Paint Tool Tutorial

Window Breakdown

Toolbar at the top

New: Abandon current paint scheme and start fresh

Save As...: When you're done with your paint, or want to save your progress to do something else, click this, select a location, name the paint scheme, and click Save.

Load...: To pick up where you left off, or start from an existing paint you've created with this tool, click Load, select the file you want to bring in then click Load.

Left to Right of the main area

Preview Window: On the left is where your 'final' paint scheme preview is.

Main work area: In the middle is where all the individual tools and options are located. The main focus being the three tabs of tools.

Layers: On the right is a list of all the layers that make up your full car paint. Other than required layers, you can toggle visibility on these layers to enable/disable them, and you can select one to bring to the main work area for further editing.

Preview Settings & Overlay Template

Live Preview Updating Checkbox toggles whether the preview window auto-updates or not when changing any settings. This is set as an option as generating the paint from all the layers can be a little time consuming. When you're changing options and don't need to see the results of the changes for each single step, toggle this off to save time.

When the Live Preview Updating Checkbox is unchecked, there will be a Refresh Preview Button to manually update the paint scheme preview window.

The Mask Visible Checkbox is checked, you'll see a gray 'outline' of the car vs the paint scheme. This is recommended to stay on so you can see what the paint will actually look like vs the car shape, but you can toggle this off to possibly find a missing layer if you have something out of place.

The Overlay Template Group Dropdown shows choices from your downloaded template groups. These should be years and possibly divisions.

The Overlay Template Dropdown shows choices from your selected template group. These should be specific car manufacturer options.

Note: You CAN change the Overlay Template options AFTER you've started a paint scheme, which makes it fairly simple to change manufacturers of an saved paint.

Template Tab

*I may add another dropdown to this section for the paint template groups, but for now this is how it's set up.

The Paint Template Group Dropdown is where you select the specific paint template you want to use.

Once you select a template, Color Buttons and Layer Checkboxes will appear with how many layers the paint template has. To change the colors simply click the corresponding Color Button and select the color you'd like to use. To toggle a layer you don't want to add to your paint scheme, simply uncheck the Layer Checkbox for the layer you don't want.

Once you are happy with your selections and colors, click the Add Selected Paint Template Layers Button

Text/Numbers Tab

In this tab you can create and add custom text and/or numbers to your paint.

Note: The preview in this area is not size specific, and will auto-scale in order to fit in the preview box.

Text/# Textbox: This is where you enter the text and/or # you'd like to create and add.

Font Dropdowns: Here you can select the font you'd like to use (the list is created from all fonts you have installed on your computer). You can also select whether to Bold or Italicize the text/number you've entered.

Preview Back Color Button: Set the color for the background of the preview window for your text/number.

Text Color Button: Set the color for the main text item

Outline Checkbox: Toggle whether you want an Outline around your text/number.

Drop Shadow Checkbox: Toggle whether you want an extra outline that you can move around.

Size Difference: Raise or lower this for a larger or smaller Outline/Shadow.

Outline/Shadow Color Button: Set the color for your Outline/Shadow text/number.

Offset X/Y Numbers: Offset the Shadow from the center of the text/number.

Add Text As Dropdown: There are numerous options here for where on the car you'd like to add the current text/number item. This, depending on the selection, might offset, rotate, and scale to fit the area you've selected. Note: Some options may add the item twice (once to each side).

Add Text Layer Button: This will add the text/number to the car where you've specified via the dropdown. Note: Some dropdown options do not resize or move the item from 0,0 on the paint scheme. All of the items can be moved, resized, rotated etc after it's added via selecting the layer and changing settings. This is explained later on this page.

Add Custom Layer Option - Layer Tab

This is where you can add custom decals or car #s to your paint that were made outside of this paint program originally. Source file must be a .png

Add Custom Layer As Dropdown: There are numerous options here for where on the car you'd like to add your custom decal. This, depending on the selection, might offset, rotate, and scale to fit the area you've selected. This option is exactly the same as the Text/Number option.

Ignore Transparent for Scale Checkbox: If your source png file has a lot of 'empty space' around the logos (which is the case for a lot of the sponsor decals from the NT04 mods), then you'll want to keep this checked. It does make the initial logo loading a bit slower, but it will make for more accurate initial scaling and placement of imported decals.

Add Custom Layer... Button: This will pop up a window to select the decal you'd like to add to your paint. Once you've selected a logo and clicked load, the decal will be added to the paint as a layer, and that layer will auto-select.

Selected Layer Options - Layer Tab

Deselect Layers Button: Deselects the currently selected layer.

Selected On Top Checkbox: Checking this will show the selected layer on top of everything in the preview window. This is helpful for more precise placement, or finding something that may be hiding below other layers.

Recenter Checkbox: This makes the layer itself center on the position X,Y values.

Color Button: Use this to change the color applied to the layer. For layers that have multiple colors, you'll likely want this to be white as it essentially is a 'shading' to apply to the layer.

Up/Down Arrow Buttons: This will move your layer up/down in the Layers area on the right side. Use this to properly arrange your different paint layers.

Rotation number: Rotation (in degrees) to apply to the selected layer. 0-360

Transparency number: Change this to make the layer partially transparent. Lower = less visible. 0.01-1.00

Lock X,Y Checkbox: This will keep the Scale X,Y values synced up, so that when you change one, they both update.

Scale X,Y numbers: This will change the scale of the selected layer. 0.01-1000.00 (though you shouldn't need to use 1000)

Position X,Y numbers: This will change the position of the selected layer on the car. The paint canvas size is 1260x1260

DELETE button: Deletes the currently selected layer. Be careful :)

DELETE ALL Invisible Layers: Any layers you have unchecked for visibility (including ones for the car manufacturer template) will be removed entirely.

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