by Steve Luvender · March 19, 2019

In today’s Season 2 Patch 1, iRacing made several notable changes to the way custom paints are used in the sim. That, of course, means Trading Paints changes, too!

The biggest changes include Decal Layers and Custom Number paints.

Decal Layers

iRacing has changed how many decals are loaded onto cars.

Previously, decals like contingency/series stickers, windshield banner graphics, and some number plates were only accessible through use of a Decal Layer file on a Trading Paints Pro account.

In iRacing’s Season 2 Patch 1, any custom paint now overrides these decals by default. This means there’s no longer a need to use a Decal Layer to hide some decals stamped by iRacing.

This also means that all existing paints uploaded to Trading Paints no longer include items previously stamped by iRacing via the default Decal Layer unless the painter manually included those items on their paint. Because of this, you may notice some subtle changes on many cars. Unlike in past builds, it’s now officially considered best practice to place otherwise-stamped decals like contingency stickers on your cars.

You’ll see a new option under My Paints where you can assign formerly stamped decals onto your cars. This is labeled “Add Default Decal Stamp” and is available under the Choose Paint menu for each of your paints. When you apply the default decal stamp using this new option, please note it is a permanent change that cannot be undone. Technically, this stamp option does not count as a Decal Layer, making it available to all users (not just Pro users).

iRacing has elected to keep Decal Layer functionality — the literal placing a transparency-enabled TGA file over the top of a custom paint — in place. On Trading Paints, Decal Layers will continue to function if you’re using them currently. Now, they’ll just be used when you need to place something on top of an existing paint without modifying the original paint — they’re no longer needed to remove decals off cars.

This means any decals visible on a paint that are not part of the paint file itself are force-stamped by iRacing (like headlights and some manufacturer details) and you can’t override those in any way.

Editing Showroom Paints

Because of iRacing’s changes to decal layers, painters are able to edit their Showroom listings (yes—including the paint file, a new feature!) in case any adjustments are necessary.

This has been a long-requested feature from painters in our community.

If you’re racing with a Showroom paint and the painter edits the paint file, you’ll need to grab the latest edits before they’ll appear on your car in iRacing. You’ll see a notification and icon on My Paints if this is a case, and you can grab the latest update with one click.

Rather than automatically-updating Showroom paints for drivers when a painter submits a change, we’ve opted to go down the path of drivers manually accepting updates to Showroom paints to help prevent unexpected things from happening to their cars.

Custom Numbers

In Season 2 Patch 1, iRacing has added the ability to designate paints as Custom Number paints. A custom number paint is a paint that includes a number placed directly onto the paint file, rather than relying on iRacing to stamp the car number automatically.

Custom Number paints are visible:

to drivers and spectators in hosted or league sessions where the host selects the option to disable decals and numbers and a Custom Number paint is uploaded to a driver’s Trading Paints account

to drivers and spectators in any iRacing session where that user has checked the “Hide Numbers” option in their iRacing graphics settings

If either or both of the above two scenarios are true, iRacing will first look for a Custom Number paint for every car in that session. If a driver does not have a Custom Number paint uploaded, their normal custom paint file will be displayed to all drivers and spectators, and iRacing will stamp a number on each paint as specified by the driver on iRacing’s Edit Car screen.

If you, as a driver or spectator, do not have “Hide Numbers” checked in your iRacing graphics settings, iRacing will not look for a Custom Number paint file for any car in your session — the lone exception coming in hosted or league sessions where the host has selected the option to disable decals and numbers. This choice by a host essentially forces “Hide Numbers” checked.

If you have a Custom Number paint but not a traditional custom paint, iRacing will skip your paint and display your default iRacing paint booth car. So, if you’re assigning a Custom Number car, you’ll probably want to make sure you have a normal custom paint uploaded without a number, too.

It’s worth reiterating that anyone in your iRacing session will see your normal custom paint, stamped with an iRacing number, unless their own local graphics settings has “Hide Numbers” checked. If a user has “Hide Numbers” unchecked, which is the default option, your Custom Number paint will not be displayed to that user and iRacing will fall back to your normal custom paint with an iRacing-stamped number for that person.

