Modding:

How to create custom decals for use in

Hot Rod: American Street Drag

First off, you will need to have a paint program of some kind installed on your computer.
Paintshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop would be ideal -though, there are other lesser known paint
programs that would probably work as well. However, the paint program you choose to use must
support multiple layers in order for these instructions to be followed and desired results achieved.

Also, any prior experience creating “mods” for other games and/or using paint programs will
help greatly in understanding these instructions.

The purpose of this step by step tutorial is to allow you the user to create your own custom decals
for use with in the game Hot Rod: American Street Drag. When doing this you will have the
ability to put what ever graphics you want on your car in the form of a decal. Digital photo’s can
also be used in this process if you desire. For example, you could put a digital picture of your
face on your decal and it would show up on your car. Be as creative as you want and try to have
fun with it!

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Step One: Open up your paint program. (For the sake of this tutorial we will be using Adobe
Photoshop 7.) Go to the upper left hand corner of the screen and choose FILE/ OPEN and
browse following the path: C:\Program Files\ValuSoft\Canopy Games\Hot Rod American
Street Drag\modding\Car_Texture_Templates and choose your desired car decal file. In this
tutorial we will be using the file called CAR_A.psd

You will now see a file that is comprised of four layers named: Background, Alpha To Use,
Mask To Use, and UV Template as the top layer. We will need to use all of these layers in order
to complete the task correctly. Currently, three of these layers are hidden, so let’s go and unhide
the top layer called UV Template. This layer provides us with a wireframe outline of the areas
that we want to be sure to paint our design in, as these are the areas represent the polygons that
make up our car.

Step Two: Now, we need to make a new layer that we will create our new custom decal on. So,
either go to the upper left hand corner of your screen and choose: LAYER/ NEW/ and then pick
the word LAYER or, simply hit these three keys on your keyboard simultaneously CTRL +
SHIFT + “N” and a dialogue box called New Layer will appear then hit OK.

Arrange this layer so it is below the UV Template layer. Now we can begin painting our custom
decal! Use the paint brush, pencil and airbrush tools if you like.

*TIP* For the most accurate means of creating a precise and clean looking decal design such as
flames, we recommend using the path tools and pathing out your design instead of using the
paint tools right away. Once your design is all path’d out then you can fill it with a color and
use the paint tools as needed. For more information on how to use paths, refer the paint
program’s help files.

Once we have finished painting our custom decal design our file should look something like this:

*Hint* Once you paint your decal design you may try putting that layer on the Multiply or
Overlay setting located in the upper portion of the layer pallette. This setting will allow the
shading of your car to show through your design thus, giving it the appearance that it is actually
painted on your car.

Step Three: Now we need to make a selection of our design. To do this hold down the CTRL
key on your keyboard while clicking on your new custom decal layer. Upon doing this, you
should now see the outline of your decal design in selection mode appearing with a halo of
“marching ants” around your design. Now, hide that layer but, don’t delete it (we’ll need to use it
later.)

Next, (with the decal outline still selected) click on the layer called Mask To Use and then hit the
DELETE key on your keyboard. Doing this will punch out the shape of your decal into this layer.
Once you have completed this, go ahead and hide that layer (Mask To Use.) (We will be coming
back to this layer later on as well.) Still having our design in the “marching ants” selection state,
click on the layer titled, Alpha To Use and fill it with the color WHITE. You can to this by going
to the upper left part of your screen to EDIT/ FILL and choosing the color WHITE. Doing this
will leave a white image in the shape of our decal on that layer.

Step Four: Still on the layer called, Alpha To Use, hold down the CTRL key and hit the “A” key
or go to the upper left part of your screen and click on SELECT/ ALL. (This move will select
all.) Doing this will select the perimeter of our document with the “marching ants” selection
mode.

Holding down the CTRL key again, hit the “C” key or go to the upper left portion of your screen
to EDIT/ COPY. (This move will copy everything on that layer.)

Step Five: Now, we need to paste this layer into the Channels. The channels tab should be right
behind or near the same general area as the Layers tab. If it is not, go to the upper mid left part of
your screen to WINDOWS/ CHANNELS and the channels tab should appear.

Click on the channel in the channels tab called Alpha 1 and “paste” the layer that we previously
copied into this channel. To do paste hold down the CTRL key and hit the “V” key, or go to the
upper left of your screen to EDIT/ PASTE. You will now see the Alpha To Use layer we copied
appear into the channel called Alpha 1.

Now, your document should look something like this:

Step Six: Now we need to go back to our Layers tab. Hide the Layer called UV Template and the
Layer called Alpha To Use. The only three layers we want showing at this point are the layer
called Mask To Use, your new custom decal design layer and the layer called Background.

