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First of all, make sure your system can run GTA 5 minimum and that your gpu has a good amount of memory (1GB/2GB VRAM) Then, head to your desktop and right click. Now, click on the NVIDIA Control Panel Then, when you have the control panel up, head to 3D Settings > manage 3D Settings. This is what you should currently be seeing Now click on Program Settings, and then click on the bar to select a application, select GTA5.exe When you are onto that, scroll down to the following. Power Management Mode > Prefer Maximum Performance If you have a Dual/Quad or more CPU - Threaded Optimisation > On If you have 1GB to 2GB VRAM - Triple Buffering > On Optional VSync: High End Systems: Adaptive Low End Systems: Adaptive (half refresh rate) Then Apply the settings, screen may freeze for a second, this is normal. Then close down NVIDIA Control Panel Start up GTA V and watch the FPS difference (difference may vary between systems) My Specs and FPS I hope I have helped many users with FPS issues to get their game to the speedy game they want! Please leave a comment or PM if there is anything else in the NVIDIA Control Panel that I have missed!

This is for people with low end computers who need the extra few fps. All you need to do is go to your settings.xml which is located in C:\Users\Username\Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V and open it with notepad. Find <ShadowQuality value="1" /> and change the 1 (or whatever number that's there) to a 0. Note: in-game by shadows it will say undefined.

here's a tutorial on how to attach lights to each other so you can as many lights on a car you want

Hello!! I'm here to show you how to make your ELS lights brighter, if you are using a ENB that you really like but the ELS lights are not bright, this is the tutorial for you!! (Pictures included if need :)) 1) Go to your GTA directory 2) Go to Common/Data 3) Look for Visualsettings.dat 4) once you find it, open it and look for "# other.emmisive.lights" 5) Change "car.default.emissive.on" to 100, 6) When you get in-game, if it's too bright, lower the number, if it's not bright enough, make it a higher number Any questions or comments? Post them below or PM me!!

I thought this would help people out that need some basic understanding on how to install Plugins into your LSPDFR mod I did a video tutorial found here: NEW FOR YEAR 2020 I speak about several mod installation. Simple installment process but very detailed, Step by Step for beginners. Hope you find it useful. ~ Benzo

I guess you can say a video speaks a thousand words, or maybe I speak a thousand words in the video. For an in depth Tutorial on how to Install LSPDFR, Rage Hook, Script Hook V. I get your game working!! You may visit my video here NEW for YEAR 2020 I go into detail on how to actually install a fresh version of the following: LSPDFR Rockstar Launcher Script Hook V Hopefully this Tutorial helps people out. I have others as well, showing how to install Plugins. If you would like me to post those as well I can do that. Cheers! -Benzo

It''s shitty but its something!

Here are some simple steps for ELS setup. Extra_1 (Primary Flash) Color- Usually blue Extra_2 (Secondary Flash) Color- Usually red Extra_3 (Secondary Flash) Color- Usually blue Extra_4 (Primary Flash) Color- Usually red Extra_5 (Wig_wag 1) [ will activate to take-down 1) Color- Usually white Extra_6 (Wig_wag 2) [ will activate to take-down 2) Color- Usually white Extra_7 (Traffic Advisor 1) Color- Usually orange/yellow Extra_8 (Traffic Advisor 2) Color- Usually orange/yellow Extra_9 (Traffic Advisor 3) Color- Usually orange/yellow Dummy Primaritives (Extra_1) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_2) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_3) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_4) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_5) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_6) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_7) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_8) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. (Extra_9) Size 0.04 Scaled on X-Y-Z axis. Extra_1 Should consist of, Extra_1_L0 & Extra_1_L1 Extra_2 Should consist of, Extra_2_L0 & Extra_2_L1 Extra_3 Should consist of, Extra_3_L0 & Extra_3_L1 Extra_4 Should consist of, Extra_4_L0 & Extra_4_L1 Extra_5 Should consist of, Another Dummy named Extra5, size should be 0.02 scaled on X-Y-Z axis. Extra5 Should consist of L0 & L1 also. Extra_6 Should consist of, Another Dummy named Extra6, size should be 0.02 scaled on X-Y-Z axis. Extra6 Should consist of L0 & L1 also. Extra_7 Should consist of, Extra_7_L0 & Extra_7_L1 Extra_8 Should consist of, Extra_8_L0 & Extra_8_L1 Extra_9 Should consist of, Another Dummy named Extra9, size should be 0.02 scaled on X-Y-Z axis. Extra9 Should consist of L0 & L1 also. (If no second dummy is added to Extra5,6,9 They will mostly likely not flash, or will be darker then the rest) Example, I did not have L1's but make sure you create them. (Hope this helped)!

Important Resources: Scripthookdotnet Visual Studio 13 or up .Net Framework 4.5.2 Tutorial Start: 1) We will begin with this base script: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using GTA; using GTA.Native; namespace Mod { public class Mod : Script { public Mod() { //set interval Interval = Settings.GetValueInteger("INTERVAL", "SETTINGS", 10000); //bind tick event this.Tick += new EventHandler(ModTick); //bind keydown event. this.KeyDown += new GTA.KeyEventHandler(ModKeyDown); } //tick method, ran every 20 secs public void ModTick(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (Player.Character.isInjured) { Player.Character.Health = 1000; } } //key down handler //A lot of your script will go here public void ModKeyDown(object sender, GTA.KeyEventArgs e) { if (Keys.F6 == e.Key) { //Add some kind of code to happen on key press } } } } Be sure you go to references, and import all listed at the top. 2) I will now provide some code sources below: Car Spawning Vector3 vehPos = World.GetNextPositionOnStreet(Player.Character.Position.Around(10.0f)); World.CreateVehicle(new Model("POLICE"), vehPos); Vehicle Repair Player.Character.CurrentVehicle.Repair(); Wash Vehicle Player.Character.CurrentVehicle.Wash(); Max Player Health Player.Character.Health = 1000; Max Player Armour Player.Character.Armor = 1000; Change Player Model Player.Model = ("M_Y_SWAT"); Player models can be found here Change Player Voice Player.Character.Voice = ("VOICE NAME HERE"); Example of player voice Player.Character.Voice = ("M_Y_COP_WHITE"); 3) Before exporting your script, go to properties and make sure you are using Framework 4.5.2 or above. On your build and assembly name, add ".net" to the end of it! Now build the file, and add it to your scripts file! Video Tutorial Here

