Painting problems

Christos Andritsoudis · Dec 22, 2016

Hi guys,

My problem is that the skins I created are all glossy and strange looking as you can see in the picture...
I know there are a lot of threads concerning my problem but as of now, I could not fix my problem and I need help. I am new to creating skins and I recently just started creating a few. I create them on my MacBook on Affinity Photo, wich has the same options that Photoshop has. I am used to it and I only work on my MacBook so yeah. I don't think that it is the softwares fault.
I am using this program https://vvvv.org/contribution/dds-converter to convert the .png to a .dds .
I have also tried to import the .png to photoshop cs2 and export it with the Nvidia DDS plugin but still the same. I really do not know what to do. Do you have any ideas what could fix this issue ?

ARG1980 · Dec 22, 2016

You have to darken the alpha layer.

Christos Andritsoudis · Dec 22, 2016

There is no Alpha layer. Only Alpha channel

alexSchmurtz · Dec 22, 2016

Christos Andritsoudis said:
There is no Alpha layer. Only Alpha channel

That's 2 words for the same thing: you need to darken the alpha channel. It controls how reflective your paint is: white alpha gives chrome, dark grey gives a shiny paint, black a little bit less shiny. You can't get a matte paint in Automobilista: the paint remains always pretty shiny.
Not sure what kind of glitch you have but if you used an existing paint as a base, you might have some logos on the alpha channel; make sure you have a standard layer (as provided in the original template).

Christos Andritsoudis · Dec 22, 2016

Sorry for the noob question, but how do I darken the alpha layer ?

alexSchmurtz said:
Not sure what kind of glitch you have

In the showroom my car is very shiny and a little blueish but on track it has very weird colors

alexSchmurtz · Dec 22, 2016

Unfortunately, I have no idea how Affinity Photo works… But it is fairly easy in Photoshop cs2: go to the 'channels' tab and select 'Alpha 1':

Then, go to the Image menu > Adjustments > level. And move to the right the middle cursor on top: you should see that it darkens your alpha channel.

If it is still too bright, just fill in the alpha with 100% black!
Do not forget to make a copy of the alpha channel before editing it, in case you want to revert!

For the weird colors on track, I can only suggest to alter the colors in your paint… If you want something more bluish, you have to add some blue to your color. The color you see on track is never the color you have in your skin image: the environment is interacting with it. And it is slightly different in the showroom: not the same environment… Not ideal, you have to go in game and back to your paint program to adjust, then back in game for checking. It can be time consuming! But that's the only trick I have...

Christos Andritsoudis · Dec 22, 2016

alexSchmurtz said:
Unfortunately, I have no idea how Affinity Photo works… But it is fairly easy in Photoshop cs2: go to the 'channels' tab and select 'Alpha 1':
View attachment 164566
Then, go to the Image menu > Adjustments > level. And move to the right the middle cursor on top: you should see that it darkens your alpha channel.
View attachment 164567
If it is still too bright, just fill in the alpha with 100% black!
Do not forget to make a copy of the alpha channel before editing it, in case you want to revert!

For the weird colors on track, I can only suggest to alter the colors in your paint… If you want something more bluish, you have to add some blue to your color. The color you see on track is never the color you have in your skin image: the environment is interacting with it. And it is slightly different in the showroom: not the same environment… Not ideal, you have to go in game and back to your paint program to adjust, then back in game for checking. It can be time consuming! But that's the only trick I have...

Thank you so much mate. I will try that