Using Custom Skins
The custom skin system of rFactor 2 can be very confusing at times so I will explain a little more about it.
If you want to paint your own car then it's well worth reading the official guide as that will tell you the requirements. The following tutorial will assume you have a custom skin made already/downloaded and need to install it.
I will explain 2 methods used in game, the "ALT skin" and "new driver".
Advantages of the "ALT skin" method is that your skin will display for you even if custom skins aren't enabled on a multiplayer server. The "new driver" method may cause issues where they aren't enabled and you may get kicked from the server.
Contents
Method 1 - ALT Skin
Step 1 - Downloading
For this method you will have your skin packed up into a MAS file (see the official guide above).
For this example we will use an existing skin for the Tatuus USF-17 car (available on workshop) which you can download here.
Once downloaded you will see the archive contains lots of MAS files.
We will be able to use any of these for any car in the USF-17 category.
Step 2 - Choosing the car
Go into the game and choose any of the original cars. In this case I choose the #9 then press "customise".
Step 3 - Create an in game folder
Press the paint can (edit skin) then press the "create skin folder" button.
You see we now have a path where to put our MAS skin file. Make a note of this for the next step.
Step 4 - Where to put your MAS file
Open Windows explorer and navigate to your "rfactor 2/player/settings" folder. Then the path shown above (in this case "Tatuus_USF-17_2018\09ARMSUPA25F68FA").
Extract one of the MAS files from the skinpack you downloaded and put it into the folder (right).
Step 5 - Put your skin on the car
Go back to the game and press the "reload skin" button. You can now choose your custom skin with the left and right arrow. You may have to do it a few times before it picks up the custom skin.
There you go! All you need to do next time you enter a server/start a race session is press customise on your car and choose your custom skin like we did above. It should stay on your custom skin but I always double check on server entry anyway.
On a server (if custom skins are enabled) your name should have a green tick next to it in the standings to indicate people will be able to see your custom skin.
You can have multiple skins for the same car just make sure you pick them before you start your race session.
Method 2 - New Driver
First, follow Step 1 & 2 of the ALT driver method.
Step 1 - Create the car
Instead of pressing the paintcan we will be pressing the + symbol to create the car.
The game may warn you a skin folder hasn't been created, in this case click the "Create Skin Folder" button.
Extract one of your MAS files to the folder name then go back to the game and press "Reload Skin".
With the left and right arrows choose the skin you want for your car (the boxes on the right will light up and will be enabled for you to fill in).
Step 2 - Fill in your details
Fill in all the boxes, once you have the "Create team car" button will enable.
These details can be changed later if you made a mistake or just want to amend any of them.
Once you click the "Create team car" button it may look like nothing has happened, "team car created" will be displayed at the bottom when it's done.
Step 3 - Choosing your car
When you go back to the main menu you will now see a new car in the list. It will be listed under the description we entered in step 2, in this case "test".
Also, if you go check your car folder you will see some extra files have been added.
When you enter a server/start a race session your name and team will be displayed how you entered them above.
Step 4 (optional) - Amending details.
As stated earlier there are some new files and folders in our car folder.
You'll notice that if we open the folder with the driver name we chose, it has a MAS file inside. You may want to change this at a later date and put another skin inside. But, we will need to edit the *.rcd file, so let's take a closer look.
Open the rcd file in a text editor.
Many parts of this file can be changed. Let's start from the top and work downwards.
Name - "Joe Bloggs" can be edited but remember to rename the folder aswell.
Component - DO NOT change this, as this is linked to the car.
Skin - If at a later date you choose a different skin, type the MAS file name in here.
VehFile - DO NOT change this, as this is also linked to your car.
Description - Change this to something you prefer, it will be what the car is listed under in the main menu.
Number - Can be changed at anytime.
Save the changes, you may need to restart the game for this to take effect.