Below, I will try and walk you through of how to make your first script in my mod creator. 1)To begin, we want to load the program up and be sure to have the "Coding Help Tool" open. **If you wish, clear all text from the box and paste this, -- Mod Name by Author, v1 local modname = {} function modname.tick() local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID() 2) We will first add a title for the mod, I'm going to call mine Tutorial. Replace all the modname with the name you want the mod to go by. 3) under "local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID()" we are going to begin the mod. For today's mod example I'm going to give the player godmode, a 5 star wanted level, and unlimited ammo with three different keys. 4) We will choose the key we want the user to press to enable Godmode, I'm going to use F4. After choosing the key from the coding help window, select the function or item you want the key to enable or do. For mine, I used "Player Invincible" 5) To end this function of the mod, we will then press the button from the coding help window that says End "If..." Statement Your script should now look something like this -- Tutorial by Author, v1 local Tutorial = {} function Tutorial.tick() local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID() if get_key_pressed(Keys.F4) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_INVINCIBLE(player, true) end 6) We will now add the wanted level to the player. I want the user to press F5 to enable the wanted level. I will find the F5 button on the coding help window and press it. 7) Next, I will will select the button that says "5 Star Wanted Level" 8) To end this function of the mod, we will then press the button from the coding help window that says End "If..." Statement Your script should now look something like this -- Tutorial by Author, v1 local Tutorial = {} function Tutorial.tick() local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID() if get_key_pressed(Keys.F4) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_INVINCIBLE(player, true) end if get_key_pressed(Keys.F5) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_WANTED_LEVEL(player, 5, true) end 9) For the last part of this mod, I want the player to have unlimited ammo. I want the user to be able to press F9 to enable unlimited ammo. 10) Find the "If F9 Is Pressed" button in the coding help window and press it 11) Next, find "Infinite Ammo" button in the coding help window and press it 12) To end this function of the mod, we will then press the button from the coding help window that says End "If..." Statement Your script should now look something like this -- Tutorial by Author, v1 local Tutorial = {} function Tutorial.tick() local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID() if get_key_pressed(Keys.F4) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_INVINCIBLE(player, true) end if get_key_pressed(Keys.F5) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_WANTED_LEVEL(player, 5, true) end if get_key_pressed(Keys.F9) then WEAPON.SET_PED_INFINITE_AMMO_CLIP(playerPed, true) end We now need to end the script! 13) If you have closed the coding help tool, re-open it 14) Find the button in the coding help window that reads "End Script" 15) Press it 16) Make sure you replace modname with the name of the mod you chose. Your final script should look like this -- Tutorial by Author, v1 local Tutorial = {} function Tutorial.tick() local playerID - PLAYER.PLAYER_ID() if get_key_pressed(Keys.F4) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_INVINCIBLE(player, true) end if get_key_pressed(Keys.F5) then PLAYER.SET_PLAYER_WANTED_LEVEL(player, 5, true) end if get_key_pressed(Keys.F9) then WEAPON.SET_PED_INFINITE_AMMO_CLIP(playerPed, true) end end return Tutorial Exporting Your Script 1) Go back to the main window with the code 2) Click File in the corner 3) Click on Export Script (Or press Control+E in V4.0) 4) Save it in the location of your choice; however, be sure it is all one word!! Click the letters below to download my script! Version 4 of Mod Maker includes "Import Scripts" feature! Tutorial.lua

First Find a Car you like Download it from the LSPDFR page or a website of your choice. Extract it (Personally I Use WINRAR) Youube videos on how to use that Once you have extracted your folder open, openIV (download from internet) Once you have your vehicle folder and open iv open go into edit mode. Button on the top. Use the read me in the vehicle folder to tell you where to go! E.G Update/X64/DLCpacks (in the read me its should tell you what dlc pack to go into) patchday3ng/ dlc.rpf/x64/levels/gta5/vehiclesrpf/ find the car your replacing (should tell you in the read me file. and select those files (Example police.2) find all the files (police 2 ) and highlight them and then press the green plus button at the top of the screen. After selecting the green cross find where you extracted vehicle files and select all of them. Simple (kind off) now your new cop car should be ready in game for you. Hoped this helped if not message me and i will walk you through it..

Material Types for GTA IV vehicle modding Grand Theft Auto IV requires pre-defined rendering types in order to draw polygons in its shader-based RAGE engine. All of these shaders can be found in the directory: Grand Theft Auto IV/common/shaders/win32_30 However, you will only find shader names in this location, and no details about them. This tutorial will help you understand how each material should be set up with its corresponding shader All materials in Zmodeler must have one of these shaders specified: badges basic chrome disc generic interior interior2 lightsemissive mesh paint1 paint2 paint3 rims1 rims2 rubber shuts tire vehglass I have searched online, and I haven't figured out how to set up all of these materials as of yet; however, the ones in bold are commonly used on GTA vehicles and should suffice in any car mod. The rest that aren't in bold can be ignored for now. ------ Naming materials: Every material must be set up with a name and a shader. For example: vehicle_generic_tyrewallblack tire Note that the section in blue is the name of the material and the section in red is the shader name. The name of the material can be anything you want, but it is commonly easier to name it the same as the main texture that the material is using. In this case, the vehicle_generic_tirewallblack.png texture is being used for this material. In addition, many of the GTA shaders can render polygons differently, resulting in varied appearances. All of these settings can be found in the directory: Grand Theft Auto IV/common/shaders/db If you look at some IV vehicles, such as the Merit or the Lokus, you will notice that polygons of the headlight glass have this mixed shader type applied to them. In this case, the mixed type is lights(vehglass) lights represents the shader, and vehglass represents the setting for that shader. This type of material is commonly used for when you have glass in front of headlights that are mapped to a lightsemissive material, which both the Merit and Lokus have. ------ Paint colors: Many shaders in IV also allow them to be painted different colors. Examples: paint1 [CLR:2] This means that this material will use the second color number value in the carcols data line (#1,#2,#3,#4,) and it will use the paint1 shader. paint2 [CLR:1] This means that this material will use the first color number value in the carcols data line (#1,#2,#3,#4,) and it will use paint2's metallic paint shader. [CLR:3] and [CLR:4] use the 3rd and 4th carcols color number values, respectively. ------ Material Setup: Each material requires that they are properly set up in order to export and appear properly in GTA IV. This requires that you apply the corresponding textures to the corresponding texture layers for each material. In order to specify the settings for each texture layer, press the "Edit" button and set up the layer accordingly. Note that you do not want to UV map any object(s) until you have properly set up the material. This could lead mapping issues afterwards. badges interior/interior2 lightsemissive mesh paint1 paint2 paint3* shuts tire vehglass [lights(vehglass), etc] ------ Reference resources for this tutorial: forum.zmodeler3.com

