DECALS: THE NEXT GENERATION

Hehe. Little Star Trek humor, there. ;) Every doggone day someone e-mails me asking if I have a decal sheet with my headlights on it. It doesn't bother me too much, but the persistent repetition of this question has worn me down to the point where I don't usually answer if that's all someone asks. It's also a little arduous to explain why my headlights won't work on a decal sheet like the one used in the NASCAR3 Paint Shop. So I'll do it here once, and if you don't bother reading, you don't deserve to know why. <G>

One of the first things I realized when I started understanding Layers is that eventually I'd be able to set things up to where I wouldn't ever need car templates or decal sheets again. I hemmed and hawwed until Nascar3 came out, and then I decided to buckle down and make that a reality. I stand before you today completely free of color/make templates and decal sheets. It took a little work, but man was it worth it. <G>

Here's what I did. I'll use headlights as an example. Using the lasso tool I cut out the headlight from an image I got of a 2000 Monte Carlo of the web. I then placed that headlight in the right spot, ON A NEW LAYER, on top of a blank car outline. I had to swap back and forth between Paint Shop Pro and N3 a lot, but I ALWAYS made my changes in PSP, not NASCAR. Then I included the grill opening and when I got it how I wanted, I saved the contents of the layer with the headlights and grill as a new file with a transparent background. Here's what I'm talking about. This is my latest headlight decal for the 2000 Monte Carlo. I used these on Mike Skinner's Alternative car:


The beauty of doing decals this way is that:

1) The headlights ALWAYS blend in right, on any color. You don't need a different template for each color of each make. You paint the car and slap the headlights on when you're done.
2) The headlights don't obstruct the painting process. You can paint textures or lines or whatever underneath and the headlights/decals blend in correctly all by themselves.

I also have all my door decals, front duct-work, the three manufacturer logos, the little Goodyear logo, all that kind of stuff, saved out individually on transparent backgrounds. They're all .PSP files (.PSD - 'Photoshop Documents' will save out with a transparent background as well).

There have always been two problems inherent with the NASCAR game decal sheet and they are directly related to the two advantages listed above:

1) The decals could never be made to blend in to every color background.
2) The decals couldn't be resized or have their color properties adjusted.

This new way of using decals on transparent backgrounds fixes both of those problems. Now you know why I don't even look at the N3 decal sheet anymore. ;)

The reason my headlights won't work on a decal sheet is that if I paste them onto that light blue background, when I load the palette and save the sheet, it will automatically blend the lights for that blue background. That will look horrible on all but the brightest colors, and will ruin what makes the headlights look so good in the first place. ;( That's why there is no IFREEZN decal sheet, and why there probably never will be.

So lemme have your decals then! Well, I'll be honest with ya, I'm not too crazy about letting everyone have them. I can't explain it as anything other than selfishness. I worked very hard on them, and they're part of what makes my cars special. Sharing them with everyone would diminish that a little. I'm hoping that my rather large contributions and willingness to help in other areas will make up for my blatant selfishness about this one little thing. <G>

As you get more comfortable with Paint Shop Pro you'll get to the point where you can develop your own headlights, maybe even better than mine. (I'm looking over my shoulder already <G>). Until then, you should be alright using colored templates with headlights already on them. You'll be making the numbers, sponsors and things in Paint Shop Pro, so the small decals in the N3 decal sheet should work just fine for you. ;)

Ok, enough on the decals. Now you know how I do that. I basically use decals for small things that put the finishing touches on a car.


Guess what, you're done, man! You did it! You know everything you need to know to paint a car like I do. I'll continue the congratulations in the closing, so head on over there.
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