Decal layers will still continue to stamp over both numbered and non-numbered cars as they do currently — although, as noted, they serve a bit of a different purpose than before.

If all this custom number talk sounds confusing, that’s OK. Your custom paints will continue to work as they did previously without any changes.

iRacing’s Brian Simpson explained the paint changes in more detail on the iRacing Member Site.

Future Plans for Custom Numbers

There are a lot of exciting possibilities ahead for Custom Number paints that we’ll plan to test and implement over time. Some ideas we’re already considering include a custom number design tool, different paints for different car numbers, your Custom Number paint only loading if your car number matches the number on your car, and more.

At this time, we have not implemented custom numbers for team paints or league-specific paints. This is certainly something we plan to implement in the future.

Web Updates

We’ve released one of our biggest web updates in quite a long time!

General

Rebuilt front-end elements of the site using Tachyons with the intention of reducing page weight, improving page load time, and improving experience on non-desktop devices. Most pages may feel slightly different.

Replaced the Trading Paints loading spinner animation with a shiny new vector spinner.

My Paints

Revised preview images with new masks on active paints. These should now accurately display a car’s appearance, since iRacing now requires formerly decal-layer-stamped areas like stock car contingency stickers to be manually placed on a car paint.

(Pro) Added the ability to assign a Custom Number paint when Custom Number paints are available (see Custom Number Paints section above for details).

Changed the vehicle list to a self-contained scrolling list. Instead of having to scroll to the top of the page to switch vehicles, the list remains stuck on the screen.

Changed Decal Layer upload instructions to note only 32-bit TGA files are accepted.

When removing an inactive paint from your Old Paints list (Pro), a more descriptive success message is displayed.

Removed the “You are using your normal paint” helper text if no team paint is specified as this was inaccurate. If no team paint is assigned on Trading Paints, your iRacing default paint is displayed.

User Profiles

Added trophies for 1,000 followers, 10,000 followers, 10,000 favorites, 4 years, 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, 8 years, 9 years, and 10 years.

Redesigned profile pages to more clearly display total number of favorites for painters.

Showroom

Showroom paint files can now be edited by the painter. Users racing a Showroom paint that has been updated will be notified an update is available. Until choosing to update, users racing the paint will continue to see the original upload.

The upload screen has been revised to allow uploading to My Paints through the upload page. We’ve found many users were unclear whether a paint belongs in the user’s My Paints list or available for use in the community Showroom and we feel this change will improve the quality of Showroom content.

Adjusted the appearance of Showroom paint “cards” to include the title of the paint on screen without requiring a hover.

Improved visibility of daily trophies (first, second, and third most popular) on Showroom paint “cards.”

Added Paint of the Week to the Showroom navigation menu.

The Paint of the Week listing has been inverted so the newest Paint of the Week appears first.

“0 Comments” is no longer displayed if a painter has disabled comments on a paint.

Fixed a bug where you could receive a prompt to follow a user after favoriting one of their paints even if you were already following that user.

Fixed a bug on the Painters page where a painter’s number of submitted paints was sometimes inaccurate.

Messaging & Notifications

After accepting or rejecting all paint requests, a message will appear when you have no additional requests left to answer.

In the event Trading Paints staff follows up with additional questions for an issue report, a Trading Paints notification will now be sent.

Registration & Login

After successfully resetting your password, you will see a success message instead of being dropped into the Showroom.

Fixed a bug where users with apostrophes in their names were unable to perform some site activities.

Downloader

Released version 2.0.20 of Trading Paints Downloader that adds support for Custom Number paints.

We’ve also recently made updates to improve accuracy of paints downloaded from Trading Paints. It’s probably a good idea to clear out or delete your Documents\iRacing\paint directory to remove any leftover temporary files.

Thanks for using Trading Paints. We’re excited for the next wave of possibilities from iRacing’s latest paint updates. Keep sending us your paints on Twitter!

–Steve, Shawn, and Patrick