This tutorial only applies to vehicles with multiple extras. Once we have the vehicle setup to our liking, we'll want to attach the extras together so ELS will actually work in-game. First things first, check to see if the lighting equipment has any "helper" (or similar) folders within the main folder itself. As you can see, there are two helper folders here. Drag these helper folders out of the main equipment folder (in this case WhelenEdge and Whelen_Talon) above the vehicle model (police.wft). Once the helper folders are no longer inside the main equipment folder(s), proceed to delete the equipment folder(s) (this is not a requirement, but it keeps things tidy) by right clicking on the folder and selecting edit/delete. Open up the helper folders, as you can see there are multiple extra 1 and extra 4 folders. These are what we will be attaching (only attach the extras if there is more than one set). At this point, decide which light bar will be the "main" one you will attach everything to. For this tutorial, I have selected the Whelen Edge (the second helper folder) as the main light bar. Open the extra folders, inside you should see a extra_L0 file. Drag the extra_L0 files out of this folder and into the main light bar (WhelenEdge) extras folder. You should now see duplicate extra_L0 files. Right click on the main light bar folder (WhelenEdge) and select "Show isolated", this will hide all other layers/folders but the one selected. The hierarchy and view panels should know look like this... and oh no! The car is gone! Don't worry, this is perfectly fine. Now hide the main light bar base (the actual bar itself, not the extras - these should be named differently). You should end up with a view like this. Under the tools tab on the left hand side of your screen, click on modify and then click attach. Making sure Selective Mode is off (keyboard shortcut - space-bar), attach the extras to each other (extra_1_L0 to extra_1_L0 and extra_4_L0 to extra_4_L0, ect) by clicking on the secondary (talon) extras and selecting the primary (edge) extras. The duplicate extra_L0 files should now disappear from your hierarchy. This means you have successfully attached the extras together. Right click on the main light bar and click "show the rest". This should reveal all hidden layers/folders. The extras folders (where you took the extra_L0 files from) can now be deleted (once again, this isn't required, but it keeps things neat and tidy). If the vehicle has any sub folders inside the lighting equipment folders (as shown, there is a misc_g folder inside the talon helper folder), drag them out and delete the original folder. At this point, rename any folders that are named the same (in this case I've changed "helper" to edge). Place the lighting equipment folders (edge and misc_g) inside the vehicle model hierarchy folder. Because the lights are mounted on the roof and dash of this vehicle, they're fine to sit under the chassis_L2 file, however this is dependent on the lighting position (ex: if you have lights in the grill, they should go inside the "bonnet" folder. NOTE: Always make sure the extra_L0 files are above the lighting equipment model, such as the base/stand, itself!). Hopefully this tutorial helped you. If you have any questions, please leave them below and I will try my best to answer them. :)

My tutorial on how to install LSPDFR, Callouts, Vehicles, Sirens, Arrest Manager & Police Radio.

Including Installation, Scripts, Car Mods, etc I took some time out to make a complete tutorial since I had my files reset to basics for a while. Maybe this helps some people who are new to LSPDFR and modding :) - Kev

This tutorial is about how to make your own mod for Grand Theft Auto 5, Basically makes it much easy to code your own mod, or if you want to & know everything just need a program download it here https://www.gta5-mods.com/tools/grand-theft-auto-v-mod-creator Owner(s) Text: " Just for everyone's concern, this program makes it EASIER to make script mods for GTA V. It will not do everything for you, You will need to have some knowledge of either C# or LUA to create a mod, you will also need to know how to call natives (see Guide). For those who are complete noobs when it comes to making these mods, learn some of the scripting language first, that way you know how everything is laid out, and how to properly declare variables and functions. I personally will help you if you contact me via skype: zy.co.sha.dy , just know, I do not answer right away, I am very busy & dont always have a lot of time on my hands to be throwing code between skype messages. I thank you all for using this program, and have a nice day. " Disclaimer: Just to get things down, I'm just promoting the Owner ( ZyDevs ) Content.

So, some of you have asked the community of LSPDFR, "How do I edit the startup.rphs" or "How do I make plugins load without doing it manually?". Well, I'm here to show you. REQUIREMENTS: Notepad++ (https://notepad-plus-plus.org) LSPDFR v0.1e (http://www.lcpdfr.com/files/file/7792-lspd-first-response/) ------------------------------------ STEP 1: Installing Notepad++ Firstly, go to the website I provided above (https://notepad-plus-plus.org) Then, download the latest install from the "download" page. Install Notepad++ using the installer that you downloaded. The installer should look like this: ------------------------------------ STEP 2: Editing the startup.rphs file Go to your GTAV root directory Right click the startup.rphs file, choosing "Edit with Notepad++". It should look something like this: Click it, open up the file. You should get something like this: Edit to your needs! Enjoy! ------------------------------------ Useful information You should put WarnOnPluginLoad false on the top, so plugins such as Finkone's Police Radio can load once. You should only load plugins you trust - don't load plugins that seem sketchy. You don't need the quotation marks when putting a plugin in the startup.rhps, for example: You don't need quotes when loading PoliceRadio.dll as it is one word, but you need quotes when loading LSPDFR First Responce.dll because it has spaces. For example, here's my startup.rphs: Contact me on steam (http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198057563592/) or PM me if you have issues.

