CHAPTER 03:

Creating Maps

The decals on this car in particular were very complex and layered, it was quite a task. For this project I created very detailed decals, that would stand up to extreme close-ups, not to mention, I also structured the files I made so that they really could be used by a vinyl cutting machine to make real life stickers.

First off, for a guide, I scanned the decal sets, this gave me a rough idea of what was required and what I needed to gather elsewhere…

3c: The Decal Sheet that comes with models are incredibly detailed, but is your scanner up to it? Generally I wouldnt use them straight as textures, as bitmaps there are limits on there use, as vector graphics they are very flexible.

I scanned these images VERY high, though no matter what home scanner you could use, you could never get all the detail out of them (if you look through a magnifying glass, they are unbelievably (unnecessarily?) detailed.

I was able to trace some of the logos (the larger ones), but the majority I had to find sources from elsewhere…

Photographing, scanning packages, and surfing the net for sticker sets is very helpful, I found every logo I needed in the end.

Generally, I placed the images in illustrator, and traced around them as accurately as possible, remaking fonts and taking cues from alignments within the logos, making guides to suit etc… (unfortunately, being a designer, I probably spent more than a fair amount of time on this!).

3d: Tracing the decals, often from pretty poor reference, can be quite time consuming, but if done correctly, will enhance the final look of the model a lot. Also, you can reuse them for your next model! Or even make stickers out of them and turn your family station wagon into a weekend racer! (yay!).

One of the things I did to eliminate halos on any of the logos (slight black or white edges on logos when a matte and a diffuse meet at the same point), is to extend the diffuse (colored) part of the logo beyond the masks borders, I guess, as a “bleed” (to use printing terms).

In photo shop I made them no less that 1000x1000 pixels, to retain as much data as possible.

Also it is good to create your stickers without the main body colour in them, this gives you the flexibiliy of changing the colour of the car without editing any bitmaps, for this car, I could change the diffuse paint colour to pink and all the decals would still work correctly.

Often it was quite a tricky dance around mattes and diffuse maps to get the desired effect, such at the Mugen Power logo below, neither the matte or the diffuse look like the logo, but when combined, give the desired effect.

3e: On the right is the diffuse map, and on the left the corrosponding mask. Note how the mask works with the diffuse map to create the correct shape without halos.