In this tutorial you will learn how to make a track loading slide in a style that's quite close to the one used in the vanilla game's ones.
Stuff you'll need
- GIMP [portable version] - image editor (version 2.10 shown; while you will still be good if you're using the latest version -3.0.4 at the time- you can use the GIMP 3 version of the template instead, which has several filters pre-applied as non-destructive effects)
- My track slide templates
- FSHTool [download] - QFS/FSH file unpacker/packer, for slides and vidwalls
- Earth Normal font [download] - font used for the car names in the slides
- Future Earth [download] is also a good alternative (there's a layer in the template that uses that font since it has different metrics)
GIMP's user interface
If you're not famliarized with GIMP, I will give you a quick rundown of the UI so you can get yourself acquainted with it. Here's the default UI for version 2.10
- Toolbox: here's where you will find most of the tools used for editing, like selection, paintbrush, bucket fill, text, etc. By default tools are grouped into several groups (which are indicated by the small arrows on the bottom right of the buttons); to select another tool in the group, right-click on the button to display the available tools in that tool to select them. Also, you can select the foreground and background colors (the black and white squares, respectively)
- Tool options/Information/Undo history/Recent files tabs: for this tutorial we're just going to focus on the Tool options; here's where the selected tool's parameters can be configured.
- Brushes/Patterns/Fonts/Messages tabs: not important for this tutorial.
- Layers/Channels/Paths tabs: here's when you can manage the image layers, channels and paths. We'll just focus on layers and paths.
Step 1: Uncompressing the .qfs files
- Unzip FSHTool into a folder
- Copy the fedata\art\slides\t#_00.qfs file from the game's folder into the FSHTool folder
- The # stands for the track number, here's the list of numbers with their corresponding track:
- The # stands for the track number, here's the list of numbers with their corresponding track:
- Now either drag the .qfs files into the FSHTool.exe file to uncompress them; a new folder with the file name will be generated for each file.
Step 2: Making the slide background image
- Take a screenshot of the track in-game; remember to disable the HUD with F5 first.
- Also I recommend to take it under the highest resolution possible
- You can also use a photo that's more of less representative of your track if you want something closer to the style of the game.
- Make sure you have installed the Earth or Future Earth font.
- Unzip the files of the templates to a folder and open the track_vidwall.xcf file in GIMP. Select the base layer in the trackimg group by clicking on its name in the Layers pane.
- Open the screenshot you took and resize (go to Image > Scale Image) it to 640px width if neccesary. Then copy it (Ctrl+C) and paste it (Ctrl+V) into the base layer of the template. You'll see there's a white dotted border which is the selection and in the Layers pane there is a Floating Selection layer; that's what we've pasted. Pick the Move (keyboard: M) tool in the toolbox, then click and drag the layer while holding Ctrl (to keep it sticked to the image edges) to adjust it.
- When you're done, anchor the selection to the layer below (base) by going to Layer > Anchor Layer (Ctrl+H). You will see the yellow dotted border, which is the layer boundary will change size; we don't want that since we'll need all the layers in that group to have the same size.
- Select the trackimg group by in the Layers pane, then go to Layer > Mask > Mask to selection. Go back to the base layer. You will see the selection now fits the image; now we'll crop it to that selection by going to Layer > Crop to selection. The layer size is now adjusted to the selection.
- If you want to adjust the image contrast, go to Colors > Curves. For example, you can adjust the curve a little like this (moving the bottom left point towards the right will make the darkest colors in the image darker and moving the upper right point towards the left will make the brightest colors brighter. When you're done, click OK .
- Copy the layer (Ctrl+C), switch to the blur layer and paste it (Ctrl+V) in there. Now go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the following values. Click OK to apply it and anchor the layer.
Step 3: The track name text
- Pick the Text (T) tool in the Toolbox, then go to the track name layer any of the trackname folders and triple-click on it to select all the text; type the track name afterwards, the layer name will change as well.
- Leave a space after the text so the last letter won't get cut off.