Now that the issues with OpenIV and ped export/import have been fixed, you can edit default ped models. Doing much more than basic model editing is kind of complicated, and requires 3D modeling knowledge. However, there is one very useful thing you can do without knowing 3D modeling: combining different ped meshes. What is a ped mesh? It's a component like head_002 or uppr_001. For example, for skinny cops, the long sleeve shirt is one mesh, and the leather jacket is another. By combining them, you can have cops with only short sleeves and jackets; cops with state trooper pants; state troopers with a regular cop's long sleeve shirt (instead of their weird one); etc. So how does this work? To start with, you need OpenIV. OpenIV can export .wdd files to its own format, called openFormats. Crucially, openFormats are text-based. To export a model to openFormats, first navigate to componentpeds.img (click the arrow next to GTA IV or EFLC, under pc\models\cdimages). Then, right click it, and select "Export to openFormats (.odd)". Make a new folder somewhere, and select it. Then, hit "OK". Open the .odd file in your favorite text editor. Each gtaDrawable section represents one mesh. It doesn't contain the actual mesh; all it does is to tell OpenIV about the mesh when you import this back in at the end, so OpenIV can set up the .wdd properly. Let's look at one section of it: gtaDrawable lowr_001_u { shadinggroup { Shaders 2 { gta_ped.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI LOWR_NORMAL_001 35.00000000 0.20000000 1.00000000;0.00000000;0.00000000 LOWR_SPEC_001 1.00000000 gta_default.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI } } skel { skel m_y_cop.skel } lodgroup { mesh { high 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh 0 9999.00000000 med 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_med.mesh 0 9999.00000000 low none 9999.00000000 vlow none 9999.00000000 center 0.00081600 0.07059900 -0.52030600 radius 0.54099200 aabb.min -0.23394000 -0.14672600 -1.00492300 aabb.max 0.23622800 0.28086400 -0.02737300 } } } Seems complicated, right? We don't actually need to worry about most of it. Let's go through line-by-line: gtaDrawable lowr_001_u This is the mesh name. The lowr_001_u tells OpenIV what mesh it's dealing with. The lowr means that this is a lower-body mesh (i.e., a pair of pants). The 001 is the number of the mesh. The rule for these is that they have to be unique within a given type, and range from 000 to 00n, where there are n+1 meshes of that type (i.e., there is lowr_000_u and lowr_001_u; uppr_000_u through _003_u; etc.) Worry about this at the end. I don't know what the _u is; since we're not making our own meshes, just keep it _u if it started as _u (which seems to be clothes), _r if it started as _r (seems to be heads), etc. All you would ever need to change is the number; the lowr_ and _u should stay the same. gta_ped.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI LOWR_NORMAL_001 35.00000000 0.20000000 1.00000000;0.00000000;0.00000000 LOWR_SPEC_001 1.00000000 gta_default.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI Ignore the numbers. All you need to care about is the LOWR_*_001_* parts. Those represent textures for the model. Now, GTA seems to select ped textures its own way; read my tutorial on ped textures for details. This probably just controls OpenIV's preview of the ped. Even so, you may as well update it when you have to. Again, all you'd change is the number in there. skel m_y_cop.skel This defines the skeleton that this mesh maps to. You want it to be the same as the name of the odd file, but .skel instead of .odd. high 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh 0 9999.00000000 med 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_med.mesh 0 9999.00000000 This is the key part of the section. It tells OpenIV where to find the mesh file. In your folder, you should have seen a subfolder called m_y_cop (or whatever). That has a lot of .mesh files inside. The m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh is actually literally a filepath for the mesh. OK, this explanation of the file format is done. The next post will have a tutorial to do stuff with these files. How do we do stuff with this format? Some stuff should be clear. For example, let's say we want to get rid of the raincoat (uppr_003_u). We just delete that section in the odd. That's all. (in this case, we'd also delete lowr_001_u, because it's the pants that go with the raincoat, but that's a special thing about m_y_cop). Note also that if we instead had deleted uppr_002_u, we'd have to renumber uppr_003 to uppr_002. How do we renumber? We need to change the number in the header and in the textures section. Don't change it in the meshes section. This is key: under no circumstances should you modify the path to the mesh. Now, let's do something cool: adding the white cop head. This is easier than most additions, because the textures for the head are already in m_y_cop.wtd. Here's how we do it: First, export m_y_cop.wdd (the GTA IV rendition, not the EFLC one. If you have EFLC, you can find this rendition in pc/models/cdimages/componentpeds.img; the EFLC-specific one is in the TBOGT and TLAD directories, and while this would work, the textures aren't already there, so it's harder). Next, we need the mesh for the white head. Fortunately, as Custo discovered, TLAD's m_y_prisonguard.wdd is just a modified version of IV's cops. In particular, it has all 3 heads (though it doesn't have a raincoat or short sleeves). So, we want to export that to the same folder we exported m_y_cop.wdd to. Next. open both of the .odd files in a text editor. Find the section called "gtaDrawable head_002_r" in m_y_prisonguard.odd. Copy it into m_y_cop.odd, just before the final closing brace (but after the second-to-last brace). Since it has the right number, all we need to do is change the skeleton. Change it from m_y_prisonguard.skel to m_y_cop.skel. Save the file. We're now done with the openFormats (see how easy that was?) Now, all that's left is importing it back in. OpenIV can do this too. Go to componentpeds.img, and click the "Edit Mode" button up top. Under "New", select "Import openFormats". Browse to m_y_cop.odd, hit OK, and wait for it to finish. Now, double click m_y_cop.wdd to preview it (this specific feature is why I first started using OpenIV above SparkIV). Select head_002_r, and check that it looks OK. If it doesn't, you made a mistake somewhere (you didback up, right?) It probably does, though. If it does, you're done! Launch GTA and see the white cops now patrolling Liberty City! For more advanced mesh combinations, there are additional steps. First, you need to renumber the mesh you add so it doesn't conflict (or, if you remove a mesh, renumber the other meshes so they have the proper range). Other than that, the biggest issue you're likely to face is textures. GTA doesn't seem to care about the texture you assign in the openFormat. Instead, it matches textures to meshes the following way: uppr_001_a_uni reads as *meshname*_*letter*_*race* (letter acts like the mesh number). If you read my "Ped Texture Discoveries", you saw more detail on this. What does it mean for you? Well, let's say you delete a mesh, renumber, but don't fix textures. What you get is the texture for, say, the long-sleeved shirt being applied to the jacket. This can look really weird, and is definitely not what you want. So, what you have to do is delete the textures for the mesh you removed, and renumber the higher textures. To rename a texture in OpenIV, make sure you're in Edit Mode, open the wtd, and double click the specific texture. Enter your new name. To delete a texture, highlight it and hit "Delete" on your keyboard. Obviously, you have to delete or rename a texture before you can give another texture its name. Also, if you have added a mesh, you need to add textures for it. What you want to do is drag the appropriate textures from OpenIV to some folder (click the name on the left of the wtd browser, and drag to Windows Explorer). They'll show up as PNGs. Renumber the textures by changing the number in the file name. Then, open the wtd for the model you're changing, and drag the PNGs to the window. Hit "OK" for mipmap generation, and you're done. Any questions? Comments? Other ped modelling information? Post below!

Hey guys - I just did a quick video because a good bit of you guys are asking me how I get my game setup the way it is. This ins't everything in terms of setting up... that video would be hours long. This is just a start for those confused on the most basic level of where to put stuff. Just google the file names if you need them ("LCPDFR 1.1 download", "LCPDFR ELS 8.0 download" and "Cry3ENB GTA IV download" - you should be able to find them rather easy.) Heres a link to the video none-the-less. After getting all that setup - lets move on to install ELS 8,0 cars, and even new uniforms! Have Cry3ENB but not sure what else you can do with it? Lets adjust lighting in real time, in game!

Just follow the pictures_:

