Skins Weird skinning problem?

Alphonse Uprising · Jan 17, 2018

So I'm making a skin for the Nissan GT-R GT3, and I kind of need help with something??

This might come out weird, but why is it that the skin's ambient occlusion layer blocks out colours? I'm trying to add an outline colour to the trim of the car's diffusers (I don't know what it's exactly called?) like this:

But when I try to do the same, it comes out as this:

It's not like the colour is behind the AO or being "multiplied" by it, since it's actually in front of the layer.

If I try to cut out the AO of this part, the entire chassis of the car becomes white instead of the usual carbon fiber:

And it was only then that the colour wasn't being darkened anymore.

Does anyone know what I mean??

formulaHEINE · Jan 17, 2018

You must make the 'alpha channel' white for the areas were your blue stripe should be shown, as the alpha channel controls the application of txDetail ('metal_detail.dds' or 'MAT_Carbon.dds') on the skin areas.
Check out the 'kunosart_121' skin for Godzilla, how it is done properly for RGB and alpha channel of the texture file!

Alphonse Uprising · Jan 17, 2018

Ohh I get it now! Thanks!

Alphonse Uprising · Feb 12, 2018

I have another problem. What settings do I use to export the .dds file? When I export it to DXT5, the whole thing is visible and the carbon fiber darkens the vinyls on the txDetail parts of the car.

Ryno917 · Feb 12, 2018

Remember Black in the alpha channel means the diffuse texture gets mixed with the detail texture, white means it doesn't. Any area of your skin being blended with the carbon fiber probably has black in the alpha channel in that area.

I usually export DXT5 with alpha channel, but I'll freely admit I don't really know much about the various DDS formats; I just use DXT5 because that's what had to be used in another sim when you had an alpha; there's potentially a better option for AC. I haven't cared to find out since this works for me.

Alphonse Uprising · Feb 13, 2018

The weirdest thing is, it doesn't
The whole thing is transparent, so it shouldn't be doing that.

Ryno917 · Feb 13, 2018

Alphonse Uprising said:
The weirdest thing is, it doesn't
The whole thing is transparent, so it shouldn't be doing that.

Can you post a shot of what the car looks like in game/in CM, and a shot of your alpha channel? Much easier to diagnose.

Alphonse Uprising · Feb 13, 2018

Ryno917 · Feb 13, 2018

What does your alpha channel look like? Simply making the RGB channels transparent doesn't change the alpha channel. The alpha is black and white, black=invisible, white=opaque. Anything you do not want to be blended with the carbon fiber should be white in the alpha channel.

[EDIT]: For reference, I just grabbed a skin from my skin folder (apologies to the author, I haven't gone back to see who made it - it's a very nice skin, though!

)

Here is the combined RGB channel:

Here is the alpha channel:

In the main RGB Channels, you see the livery design itself. The bare carbon areas appear just as a blank AO layer; this is so that the shading is multiplied with the carbon so that you still get shading on the carbon areas.

In the alpha channel, the livery design itself is all white, so it does not get blended. The carbon areas, which show as the AO in the RGB channels, are all black in the alpha channel so that they get blended with the carbon detail texture.

In your skin, everything you do not want blended with the carbon should be white, like the example, in the alpha channel.

Which software are you using to create the livery? If you're in Photoshop, at the very top of the Layer Palette you should see a tab called 'Layers.' Beside that is a tab called 'Channels.' Under that tab, you should see five channels: RGB, Red, Green, Blue and Alpha. Technically speaking the RGB 'channel' is just a mix of the Red, Green and Blue channels; it's basically a shortcut way to see all of them together. Each channel is a greyscale representation of the luminosity of the colour. For instance, in the Red channel, white = 100% red and black =0% red. Same for the Green and Blue channels. Colours on a computer monitor are made up of a mix of Red, Green and Blue light. These three channels control how much of each colour is shown on any given pixel of the image. The alpha channel is exactly the same thing, except it controls a different property in the image. In the case of most AC liveries, it controls the transparency of the pixels as they are multiplied with the detail texture.