Why i stopped painting

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM5 Discussion
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First of all: If this subject has already been touched in another thread: Please move that post to the other one. I have searched the forums and could not find anything similar. So if there exists a thread like this i apologize.

I have long and carefully thought about if i should open that thread or not. But finally decided to do so. As much fun as playing FM5 is (the physics are awesome) i really miss the painting part which for me was the most fun in FM3 & FM4. There was nothing better to win a race in a completely self made car. Be it the tune or the paintjob, ideally both. And i dearly miss the painting part. I might not be the best painter in the world and might not be as known in the community as like for example the amazing guys from Apex or Redux but i made my fair share of paintjobs and decals over the years, was part of the great logo exchange group that Nightwing set up and i know what i am doing.

So why do not continue painting you might ask. Let me elaborate.

The most important information i read when the first news concerning FM4 began to pop up iwas the fact that i will be able to import my FM3 decals into FM4. WHOOHOO! GREAT! So all the time and work i put into my vinyls was not obsolete. Thank you T10 for thinking about that! And with FM5? No such thing. Huge bummer.

I am fully aware of the fact that FM5 had to be put up from the ground for a new console. So absolutely not compatible. I am also fully aware that FM5 HAD to be a launch title for the XO and therefore HAD to be released in time. So unfortunately a lot of features had to be left out of which i am sure T10 would have loved to implement into the game. The thing about that though is that for me personally having the possibility to import all the stuff i literally put hundreds and hundreds of hours into would have been one of the most important features for FM5. Of course i have absolutely no idea how the data was stored in the previous 2 installments of the Forza franchise. But having worked as a 3D artist/designer at a company that had developed their own 3D real time authoring system, working very close together with the actual devs, i think i kinda know roughly how that works. And the amount of data should not have been the problem. A pure text file for example with all the information of a single shape (shape id, transformations, color, opacity) is less than 20 bytes. I tested that. The only issue according to a buddy of mine who works in the IT business might have been the networking stuff. He tried to explain that to me but honestly i did not understand what he exactly meant.

Anyway. Not being able to import my vinyls from part 3 & 4 keeps me from going on to continue painting. I am not willing to again spend countless hours with the paint editor. And i really dig the guys that still are. Kudos to that. On the other hand: If you take a look into the “Race Paint” sub forum, there are so many old names missing that i suppose many of them feel a bit like me.

The second part though that really annoyed me, was the fact that some of the cars still have unpaintable areas. Why? Just make proper texture coordinates so that the painters community has less hassle painting a car. Unwrapping a car ain´t no rocket science. Letting a script run over the mesh is just the base but not enough. Obviously some areas needed manual fixing. And that neither is rocket science and does not take that huge amount of time.

I really hope, from the bottom of my heart, that T10 will find a way to make it possible someday we will be able to import our old decals. That would be awesome. And until then i continue to adore the amazing work the guys who still have the patience to paint are doing.

Thank you for reading :slight_smile:

Cheers
Bonsai

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Recreating the same material a second time should theoretically be quicker and easier. It also provides an opportunity to be more layer efficient while at the same time increasing overall quality. If that is not something you feel you will get enjoyment out of then by all means you should pursue what does.

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+1

i was annoyed to start with that designs didn’t transfer over but i got stuck in and feel that my designs have come out so much better this time and more importantly i’ve really enjoyed making them again

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Couldn’t have put any better than that. Add that to the increased layer count and it all adds up to being able to create some real quality replicas. Yeah its a bummer at times when you come across areas that bleed or are un paintable but that’s what artistic licence is for.

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Stop being so lazy and make the stuff! We are all in the same situation. Yeah the first few logos are a strain to do but once you are past them then you just get on with it. If you was playing Fm4 you would still be creating new logos wouldn’t you? Personally I have racked up in excess of 300+ logos so far not including numberboards, body parts and safety signs.

Another thing that makes FM5 better on the painting side is the work you see IS the work of the person who has created it. No longer will you see designs where the designer has put a lovely base together and then splattered it with a bunch of logos they got gifted…where is the talent in that?

Another reason you do not see a lot of the painters on here is they are from countries with no Xbox One or they cannot afford it at this time. Warcry for example is in an area with no Xbox One, Fightdogg also is in an area with no Xbox. I can name at least 10 who are in those areas.

I do not mean this post to be rude…but if you think about it…you have not wasted your time in FM3/4 as you got plenty out of it. Better yourself in 5 as you have a chance to start again. You will find you want to spend more time on a design as you are working from the ground up rather than having it all there.

