Step by step
01Bring in the vehicle
Press “Import vehicle” and pick the car’s YFT and YTD; if it has a _hi.yft, add that too. A whole dlc.rpf works as well: the studio lists the vehicles inside and you pick one.
Liveries the car already has (the _sign_1, _sign_2… textures) show up as separate liveries, each with a locked “Original” layer. You can keep them, draw over them or delete them.
Some vehicles have no livery slot in their paint shader. The studio refuses those and tells you why, before you work for nothing.
With no files at hand, open the “Karin Sultan demo”. On it you export PNGs only, because its UV was made in the studio, not taken from the game.
02Choose how you see the car
At the top you have three modes: 3D, 3D + UV and UV. On 3D + UV you see the texture and the car side by side, and every move shows in both.
The camera has 3/4, side, front, back and top. “Preview paint” changes the car colour behind the livery, so you see how it looks on another paint.
03Draw the livery in layers
A livery has layers: text, shape or image. You get nine shapes (rectangle, ellipse, triangle, diamond, hexagon, star, chevron, arrow and band), and the rectangle can have rounded corners. Images can be PNG logos with transparency.
Any layer can have a plain fill, a gradient or a pattern (carbon, stripes, checks, hexagons, camo, dots), plus outline, shadow and blending.
“Livery background” fills the whole texture. Leave it transparent if you want the paint chosen in game to show through the livery.
04Put the layer straight on the body
Turn on “Place on car” and click anywhere on the body. The selected layer moves there and turns so it reads correctly, even where the texture is rotated.
“Symmetry” copies the layer to the other side of the car. The text stays readable on both sides.
“Mirrored areas” shows the parts of the texture the car uses on both sides. Text placed there comes out mirrored on one of them, so move it a little further.
05Make several liveries
“New livery” starts an empty one, “Duplicate livery” copies the current one. A project holds up to 12 liveries.
Each has an index, the number in _sign_N. In the game, the livery is chosen by that number.
06Save and export
The project saves itself on your computer. Ctrl+S downloads a project file, vehicle files included, so you can carry on elsewhere.
Pick the “Export resolution”, then “Export YTD”, “Export PNGs” or “Export YTD + PNG”. Opaque liveries come out as BC1, transparent ones as BC3, with mipmaps. The other textures in the YTD stay exactly as they were.
An export costs 15 credits. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z step through the history, and Ctrl+D duplicates the selected layer.
Questions
My car is refused with “no livery”.
Its paint shader has no slot for a livery texture, and the studio doesn’t change shaders. Pick another car or prepare the model in a modelling tool.
The text comes out mirrored on one side.
You placed it in an area the car uses on both sides. Turn on “Mirrored areas”, move the text out of them and use “Symmetry” for the other side.
Where are the liveries the car already had?
They show up as separate liveries, each with a locked “Original” layer. They stay in the YTD on export unless you delete them.
In game the colour looks different from the studio.
The transparent parts of the livery let the car paint show. Change “Preview paint” to see the livery on the colour you’ll use.
How much does it cost?
Importing, drawing and saving are free. An export (YTD, PNG or both) costs 15 credits.