In this tutorial, I will share my tips on creating textures using raster graphics software (such as GIMP or Adobe Photoshop). Since I first started skinning, I've since realized that texturing vehicles would likely be better served by Vector graphics software (such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator). If I were to start learning again, I'd try vector graphics. But I didn't, and I've only learned to use raster for texturing, so there you go. There are many great text and video tutorials on the ins-and-outs of raster editing programs such as Photoshop, but few of them on the specifics of creating textures (a.k.a. skins) for vehicles such as those in GTA. I'm going to concentrate on those specifics, but for more general image editing help, you'd be better served by searching the web. I'll concentrate on vehicles for GTA IV, but most of these tips work for other game textures such as pedestrians or signs, as well as other games like GTA SA, or vehicles in flight or truck simulators. While I strive to be as accurate and informative as I can, I am by no means a professional artist. I'm a hobbyist, learning his way as he goes along, just like many of you. Feel free to add your suggestions and/or corrections. Most images here have been scaled down and can be clicked to view in larger sizes. I'd also like to thank all the photographers and artists whose images appear in this tutorial. Without such visual aids, it would be much more difficult to teach. I've covered many different aspects, each in its own lesson: Lesson 1: Basics Lesson 2: Layers Lesson 3: Positioning & Reference Points Lesson 4: Text & Fonts Lesson 5: Normal Maps Lesson 6: Optimizing a Simple Logo a: Colour Correction, b: Adding Realistic Detail Lesson 7: Creating a Complex Logo From a Car Photo Lesson 8: Creating Simulated Reflective Vinyl Lesson 1: Basics If you're completely new to modding GTA, I suggest you acquaint yourself with installing mods before you create your own skin. Editing Software: Any Windows PC comes pre-installed with MS Paint, but I'm afraid it'll be too limited for what we need. Adobe Photoshop (PS) or Corel Paint Shop Pro are great, if you can afford them. But there are free alternatives that have nearly all of PS's functionality. paint.net http://www.getpaint.net/ is popular, but I haven't used it much. Since I'm familiar with The GIMP http://www.gimp.org/, I'll be referring to it throughout this tutorial. Regardless of which program you use, remember there is a wealth of great tutorials on the web, specific to each program. If you haven't used any of these programs before, I'd try editing an existing texture first, before you make your own from scratch. Just be aware that if you change someone else's work and release it on the web, that most artists require their permission for you to do so, or at least that you credit them for their original work. Check the readme if one's included, or contact the artist if you're not sure. The last thing anyone wants to hear is "Mr. X stole a logo from Mr. Y's car. Mr. X is a thief! Mr. Y's a selfish jerk!". We don't need that drama, we're here to have fun. File Types: GTA IV imports & exports textures in .png format so our final product will need to be saved as a .png. However, while we're editing, .png has its limitations. You'll likely want to save yourt work as you go along, before it's finished. I suggest you save your work in one the following file types: -.psd for Photoshop, -.xcf for GIMP, -paint.net has an available plugin to read .psd files This allows you to save your work while keeping information such as seperate layers. What are layers? I'll explain in our second lesson. You've got a car downloaded, it came with skins already installed, and it likely came with a template. Since it's such a popular car, I'll use Bxbugs123's CVPI as an example: Note that the above template is an example only, it's been scaled-down for easy viewing here. For best results, use the full-size one included with your downloaded car. The template shows you reference to where the skin will be applied, but it is not intended to be included as a part of the skin. If you fill in the template itself with your desired colurs, text, etc., it will look poor. I'll asume that you want a quality skin, or you wouldn't be here. So, how do we utilize the template, 'painting' on top of it, and then getting rid of the template later? By using layers. Lesson 2: Layers "Layers? Sounds kinda technical, what about text, or stripes or something?" Text, stripes, logos, etc. are all best used in seperate layers. "GIMPtrick"'s video on YouTube does an excellent job of describing the "whats" and "hows" of layers, I have the "whys" for us below. There's a few reasons to use layers. You can have the template on the lowermost layer (like the 'tabletop" in the video), and 'paint' the solid background colour on a middle layer, your stripes on an upper layer, and text on another layer. I go a step further, and make each stripe colour on its own layer. This way, there's no gaps or bleed-through with two or more adjoining stripes. just like the dots in the video. If we need to correct the position or colour of one stripe, we can do so without affecting the other layers. I'm going to make a replica of the Ontario Provincial Police Crown Vic: Russell County (Rockland) O.P.P. by smitty93, on Flickr So, let's open our CVPI template with GIMP, and right away, save it as an .xcf file. Our main background colour is black, so let's make a new black layer. Right-click on the background layer, create a new layer, and for simplicity, call it "black". GIMP will automatically select the newest layer for us to paint on, but if we needed to work on the another layer, we can click on it in the layers dialog, and edit on that layer. "Whoa! Where'd the template go?" Don't worry, we can hide it. Either completely, by clicking the little 'eyeball'... : ...or partially, by lowering its opacity (making it partly transparent), both found in the layers dialog: We're now done with the black, so let's hide it completely, so we can see what we're doing. If you hide the template as well, you'll see the canvas is grey checkers, representing transparency. We'll need the template though, so let's leave it visible. --Note regarding white backgrounds-- Some GTA IV vehicles support 'transparent' textures. They already have a white base, so no 'white' layer is needed. If you leave the skin's background transparent, you'll achieve a smaller file size, and a texture with slightly more detail that "pops" from the car, as if it were really decals. Most of Bxbug's cars require soild backgrounds, while LUXART's support transparency. If you're not sure if your car uses transparent textures, just paint the background solid white. You can tell whether or not by viewing the original textures in SparkIV. This example of LUXART's texture is transparent, notice the grey checkered background: Let's make some more layers. The white paint, the stipes, logos, etc. will all be in seperate layers. Let's do the white paint next, by first creating a new "white" layer. We can verify that we're actually working on the "white" layer, and not the "black" or "template" because "white" is selected in the layers dialog. The roof's simple, it's all-white, so we'll draw a box and fill it with the bucket tool. The front doors need a little more precision, so that we don't paint the rear doors as well. We'll lower the opacity of the while layer, to around 50%, so we can see both the white and the template. We'll zoom in and paint with the brush or the pencil, erase some if we need to, all the while not affecting the black layer, template layer, or any other layer. Here. I just need to finish painting along the left gap between the doors: Repeat the process for each new colour, stripe, logo, etc. Creating text will automatically create a new layer as well. I'll give more tips on text & fonts in lesson 4. Remember, you can keep saving your work as an .xcf or .psd as you work. When you've finished, you'll need to save it as a .png., which doesn't allow multiple layers. GIMP will ask you if you'd like to merge the layers, or you can do so yourself before hand. Right-click on each layer in the layers dialog, and select "merge down". You can now delete the template layer also. Don't worry, If you need to change something later, you still have the .xcf copy in all its layers. Lesson 3: Positioning & Reference Points How do you know where to put details like logos, text, & stripes, or what size they should be? We can use a photo as a layer, and use it like we would use tracing paper. It should be noted that we are NOT using the photo as part of our final texture. We are using it for reference only. Think of it as using