Custom Track Texture Tutorial

I've noticed a lot of people getting into track making, but using nothing but textures already given to them. When they go to try to make their own textures, they have no idea where to start or even how to do it. This is a tutorial on how to make your own custom textures for a track. This will NOT teach you how to make a track, for that, use my other tutorial. I will teach you how to make the textures and lay them out and that's it. This tutorial is created with general knowledge that you already know your way around Traxx. If you don't, I strongly suggest reading my track making tutorial.

What You Need:
Traxx (Name = TRAXX, Key = ATOVBOGR)
 FlyRawGui
 Paint Shop Pro 7
 And a little know-how to follow instructions

Getting Started

First, open up PSP. If this is your first time using it, it'll ask a whole bunch of stuff. Just follow the options as needed and get to a blank PSP screen. Go up to File>New. Make Width and Height 64. Make sure it says Pixels in the box on the right. Background color whatever and Image Type: 16 Million Colors and click OK. Now, find the flood fill tool (5th one from the bottom on the left, looks like a dripping paint can). Go to the top right and click the first box. Find yourself a nice dirt-brown looking color. I chose the following option:

Now click OK and click anywhere on your image. It should turn the brown color you just picked. Now it's time to start making it look like dirt. Go to effects>noise>add... Set it to 30% and make sure Uniform is checked and click OK. Looking good now, but still some stuff in the way that looks weird. Let's fix that. Did you notice when you picked your brown color, it had a Hue and Sat setting? Note those down for me. Now go to Colors>Colorize. Enter those same Hue and Sat numbers into those boxes, for me 31 and 64, then click OK. Congrats, you just made dirt! Now you have to save it. Go to colors>decrease color depth>256 colors and click OK on the box that pops up. Assuming you already have your folders made and know how to make an actual track, save it to your directory where you keep all your texture files for Traxx with a name under 8 letters as a .bmp (I named mine testd01.bmp).. You'll want to go ahead and put the dirt into Traxx. So open up FlyRawGui and convert that .bmp file you just saved to .raw. Open up Traxx and go to Texture Editing. Open up the textures box and search for a base name you gave to your texture. Double click it to get it in the box and it should fill the track. Set the type to dirt for a more realistic dirt handling feel. Congrats, you are now ready to move on to chalk lines!

Chalk Lines

Go back to PSP and that dirt texture you just made. Press Ctrl+Z once to undo the decreasing color depth to get back to 16 million colors. Now go to the airbrush tool (the one right about flood fill). Open up your tool options window, and set yours somewhat similar to mine:

This'll be your best bet for realistic looking chalk lines. Go up to where you set your brown at, and make it a white color. Now get your cursor over the bottom right-hand corner of the picture (it's best if you zoom in A LOT!) and click and drag the mouse slowly up towards the top right-hand corner of the image. It should look something like this:

If you can't draw a straight line, don't worry about it, just press Ctrl+Z and try again. I normally have to do it a couple times before i can steady my hand enough. Now there ya go, there's one chalk line. Decrease color depth and save. Convert it and get it into Traxx. Now, I'm going for a simple Chicago-Style track here, so I only need 2 columns using this line. For the way that we did this, this is the easiest way to set it up as:

Now we need to make the turns for it. Go back to PSP and undo the decrease color depth as well as the chalk line. A curve is plain and simple. Same options and everything (Round normally looks better than Square for the curves). Start at the bottom right-hand corner, and go all the way to somewhere on the left side of the image, here's mine:

You know the drill, decrease, save, convert, import. Assuming you know how to lay textures, go ahead and slap em on the track. This is what mine looks like:

Alright, let's just add some start and finish lines and we'll be done! Go back to PSP and undo the decrease and chalk line. Go right about the middle and draw a good starting line. I normally leave a couple gaps where the tires might be at. Here's mine:

Decrease, save, convert, import.

Alright, now go back to PSP and undo the decrease. Fill in the gaps that you left for tire holes.

Do I even have to say what to do with it now? Get it into Traxx and place at a decent place so it's even on both sides of the track.

Now the rest is up to you. If you wanna make it look fancy and stuff, be my guest. This is the quickest and easiest way to make your own textures. Use this and follow my track making tutorial and you'll be making great tracks in no time!