6.3 Painting the Car

Overview

To paint your car you have to do the following:

  • Download a default texture from CVS.
  • Modify the default texture.
  • Save the texture in the SGI rgb format.
  • Deploy the texture.

Download the Default Texture

For some cars there is a default texture as multilayered xcf file available. If it's the case you should always download this file. You can download the files here. Go into the directory of your cars type, click on the xcf file (if available, else you have to take the rgb) in the first column, then right click the download link and choose "save link target as...".

Modify the Default Texture

If you downloaded an rgb image I recommend you to convert it into an xcf. With xcf you can use layers, which simplifies later changes to the texture (e. g. you want to change the racing number, you have just to edit the racing number layer). Don't throw this xcf away, it is much more comfortable to work with that than with rgb images.

Save the Texture in the SGI rgb Format

The texture is for a specific car, so you have to put it into the cars subdirectory. Say for bt 1 you should save the image as SGI rgb file into the bt/0 source directory.

Deploy the Texture

To deploy the texture you have to modify the Makefile in the cars directory. If we want to deploy the texture of bt 1 you have to modify the Makefile in bt/0. Change

SHIP        = default.xml

to

SHIP        = default.xml cg-nascar-rwd.rgb

After you have deployed the texture with "make install" it should appear in the simulation.

Downloads

In case you got lost, you can download my robot for TORCS 1.2.0 or later.

Feedback

Let me know if you read this chapter and your thoughts about it. Please send me also spelling, grammar, math and code corrections. Thank you for the feedback.

Summary

  • You know where and how to get car textures.
  • You know about xcf and rgb files.
  • You know how to deploy your cars texture.