a projector on a white wall, projecting a photo on the wall, and painting what we see in the image. When we're done, we'd turn off the projector, or in this case, toggle the layer off or delete it. Since the above reference photo is a nice side-shot, let's save it, and drag it into our texture in GIMP. The photo is now its own new layer. We'll get rid of the excess background by placing a box around the edges of the car and selecting "crop to selection" from the Layer menu. (selecting "crop to selection" from the Image menu will crop the entire image, we don't want to do that). We'll resize it so that it's roughly the same size as the car in the template. Lower the opacity of the photo layer, and position it over the car in the template. If the photo still doesn't fit, you can rotate it, or even change its perspective. This is an extreme example, to give you an idea. Resizing, rotating, and such can degrade the image quality a little bit each time, so we'd normally be concerned about overdoing it. But we aren't concerned here, since we won't be using any part of the photo itself in our texture. When we're ready to save the final texture as a .png, we'll delete the photo layer completely. I'm sure you can see the benefit of putting the real car over the template, especially if this car had a more complex design. Now you can perfectly place all of your details, in their own seperate layers. Here, I've added details such as the crown, "O.P.P.", "POLICE", black and white stripes. None of these details are actually sourced from the reference photo. The text is made with the text tool, stripes with the brush tool, and the crown is taken from a different, high-res image (I'll describe how in a future lesson). When we delete the photo layer, the details will remain, in perfect proportions and positions: Lesson 4: Text & Fonts Since lettering makes up such a big part of our textures, I've tried to put a lot of info in this lesson. Many of the methods here are also applicable to logos, stripes, or whatever. Finding the right font: If you have a sample image, and don't recognise what font is used, you can try asking in the forums, or searching yourself. I have samples of some common fonts below. Identifont lets you identify a typeface by answering a series of questions. WhatTheFont lets you submit an image, and then automatically searches its database. Just remember to crop your example image so that only the lettering is visible. Note that not all lettering is necessarily a "font", and therefore may not be type-able. An example would be the scripted "Ford" in the blue oval logo. Such lettering would need to be "hand-drawn" (literally or digitally) in order to duplicate. Font Samples: These are just some of the many fonts that I use for vehicles, in not-much of a particular order. When making licence plates, "Roadway", "Mandatory", and obviously "Licence Plate" are useful. Editing the text: By this, I don't mean editing what the text says, but how it appears. When we input text with the text tool, GIMP creates a new text layer. We can tell it's a text layer by the 'T' icon: While it's a text layer, we can change things such as the typeface (font), the font size, colour, whether each line is aligned left, center, or right, and the spacing between each line or between each letter. We can also change the word itself, in case we need to correct a typo. If you've closed the text editor box shown in the centre here, you can reopen it by right-clicking the text layer in the layers dialog and selecting "Text Tool". Some editing techniques will alter the layer in such a way that it's treated like any other layer. From then on, we can't edit it with the tools in the text editor, such as changing font, etc. These methods may be used with things other than text as well, such as logos and stripes, but are especially useful here. For example, if we need "slanted" text, and there's no italic version of a typeface, we can use GIMP's shear tool to angle it right or left: After. Note how the layer called "POLICE" no longer has a 'T' icon. This means that GIMP no longer considers it to be a text layer: Often, the text is either too tall or too short, relative to its width. We can scale the text either vertically or horizontally to achieve the proportions we want. Here, I've reduced the vertical size, in order to 'squish' the text: After: Let's make a red outline to the text. I've selected red as my foreground colour, and created a duplicate of the text layer. To do this, right-click the layer and select "Duplicate Layer". The new layer is called "POLICE #1". Here' I've selected the "POLICE" layer to work on, you can tell by the blue in the layer dialog. Right-click the "POLICE" layer again, and select "Alpha to Selection". This puts dotted lines chasing each other around the text: Now from the "Select" drop-down menu, select "Grow". Note that only the dotted lines grow, not the image. Here I've grown the selection by about 4 or 5 pixels: We can now fill that selection with the bucket fill tool. To fill the entire selection at once, hold down the shift key, instead of filling each letter seperately. The black layer is on top of the red layer, but if they're mixed up, just move them around with the little green arrows in the layers dialog. To make a fade between two colours, use the Gradient tool (just to the right of the bucket tool). Here, I've selected the outline again by using "Alpha to Selection". I have grey as the foreground colour, and red as the background colour. I've clicked the cursor at the bottom of the text, and dragged it to the top. Here's a basic square to illustrate how placement of the cursor affects the gradient fade: You can fade at any angle you wish. By going diagonally, it makes the fade go diagonally: Like I mentioned before, these methods are also very useful for stripes, logos, or whatever you need. Lesson 5: Normal Maps You've likely noticed in SparkIV some strange textures, usually licence plates, that look like this: It's called a Normal Map, and creating it is actually quite easy once you know how. "Wait, what is it, and why do I need one" It's a type of bump map, used for 'faking' the lighting of bumps and dents, without using more polygons. Here's a video: If you aren't using GIMP or Photoshop, you can create them with programs such as ShaderMap (free) and ShaderMap Pro (payware) or CrazyBump (payware). If you are using GIMP or PS, there's free plugins available for each, that let you create Normal Maps right in the program. For Photoshop, nVIDIA makes one here: http://developer.nvi...adobe-photoshop, and for GIMP, you can find one here: http://code.google.c...imp-normalmap/. Apparently, there was an nVIDIA plugin for Paint Shop Pro, but it doesn't work with the latest version. As always, I'll be using GIMP for this lesson, so go ahead, install the pluin, and open GIMP. Each normal map texture is paired with a regular texture, the same dimensions, and for the most part, identical other than the obvious strange blue/purple colour. Some recent vehicle mods have the licence plates as a part of the main texture, but many still have the plates as seperate textures, usually 512x256 pixels. They're usually called "backplate" and "frontplate", and their normal maps are called "frontplate_n" and "backplate_n" Here's a 512x256 "frontplate" that I made: We'll make a copy of "frontplate" and call it "frontplate_n", which will end up as our normal texture. We want the numbers to appear as though they're higher than the background. This particular style of plate has "CA EXEMPT" painted on, but it isn't stamped into the plate like the numbers are: 1044243 by Carbon Arc, on Flickr For realism's sake, we don't want the "CA EXEMPT" to appear any higher than the background, so we'll just fill it in: We're now ready to create our normal map, and actually, we're almost finished. Select Filters - Map - Normalmap: And this window will appear: There's a lot of options here, but you don't need to mess around with much. Two things you will need to adjust are: a: Filter type. There's 4sample, Sobel 3x3, Sobel 5x5, Prewitt 3x3, etc. These will all have different effects on the intensity of the normal map. You can play around with them, and it'll show you how it'll look in the preview. I find Sobel 3x3 works best for my uses. b: Notice that I have "Invert X" and "Invert Y" checked. This is because the filter creates a normal map based on lightness and darkness. Normally, it will make dark areas low, and light areas high. Since this is the opposite of our licence plate, we need to invert them with the checkboxes. An alternative would be to make a plate texture with a dark background and light letters, but this is simpler. Press OK, save your work, and that's it! Lesson 