User blog:Topcon/Lessons in customization

Introduction
As all of you may know, RR3 have a customization option that allows you to apply vinyls to your car. It's flawed, it's bugged, and lacking. But it's what we have, unless you're willing to root/jailbreak your device and use Photoshop!

But, as demonstrated by the community, it is possible to achieve great designs! The main goal of this blog is to share some of the things I learned, and help new players to venture on the headache that is customization in RR3!

As a general rule, any vinyl I'm currently applying on the images will be displayed in a green color. The reason is to highlight its position and orientation.

01 - The basics, styles and "odd angles"
 This is the customization layout. You can rotate the camera, zoom in/out with your finger. On the right you can check how many vinyls you have applied on your car, as well tap on one if you wish to edit it. It's also possible to reorder your vinyls (drag them below/above other vinyls) and delete them here (just drag them away). As you'll quickly notice, is easy to accidentally delete a vinyl when you're trying to move it, but thankfully, a prompt shows requesting you to confirm it.

On the left is the colour palette. Pretty simple, but doesn't have a lot of colours. On the bottom is the shape. On this blog I'll only use the basic pack. If you want/have more packs, you can change it by tapping on the arrow on the left. All of these can be hidden by tapping on their respective handles.

Finally, at the top there's four buttons: the first is to clear all vinyls, the second and third are toggleable (is that even a word?) and enables "mirror" and "paint through" modes respectively (but you can't have both at the same time). More on those later. The last button cycles though a bunch of preset views.

As you apply a vinyl to your vehicle, you'll notice a white circle around it. Dragging the button on the left of it away from/towards the centre of the circle will increase/decrease the size of the vinyl. Dragging the same button tangent to the circle, will rotate the vinyl. Can you already see how annoying it is to resize without rotating and vice versa?

<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Yeah.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">There's also a button on the bottom of the circle with a check mark on it. Tap on it to confirm the vinyl position. Or just tap anywhere outside the vehicle. Same thing. Annoying.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Yeah.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">By activating mirror mode button, you can see that your current vinyl is mirrored on the other side of the car, ideal if your design is symmetrical.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">The paint through will apply the vinyl over every surface of the car that it intercepts, even if said surface isn't visible. Most of the times, that isn't desirable, as you'll have to be very mindful of what will happen on the other side of the car: you can be ruining a lot of work there.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">What paint through is really useful for is to paint the whole car. Just put a giant square while looking to the front or rear of the car. Here you can see the difference between using paint through and not.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">The basic pack may seem boring at first, but it's actually quite flexible. You can achieve wild effects by applying it in odd angles. To you, the observer, a triangle shape will always be a triangle. But on the car, that shape will stretch and distort as it intersects the surface. Check the quick examples below.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">In conclusion, you can achieve some quite unexpected results by applying an vinyl in odd place! But it can also help you save to save space! If you're aiming for a simple stripe across your car, you can do it in the front bumper the and hood using a single square! Just remember that the paint will stretch as it intersects the car surface!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">As general tips:

<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Take advantage of the mirror mode as much as you can! It gives you two vinyls but only cost on space. It is also useful when you want something to be perfectly centralized on your car, like a stripe, or  shape on the hood.</li>

<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Sometimes, when you're struggling to position a vinyl on the right spot, it might be easier to rotate the camera instead of the vinyl itself.</li>

<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt;line-height: 115%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">If you want to apply a vinyl with the same size and rotation of another? The game remembers the properties of the last one, so just select it and confirm it's position. The following will be the same size, rotation, colour and camera position.

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