR]

So at step 1 on the image it says that I can use one paintjob on all cars, but above it it is written that it only works on all the cars which I've bought. My question --> do I need to buy every car in the game to make my paintjob appear on all of them or I should only buy the perk for 15k GC and that's it? Sry for bumping such an old thread!

Edited December 11, 2014 by koragg

[SDK]

The perk will unlock a custom paintjob that you can use on all your bought vehicles.

[Guest AleksCore]

Btw perk costs pretty much tho..

P.S. other perks costs too much too. They are not really usefull but costs much for 30 days perk.

Edited December 11, 2014 by AleksCore

[neox.]

Btw perk costs pretty much tho..

P.S. other perks costs too much too. They are not really usefull but costs much for 30 days perk.

 

Maybe, but that's the point of that! you play and play and play to earn GC to buy a perk, it's entertaining.