Revision [150]
This is an old revision of GettingStarted made by DirtTwister on 2011-05-15 18:03:03.
To make a track there is fairly simple set of skills required to get started, but it requires lots of patience and the willingness to try things over and over again. Once you can make a basic track, the skills required to make it ride well and look good increases tremendously. Lots of people that try get frustrated and quit. The good news is that it's easy to get started and it's easy to figure out if you will like doing what it really takes to make a good track.
Paint Programs:
The first thing is you need a paint program. This will let you create your DisplacementMaps displacement map and textures.
Several textures required for making Reflex tracks require using an extended BMP format (BMP's with alpha channels). Some programs support them and some do not.
Photo Shop - Supports extended BMP format
GIMP - Supports extended BMP format
Paint Shop Pro - Does not support extended BMP format, need to use a tool like DXTBmp along with Paint Shop Pro
DXTBmp - Tool that will let you create/edit extended format BMP files. It's easy to use. You just drag your BMP file to the DXTBmp icon and it will display the main image and alpha. You can then edit the image or alpha in the paint program of your choice. (Thanks jvdl for pointing out that this handy tool is available).