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There are issues with most if not all the cars though. They’re not symmetrical. If I try to run a stripe around a car it becomes impossible to get the front and back stripes to be in line with the left and right stripes. I’ve tried spinning, skewing, sizing. Nothing works. Some cars are off by less than 1 click of adjustment. Others like the Boss 302 are way way off. I had to completely eye that car from side to side because the coordinates were so badly off. Also some areas duplicate for no reason. One example is the Ford GT40. Run something small over the right headlight cover it automatically appears on the left. The Hyundai Genesis has a mystery section on the upper right quadrant of the rear bumper. There are many more cars like that.
.
the livery editor is really buggy. I wish they’d fix it.

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Nvm

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I can safely say that the majority of faithful designers in the fantasy side of car paints that haven’t build a gallery because the guys can’t buy a XB1 ATM. There are some old names that I either forgot or didn’t see before have reappeared.

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Yeah, some people just haven’t come across for Forza 5/Xbox one. Me monkey 8 me for example is another name that hasn’t moved across and his were some of my favourite paints, but others like mimic are here continuing their awesome work. I’m slowly getting back into the painting. I don’t see why you think of it as a chore if you enjoyed it the first time? I’ve started redoing some of my old paints specifically to see what i’ve learned since i did them the first time. Some of my paints from Forza 3 took hundres of layers, and in Forza 5, i did one of them in 89 layers! That’s how much i’ve learned! I’ve been picking up tricks and workarounds for 5-6 years, but only noticed how much when i tried to remake a paint from 4 years ago! It’s worth it even if only to measure your progress with the paint editor. I’m still not a great painter by any means, but i know i’ve improved, and that gives me something to work from!
The only bummer is the lack of music in the paint editor, which is why i play with no sound and crank up my amp with the surround headphones! lol

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I painted quite a bit in FM4 and had alot of fun doing it. I don’t think the inability to transfer killed it for me. It would have been nice, sure. The thing that stopped me from painting though, was the way designs are handled on here. I believe the way they were handled on FM4 was perfect. Now I’m nor a well known painter. Knowing that all those “popular” designs are on the front page (because they were put up hours after the games release), mine will never be up there because I’m not a popular designer who had 1k+ downloads on 4. My highest was about 300 with my C6R racing design.

What I’m saying is: I’m not a popular painter. Making money on FM4 kept me going. On here though, I haven’t made a dime. I think the old buying system needs to come back.

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Yes for me this would be the biggest disincentive to paint .Its probably the easiest thing to change for t10.

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Bonsai017, I can relate. Recreating the same thing over and over certainly takes a toll.

BUT, recreating memorable paints/decals from FM1/2/3/4 can also be very enjoyable and they look even better in FM5.

I HATE doing things over because it seems like such a waste of time and tedious but once I get going it is hard to stop. I’m sure once you put that 1st shape down onto the car the feeling may come back! In fact, I’ve painted the same dang JACCS Civic in FM2, 3, & 4, then again in 5 because it looks so neat.

Don’t do it for the credits, don’t do it for the # of DLs, don’t do it for the fame. All of those are bonus.

Just do it as a passion . . . for yourself.

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Challenge accepted.

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I really enjoyed creating, but what pushed me to actually do it in the past was that extra credit incentive. Lacking that, I would rather turn most of my creative drive toward non-digital pursuits. Especially since my time is very limited. I still have so many unfinished designs in Forza 4 anyway, some of which date back to Forza 3.

I’m sure the prolific Forza 5 painters that we have now are just what you’re talking about… passionate creators. Works for me.

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my story in painting is different to you dude, didnt paint at all in 2, 3 i started to dabble a bit, 4 did a few more, then 5 ive gone full on, you see my fiance is an artist with real paints and pics, so i saw a great opportunity to get her into forza, and that was through the paint editor. Now ive seen her spend hours on some decal just to make a car look cool, sometimes she makes a decal for me to put on a car and vice versa, one morning I even woke up to find she had spent a couple of hours making some awesome design on one of my cars,
Its got to the point now where we generally take turns on forza when we decide to make a design, and the quality of her work is top notch compared to mine some times,
So really because of the enthusiasm of us working together, its turned me from a real good lobby racer only, to now being a competant painter and enjoying every second of it.

So really dude, i would say if you want to paint again, find a reason, or team up with a buddy and challange yourself, you might be surprised with your new found enthusiasm to something you used to do.

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If you hook up your Xbox 360 as your “tv” you can snap the old designs and get the numbers from it. It is a tedious process but its a way to manually transfer you’re logos.