6a: Optimizing a Simple Logo: Colour Correction Sometimes, a Google image search will provide us with a perfect replica of a logo such as a door crest. Often, we aren't so lucky, and we'll cover those instances in Lesson 7. For now, let's do some minor editing on otherwise good logos. If you click & view the largest size of this photo, you can see the rear side window decal is for Nevada Crime Stoppers: IMG_9156 &quot;Nevada Highway Patrol&quot; by saxxon57, on Flickr Google image search only comes up with some red or black logos, not yellow: We're going to turn the above solid image into a transparent yellow one. In the Layers dialog, mouse over the layer and right-click. Select "Add Alpha Channel". This allows us to add transparency. With the "Select By Colour" tool, click the white area, then right-clic, select "Edit", and select "Cut". There might be some stray white pixels around the edges, but that's fine for now: If we just went ahead and bucket-filled everything, it would either leave rough edges, or not fill in everything, or both. Instead, we'll use the "Colourize" function. The next step is only needed since there's more than one colour, in this case black and red. From the colours menu, select "Brightess-Contrast" and slide the contrast all the way to the left. This will make everyting the same shade of grey. Otherwise, in the next step, the portions that are currently red will always look lighter than the black ones. Now, to make it yellow, from the "Colors" menu again, select "Colorize". By using the "Colour Picker" tool on the priginal photo, I know the yellow color should be around Hue: 33 and Saturation: 51. Adjust lightness as needed: To match the photo, we can delete the "OF NEVADA" bit, and resize the numbers, but I think you get the idea. Lesson 6b: Optimizing a Simple Logo: Adding realistic detail It's easy to find a great quality logo for a force as large as the RCMP, such as this one from Wikipedia: Heck, it's even a transparent .svg file available in sizes from 200px to 2000px, and if you weren't as picky as me, you could scale it to fit and just use it as-is. But, I think what seperates a good skin from a great one are the details. On this close-up of an RCMP car door, we can see the decal has a white background that is a little larger than the logo: RCMP Door Logo by mile105, on Flickr It's greyish-white because it's made from reflective vinyl: DSC_0043 by C-GCLL, on Flickr We're going to add the greyish-white surround to the RCMP logo from Wikipedia, in just few simple steps. I've opened the 500px version of it in GIMP. We can see the canvas is no larger than the edges of the logo: We need a bigger canvas to put our white surround onto, so from the "Image" menu, select "Canvas size", and change the width from 500 to 550 pixels or so. Move the logo to the centre of the canvas, and you'll see the layer is still 500px wide, as shown by the yellow dotted lines: From the "Layer" menu, select "Layer to image size". We're going to make a copy of the layer to make our white with. Mouse over the background layer in the Layers dialog, right-click, and select "Duplicate Layer". The top layer we'll leave unchanged. Working on the bottom layer now, mouse over the bottom layer in the layers dialog, righ-click, and select "Alpha To Selection". This will put dotted lines around the border of the logo. From the "Select" menu, select "Grow". In this case, I chose to grow by 6 pixels. How much you need to grow may take some trial and error. You can see the selection's dotted lines are bigger than the logo now: Finally, with a suitable greyish-white as your foreground colour, just bucket fill the selection: Holding shift while you bucket fill will fill the entire selection, leaving no gaps between the white and the logo. That's why I chose to leave the original logo in an upper layer. Merge, and you're done! Round, oval, square or rectangular decals are even simpler. Just make your lower layer with the "Rectangle Select" or "Ellipse Select" tool. For instance, my Los Angeles Sheriff and Police Departments skins both have simulated clear backing to the "Emergency 9-1-1" decals on the fenders, such as here in the lower left of the photo: LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT (LAPD) by Navymailman, on Flickr Here, I'd just make a rectangle, a little lighter than the black paint, and place my white "Emergency 9-1-1" lettering above the rectangle. Here's the final result (click for full size): Lesson 7: Creating a Complex Logo From a Car Photo As I stated before, sometimes finding a suitable logo isn' so easy. Search for "Michigan State Patrol logo", and you'll find many like this: On its own, it looks good, but it's not quite the same as what is actually on the cars: Michigan State Police cars -- Door Seal on 1992 Ford Mustang 5.0 by Corvair Owner, on Flickr Using the photo above, I'm going to show you how to create a perfect logo nearly from scratch, and end up with something like this: If you'd like to work on the same image yourself, you can download the original size herehere A big thanks to Corvair Owner on Flickr for the photo. Step 1a: Finding a suitable photo. Large, high-resolution photos, taken straight on to the subject work best. The larger, the better. Even though the final logo we place on the template will be shrunk down to around 125 to 200 pixels high, the process we will use to create it will work best if it is much larger. Shadows, reflections, or body creases can be dealt with, but are best avoided if possible. Smaller photos, or ones shot at an angle aren't impossible to work with, but will make our job more diffucult. The photo I've chosen isn't perfect. If we used the logo as-is, the body lines and reflections would show. Our goal is to remove these imperfections. Fortunately, it is high-res, in focus, and shot straight-on. Step 1b: Optimizing smaller photos, in case you can't find a large one. The CVPI's door is 250 pixels high from the window to the rocker panel. The logo we place on it won't be any larger than that, but a larger image will be easier to work with. If the largest image you can find is only 250 or 300 pixels high, it's best to enlarge it before further editing. In GIMP, from the Image menu, select "Scale Image". A good rule of thumb is to double its width and height. It won't appear any more detailed at first, but it gives us four times the pixels to manipulate. For reference, in our case, the logo will be 194 pixels high. Using my method from Lesson 3, I placed a photo over the template to determine placement and size of the logo. I measured the height using the "Measure" tool: Step 2: Seperate each colour into its own layer. Stay with me, it's easier than it sounds. With our Michigan State Police logo, we have only four colours: gold, navy blue, black, and a little bit of red. At least, that's how the vinyl was printed. In the photo, none of the colours are uniform, due to the reflections. The gold and blue are lighter at the top, and the black is nearly grey. We'll correct each one seperatly, in its own layer, and keep the original photo in its own layer as well. I cropped the image to just the logo area, just to make life simpler. Now's a good time to save the work as an .xcf, so we can save as we go and keep our layers intact. Let's start with the gold. With the "Select By Colour" tool, left-click on the gold area. The dotted lines show what has been selected. As you can see, it only picked some of the darker area below. To add the lighter areas, hold "Shift" and click the missing areas. To un-select an a shade, hold "Ctrl" and click it. You'll likely need to zoom in to see what you're doing: You might not need to go too crazy picking every little stray pixel. In this screencap, sone of the edges near the black aren't selected, and some of the black is selected, such as the sun: We'll do our best to preserve these details, but in reality, many of them will be lost when we scale down to fit the template. On the other hand, had we started with a small photo, these details might not even be picked up at all. Once you're satisfied that you have enough gold selected, mouse over anywhere in the main window, right-click, select "Edit", select "Copy". Right-click again, select "Edit", select "Paste". We now have our gold on its own, so let's make it its own layer. Mouse over "Floating Selection (Pasted Layer)", right-click, select "New Layer": I've hidden the lower layer to show the gold by itself. Now, it's even more apparent that it's all sorts of different shades: We're ready to make it all one colour. With the "Colour Picker" tool, select the pedominant colour, or whatever you feel is the correct shade. In this case, I picked the upper part of the elk. In the "Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo" dialogue, mouse over the new layer, right-click, and select "Alpha To Selection". This will select all the gold area with dotted lines again. Now, we just use the "Bucket Fill" tool to paint everything the same colour. Hold "Shift" as you click it, and it will fill the entire selection in one go. If you need to un-select the gold again, just click the main window with the "Rectange Select" tool. Repeat the process for the black layer. As long as you dont select and drag them around, each layer will stay aligned. Sometimes, there will be some portions that were selected, but aren't part of the logo (black horizontal lines, in this case). Just erase them from the black layer, as I've started to do here: Another issue with my black layer is that some areas weren't picked up at all, for instance where the black and gold meet. To fix it, I paint it by hand, purposely "painting outside the lines" and going into the gold. Here, the black layer is above the gold: But, if we move the black layer below the gold, it's easier to work with. Using this method ensures that there's no gap between black and gold. Since the gold layer's edges are nearly perfect, it looks best on top: **Tip: you can quickly and easily change the paintbrush and eraser size with the "[" and "]" keys.