At this point we are ready to save our document, provided it now looks something like this:
Step Seven: Look’s like we’re almost finished! All we need to do now is save it and name it
correctly. To save, either go to the upper left of your screen to FILE/ SAVE AS (or hit SHIFT +
CTRL+ “S” on your keyboard) and in the Save As window browse following this path:
C:\Program Files\ValuSoft\Canopy Games\Hot Rod American Street Drag\paintshop\ then
choose the corresponding car letter folder to save your new custom decal into.

In the case of this example we have been working with the file called CAR_A.psd so we will
want to save our new decal into the CAR_A paintshop folder.

With the SAVE AS window still open and looking in the proper corresponding car letter folder,
you may or may not see a series of files in that folder. Regardless, go to the file format tab that
appears below where the name of the file you are going to save is and choose the Targa (.TGA)
file format option. All of that particular cars current decal files should now appear and you should
be seeing something like this:
Step Eight: Now find the file in the list with the highest number at the end of it’s name. In the
case of CAR_A it would be: CandyCoat_carA_body09.tga

Choose it and that file name will appear in the File name type of your document. Now, click in
that type in box and delete the last two numbers and type in the number that would come
numerically after it. In the case of this example, the file we selected to get it’s name to show up in
our file name window is: CandyCoat_carA_body09.tga Now you’ll need to delete the 09
portion of it’s name and in it’s place put 10.

Thus, it should now read like this: CandyCoat_carA_body10.tga

Now, hit SAVE and that’s that! Our new custom decal has now been saved in the Paintshop
folder with in the Hot Rod: American Street Drag directory.
But, wait! We’re not quite done so, don’t close the file you’ve been working on just yet.

Step Nine: No you’ll need to make an icon that best represents your new decal design. To do this
let’s go back to where we first opened our car decal template. Hit the CTRL and the “O” key or
go to the upper left portion of the screen to FILE/ OPEN and browse following the path:
C:\Program Files\ValuSoft\Canopy Games\Hot Rod American Street
Drag\modding\Car_Texture_Templates and open the file called: Decal_Icon_Template.psd

This is where you are going to cut and paste a portion of your custom decal to show up as an icon
with in the paintshop area of the game.

Step Ten: Go back to the file we painted our custom decal on, click on the layer that has the decal
on it and using the marquee tool (CTRL+”M”), select a portion of your decal that you think would
work best as your icon. Then, hit CTRL and the “C” key and go back to your
Decal_Icon_Template.psd file and paste it on to the layer called, My Icon.

Scale this image up or down as needed to best fit in the document using the scale tool (CTRL + T.)

Your Icon should look something like this:

*Note* The decal icon must be a file size of 55 x 55 pixels and 72 dpi should you not wish to use
the decal icon template provided.

Step Eleven: Once you are finished our last step is to save this file into the same Paintshop folder
that we saved our custom decal into.

Hit SHIFT + CTRL + S on your keyboard or go to the upper part of your screen to FILE/ SAVE
AS and browse following the file path: C:\Program Files\ValuSoft\Canopy Games\Hot Rod
American Street Drag\paintshop\ then choose the correct corresponding car letter folder to save
your new custom decal icon into.

(In the case of this example, we will need to use the folder called CAR_A)

Once in the appropriate folder you will need to go down to the file format that appears below
where the name of the file you are going to save is and choose the Targa (.TGA) file format
option (like we did in Step Seven.)

Find the file of our newly made custom decal and click on it only once. This is done so that the
name of that file shows up in the File name: box (like we did in Step Eight.) Now we will need to
go in to the File name: type in area and after the number portion of the name we will need to type
in _GUI

For example: if our new custom decal is called: CandyCoat_carA_body10.tga

we will be making the name of the icon read: CandyCoat_carA_body10_GUI.tga

It is extremely important that the name of your icon is the exact same as that of your newly made
decal EXCEPT of course that it has the added _GUI towards the end of it’s name. If this is not
done correctly, it will crash the game when you go into the paintshop to see your new decal. If the
game does crash because of this, go back to the paintshop folder and double check the name of
both of your new decal files.

Once the _GUI has been added you will then need to change your file format to .JPEG and then hit
SAVE.

Step Twelve: Cross your fingers and fire up the Hot Rod: American Street Drag game and hope it
all worked!

Should you get frustrated and want to completely remove your custom decal files from the game,
simply go to where you saved your two newly created decal files: C:\Program
Files\ValuSoft\Canopy Games\Hot Rod American Street Drag\paintshop\ (Car letter folder)
and delete them by selecting them and hitting the DELETE key or selecting the file and then right
clicking on it and choosing DELETE.

*NOTE* If you should wish to create a decal that has an asymmetrical design or put a logo on the
hood and doors as has been done with the Valusoft decal, you will need to use the CAR_P.psd
template. This is the only car that is laid out so that the decal design does not “mirror”. The areas
of this car that will not mirror are the hood and the door.

GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY MODDING!