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That’s exactly what I am doing with all my NASCAR sponsors and designs. It does take quite some time to write down each vinyl’s shape/colour code/x&y coords position-wise/x&y coords size-wise/spin/skew numbers, but it’ll guarantee that I’ll be just as happy with the FM5 vinyls as I was with the FM2/3/4 vinyls. In the beginning, it went very slowly, but now I’m starting to pick up some speed with the process. :slight_smile:

Cheers, and keep designing everyone! :smiley:

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Both Bonsai017 and McG NJ raise some valid points. There are some serious problems with virtually all cars with respect to coordinate systems and with several cars with respect to unpaintable areas.

As far as “unwrapping” the models goes, it is a process that usually occurs after a model is painted and “baked” as opposed to wrapping which requires a significant overhead in rendering time as a planar image is lain onto a non-planar surface. Forza’s editor has never had the CG power to do that. Additionally, the storage of an unwrapped skin would require a significant increase in file size.

So, what Forza does do is 5 (6 if you paint the rear wing) planar projections to minimize file size and rendering time. This is why distortion occur near curved surface when viewed and angles different from the point of projection.

With respect to the uncoordinated coordinate system and unpaintable areas, that’s just plain sloppy modelling and lack of appropriate QA checks, but what are ya gonna do. The Gallardo is probably the worst example I’ve found so far, try an paint a vertical line from top to bottom on either side midway through the door.

That being said, I have repainted (and enjoyed doing it) a few of my cars in liveries I used in Forza 2, 3 & 4.

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so we lost the auction house to appease painters and they still aren’t happy. they should remove painting from forza and spin it off into its own title or throw it into horizon where social rather than racing is the game. paint never won a race. tunning i can see in forza but painting? but painting comes in handy for car clubs? what clubs? we lost alot of racing functions to include the most irrelevant thing in any forza title. if there wasn’t time to include more content there defiantly wasn’t time to waste on painting. we lost the auction house because people were copping painters copies of real world work, stealing what the painters stole, andd we dont have the ring because time was wasted on an irrelevant paint editor…and with all they have cost the racers in a racing game painters still have the gall to gripe they didn’t get enough at our expense? heck i’ll buy the painters a copy of barbies makeup adventure to rip painting out off forza so those resources can be used for …racing. as soon as i realized i could press y and skip barbieing up my cars i jumped on it.

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Not so. As one who works many long hours protecting the players in Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon, I’ll tell you flat out, the Auction House wasn’t the key to stolen liveries. The vast majority of those items pilfered came from the Storefront. Yes, they then appeared in the Auction House, posted by thieves or those they managed to sell (credits, or real cash) as unlocked items via Gifting to unsuspectingly or knowingly willing people who also attempted to profit without authorization on the works of others.

The “loss” of the Auction House, Gifting, and the ability to post “unlocked” is the direct result of those cheating/hacking players who fail to honor and respect all the work the artists put into their creations. They’re also hackers, like those who think it is really cool to illegally manipulate the intellectual property of Turn 10 (read the back of the game box) to remove bumpers and hoods, and put unauthorized rims on cars.

Here’s the deal: It is really nice for the artists to be able to import their works into the next version of the game. Unfortunately, if you go back to FM3 it is riddled with those cheaters/hackers and their “game” is profiting in FM4 from those works. “Pssst! Got a hot seller for you, which is available for only 2 million credits! Or, I can get you three of them for only 5 million.” You have no idea the number of liveries and vinyls in FM4 and Horizon which were NEVER created by the original artist except in FM3. The thieves have proven they cannot be trusted, and thus ruined the game for the rest of us.

The Auction House was a credits laundering operation. “I’ll put up a cheap Ford with a 10 million buyout, then Gift you the hot liveries.” Buy credits through various illegal websites or even eBay, and the credit creators will be glad to pick up your little Beetle for 400,000,000 credits. People who didn’t want to play the game honestly took advantage of both the Auction House and Gifting. Remember, there is a limit of 50,000 credits for a livery on the FM4 Storefront. That’s cheap for a thief, why spend all the time bidding/winning an Auction, when you could get the same thing from the Storefront and still make millions on it?

Just like Unicorns, the cheaters and their hacked credits destroyed a nice portion of the game. A lot of people not only had their gamertags permanently banned, but their consoles, too, for hacking credits in FM4. And the process continues today. It is NOT “greed” or whining from the painters. Automatically making everything locked on the FM4 AH and SF, was a necessary action was taken because of behavior by the cheaters and hackers.

That’s the real world, the real explanation. Unfortunately all the honest players have to live with it now.

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