** Correcting these errors is the most tedious part of the process. You don't have to be perfect, but major errors will likely show up after we scale it down. Here's my finished black layer. Looks awful, right?: But with the gold layer above it: For the blue, we don't even need to select/copy/paste it. Create a new layer, below the gold and black ones. Just paint it all in by hand, like I did when I corrected the black. This will ensure there's no gaps between the blue and the other colours. Lastly, we'll tackle the red. This is a very colourful and detailed area, notice that the gold layer didn't pick up the lettering: Since it has no errors on its own, We'll just copy it as-is from the photo layer: Copy, paste, and create new layer as before. Using the "Eraser" tool, we'll erase the surrounding blue. Since we already created a nice black layer (which we'll place above), we can erase some of the black edges so that we're sure there's no blue left: That should just about do it. Saving a copy your work as an .xcf file will keep each layer seperate, in case we need to go back and darken the blue layer, for instance. But for the final product, we need to merge all the layers. From top to bottom: gold, black, red, blue. The MSP logos are different from the right side of the car to the left, so we need to reverse ours for the other side. After merging, make a copy of the image. In the new image, make a copy of the layer by right-clicking it and selecting "Duplicate Layer". Flip the new layer with the "Flip" tool. Here, I've lowered its opacity so I can tell them apart. You might need to move it side-to-side a little to line up with the lower layer: Hide the upper layer, and erase the "lightning bolt" part from the lower layer: Now, working on the upper layer, erase the edges of the crest: Move the upper layer down below the lower layer, merge the two, and fill in any gold near the edge of the crest and lightning bolt, and it's done: From the Image menu, select "Scale Image", and make it 194 pixels high. Copy & paste it onto the template, using the reference photo for near-perfect fit: Since it's much smaller now, many details have been lost. Some were good, and some were bad. In scaling it down, the image was smoothed a bit. We lost some sharp details that looked nice, and lost some rough edges and imperfections as well. That's why we don't have to be super-picky with errors in the high-res version. If, after scaling down, we still spot errors, we can easliy go back to our full-size .xcf file and correct them. If I choose to make the blue darker, or the gold yellower, etc., I can easily do so, since I still have the original copy, seperated into layers. I hope this helped you create your own high-quality logo. Lesson 8: Creating Simulated Reflective Vinyl Ridgerunner had asked for this lesson long ago, but until now, I hadn't posted it to the public.? Note that I said "simulated". This lesson is intended to teach how to make you graphics appear as though they're made from reflective vinyl, but they will not react to the light as, say, a specular map can do. The basic steps are 1: Create our graphics such as stripes, lettering, logos normally, as if they weren't reflective. 2: Create a seamless pattern that looks like our desired reflective material. 3: Apply the pattern to the desired areas, but in a new layer. Regardless of the type of material, the process of applying it to the texture is the same. Step 1: Creating the base graphics. We likely want the reflective pattern to appear on the stripes only, and not the background "paint" of the car. When creating the graphics, leave them in their own layer, don't merge them to a soild background before applying the pattern. If you want the pattern to be applied only to certain sections, it's even better to leave those sections in their own layer, although it's not essential. Step 2a: Creating a seamless pattern from scratch. We can make a pattern from scratch, or from an image. First, we'll make one from scratch, and later, after I've shown step 3, I'll show you how to make one from an image. Making one from an image is a little more complicated, and it might make more sense if we've already learned what we're trying to achieve. Create a new image in GIMP, only 2x2 pixels large, with a transparent background. Make one pixel 100% black. Create a new layer, and make two more pixels, in opposite corners. Make them also 100% black, but lower the layer's transparency to around 50%. Merge the layers and save the image. Your scratch-made pattern is done, but leave its window open for now. (There's a way of saving it as a pattern instead of an image, but this method works fine for me). This is just a basic pattern, and might not be best for every type of reflective decal, so feel free to experiment with different sizes and arrangements. Step 3: Applying the pattern. Open your car texture. In this example of my RCMP Taurus, all of the graphics are in a single transparent layer, with the template in a separate layer. Here's a closeup of the driver's door: Select the layer you want the pattern applied to, right-click the layer, and select "Alpha to Selection". This will apply "crawling ants" dotted lines around the edges of the graphics: Create a new layer, since we won't be applying the pattern directly to the graphics yet. Leave the window open, and go back to the pattern you made. Right-click it and select "copy", then go back to the car texture again. Select the "Bucket Fill" tool from the toolbox. In the lower part of the toolbox, there's some options. Under "Fill Type", select "Pattern Fill". The default pattern will likely be "Pine", but we'll change it regardless. Click the little "Pine" box, and a window with a bunch of patterns will show up. the one in the top left is called "Clipboard". It's whatever the last item we copied was, in this case, or scratch-made pattern. Select it. The "crawling ants" should still be there around our graphics. In the new layer, use the "Bucket Fill" tool to fill the "crawling ants" with our pattern: If there's areas of the graphics that you don't want the pattern applied to, just remove the pattern with the eraser tool, as I'm doing here on the crest: Of course it's way too dark, that's why we kept the pattern in its own layer. Depending on the pattern, you may need to experiment with the layer to get it to look right. In this case, I just reduced the pattern layer's opacity to 14%: But, you may want to try different modes of merging. In the layers dialog, it says "Mode: Normal". Beside it is a drop-down menu, with dissolve, dodge, burn, etc. If you haven't used them before, try each one to see how it effects the texture, and remember you can still adjust the opacity as well. Once satisfied, merge the layers, and you're done! Here's the same pattern, applied to a different livery, and what it looks like in real life. Click for larger sizes in order to see the reflective detail: City of London Police, Octavia Police Car by BillKatyGemma, on Flickr

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl5sc4Rxp1k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl5sc4Rxp1k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCJc4idjTIU !! In Case you can't read the Font in the Video or it's rolling to fast !! 1. ) Go to your GTA 4 Folder 2. ) Go to common/data 3. ) Open the "Vehicles.ide" with Notepad 4. ) Serch the Car and add "+Livery" at the End of the Line 5. ) Save and Done