- If you're using the Earth font, type your text in uppercase; if you're using Future Earth, type it in lowercase or lowercase with some letters such as T, Y or H in uppercase if you're using the Future Earth Variants font.
- Press Esc to exit text edit mode, then pick the Unite Transform (Shift+T) tool. Move the pivot point right to the
text's upper right corner, then Ctrl-click and drag to the right the
diamond shaped point on the top side of the layer; use the placeholder
text below as a guide for the shear (which is around 16 in the
upper-right value of the Transform box). When you're done, click on Transform or press Enter.
- Select the shadow layer below the text, right-click on the text layer and select Alpha to Selection, then go to Selection > Grow and grow the selection by 3px. Then pick the Bucket Fill tool and paint the selection black.
- Deselect your selection, then go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a blur using these values. Then go to Layer > Crop to Selection to crop out the empty space in the layer.
Step 4: The track map
- Take a screenshot of the track map in-game. To do so:
- Set the map to full screen by tapping the Tab key.
- Start a race, switch to bumper cam and turn 90 degrees facing a dark wall; drive up close to it.
- For better results, set track time to night and turn off your car lights with the L key.
- Open the screenshot and pick the Select by Color (Shift+O) tool. Set the threshold to 75 and click on the track map to select it (you might have to zoom in). If there's anything else than the map selected, you can pick the Rectangle Select (R) tool and Ctrl-click and drag to deselect the parts you don't want.
- Go to Select > Grow, set how many pixels you want to grow the selection (that will depend on how big and complex your map is, alongside resolution; I will pick 3px for mine) and click OK. You will see the selection is now thicker
- Pick the Free Select (F) tool, then deselect the parts of the map you don't need by Ctrl-clicking and making a shape around those; press Enter to confirm the deselection. Then bridge the gap that's missing by Shift+clicking, selecting in a way that bridges the gap and press Enter when done.
- Go to the Select > To Path, you will see now a red outline lies in place of our selection; that's a path.
- Now go to Layer > New Layer... (Ctrl+Shift+N). Name the layer course and click on OK. Make sure you have black as foreground color (you can reset the default colors by pressing the D key); then switch to the Paths tab and right-click on the path of the track course, click on Fill Path, choose Solid Color and click on Fill. You will see now there's the path is now filled.
- Deselect everything and copy (Ctrl+C) the course layer, then go back to the template file and paste it (Ctrl+V) into the mapbase layer; go to Layer > Crop to Content and use the United Transform (Shift+T) tool and resize (by clicking and dragging the edge handles) and move it into place on the rightmost part of the image. Press Enter when done and anchor the layer when you're done.
- Go to Layer > Crop to Content to crop out the empty space off the map, pick the Alignment (Q) tool, set Relative to to Active layer in the Tool Options and click+drag just over the image and map area to set an alignment selection. In the layer list pane, select the base layer in the trackimg folder and press the Align middle of target button to vertically center the track map to the track image.
- Go to the start layer of the trackmap folder, pick the Move (M) tool, then click and drag the start icon to where the track start/finish line would be.
- Select the trackmap folder in the layer list, then go to Layer > Transparency > Alpha to Selection, and go to Selection > Grow and grow the selection by 2 px. Go to the shadow layer, pick white as the foreground color and paint the selection with the Bucket Fill (Shift+B) tool, deselect everything by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A, then go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set a blur of 3 and click OK.
- To save the track slide, go to File > Export (Ctrl+E) or File > Export As (Ctrl+Shift+E). Save it as 0000.bmp in the T#_00 folder of the qfs file you uncompressed with FSHTool. When the export options dialog shows up, use the settings shown below and click on Export
Step 5: Compiling the .qfs files and setting them in-game
- Go to the T#_00 folder and drag the index.fsh file into the FSHTool executable (you might need to open a second window to do this)
- Copy the t#_00.qfs file and paste it into the fedata\art\slides folder of NFS3 (make backups first!)
See you around!
