Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question

Why do cars appear compressed in .ace files? When I load some car .ace files into TGATool2, the car sides appear compressed: tall, thin windows and doors, with equally distorted and skinny lettering and logos. And, of course, it looks the same after I send it to the editor. Must be a reason why this is done, but I'm too new to understand why and need some help coping with it. Am trying to repaint some full length passenger cars with different lettering and numbers, using PSP8 as my graphics editor.
Question: how can I "un-compress" or stretch the car back to its original length in PSP8 so I can a add lettering, etc.? Must be a way, but I sure can't figure out what the procedure is and am unable to find the answer here in the forum, or even in the re-skinning tutorials.
At the same time, do I have to squeeze the car back to it's original compressed length before saving the file back to TGATool2?
I'm certain this is not the first time the subject has come up, but its got this 'newby' stumped and in need of help!

JonBuck

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RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, GreatNortherner, Jul-30-04, 09:11 AM, (1) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, pwillard, Jul-30-04, 11:11 AM, (2) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, jbuck36, Jul-30-04, 04:23 PM, (4) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, jbuck36, Jul-30-04, 04:17 PM, (3) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, nkp2041, Nov-22-04, 02:10 PM, (5) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, pwillard, Nov-23-04, 07:16 AM, (6) RE: Here's Another Basic Re-Painting Question, CARex, Nov-23-04, 11:21 AM, (7)

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Hi,I don't know whether there is a more practical solution to this, but there's a function in PSP, any version I guess, called "resize" (should be in the image menu). Using this function, you can either resize width/height at the same rate, or you also stretch the image only in either one of it. To get the image back into an .ace it has to be quadratic. So you have to resize it back.Keep in mind, though, that the picture looses quality when made larger (even when made smaller again afterwards). That can be quite dramatical, especially if you enlarge/shrink/enlarge more than once.Regards,
Mike

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It's a result of the Face unwrap process... and is part of the modeling process.It can be avoided, but it takes time and attention to detail. If you just take default, you can end up with distorted unwraps.Other times, it's to make up for the fact that you are stuck with 512x512 pixel bitmap sizes and you trying to make the most of space available.If you have a 70' long but not tall car, you might want to make it so the image is horizontally compressed a bit so that when it applies to the 3D model it stretches it to the right size. You get the most of the limited bitmap size that way.I personally dislike this approach and do my best to avoid distortion... and it is possible.KUJU didn't seem too concerned.
Pete Willard

http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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Ah Ha! So that's why. I was wondering what the significance of the 512x512 was. I wish KuJu had not done it that way, but I guess we'll just have to work around the limitations. Thanks for the lesson Pete, and for all the other responses you've given me in the past. Thanks to guys like yourself, my learning curve is much less painful!! Best Regards:

JonBuck

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Thanks for the tip Mike. I'll try it out but will be careful not to stretch/compress any more than I have to in order to get the lettering on that I want.

JonBuck

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OK, I get it, but ... is there a STD amount "most" guys use to compress their PSD/PSP files before writing the targa file? If not, does anyone have a clue what the original 512 x 512 size is for the Columbus Loco works GP30's? 512 X ???.As an aside, since they seem to be "gone" where do I get permission
to repaint one of their GP30's?

- Dave

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LAST EDITED ON Nov-23-04 AT 07:16 AM (EST)


Nope. No standards.
Basically... it's a battle over real estate and the creator messes with it until it "works".
Pete Willard
http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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I just came to this realization myself (where’s CLW)!!It strikes me, from viewing the ‘CLW/assorted other re-painter’ Read Me files, that repaint/reissue permission appears to be understood providing that you include the CLW documentation.That’s just the way it looks to me. But I’ve been wrong before!!Have a sparkling day.
Bob

O/O, CEO, CFO, COO, CC&BW

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