User Decals - A Tutorial On How To Make .SVG (Request in separate thread)

[G.T.Ace]

If you want you can post it here so I can have a look, but from what I understand, you are still trying to save a bitmap in an svg.

Png or jpg doesn't matter, no need to convert it. It is bitmap data. If you save it as a svg, it will still be bitmap data, just within a svg "container".

you can look at svg like a it's a zip file. Inside the zip there could be anything. The zip file does not define the content of it.

So how do I get rid of the bitmap data? Or do I have to redraw everything?

 

[MatskiMonk]

I'm having the same issue. The site says the SVG uploaded and the game apparently recognizes that I uploaded a decal, but it's blank when I click on it. Any ideas?

Could it be that you have been using a huge canvas/artboard? GTS recognises the whole artboard and displays it, so it could be your logo is actually there, it is just extremely small on the preview.

I know that Coreldraw (which I use), sometimes does a terrible jopb of setting the overall size, vs. the ViewBox tags in the SVG XML. Sometimes it only shows the top-left corner of the file, which if there's nothing there, makes the file look empty.
When that happens I basically manually edit the viewbox co-ordinates so they match the size - just with the decimal shifted over.

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="705.666" height="243.249" viewBox="0 0 70566.6 24324.9" ...

 

[G.T.Ace]

Okay, I got it. I forgot the tracing stuff.

 

[BarryB]

Why does a 3kb file become a 50+kb file after tracing the bitmap path in inkscape?

If possible, explain to a simpleton (me) how to prevent excessive file size and/or trim a filesize down please.

What is the best (free) way to quickly, simply and easily take a basic decal and upload it to GTS (motul logo with white text on a red rectangle for example)?

Same question but for when you only want the text of a decal and no background?

It would be simply amazing if someone wrote a guide for the op that covered how to use free software to make basic logos that can be uploaded. Many people wont have access to paid for programs but still wish to be able to learn the basics of what to do. There isnt any point paying out for a program I dont know how to use at all, but perhaps I will get to a point where I feel confident with the process and wish to upgrade to a paid program to get improved options. I am so lost right now as to why some decals work fine and others are massive.

 

[Belifant]

Why does a 3kb file become a 50+kb file after tracing the bitmap path in inkscape?

If possible, explain to a simpleton (me) how to prevent excessive file size and/or trim a filesize down please.

Did you auto trace it? It may be that it created an excessive amount of points.

What is the best (free) way to quickly, simply and easily take a basic decal and upload it to GTS (motul logo with white text on a red rectangle for example)?

Same question but for when you only want the text of a decal and no background?

Simplest way is to find the logo on sites like brandsoftheworld.com, download it and run through an online converter, if it isn't already a svg.

It would be simply amazing if someone wrote a guide for the op that covered how to use free software to make basic logos that can be uploaded. Many people wont have access to paid for programs but still wish to be able to learn the basics of what to do. There isnt any point paying out for a program I dont know how to use at all, but perhaps I will get to a point where I feel confident with the process and wish to upgrade to a paid program to get improved options. I am so lost right now as to why some decals work fine and others are massive.

This is a free software, but I do not know anything about it:
https://vectr.com

Other than that, the software mentioned in the beginning of this thread offer 30 day trials. Download them and try it out. If you like it, you can buy it. I expect there will be special offers between tomorrow and the rest of the year.

 

[Normalaatsra]

Any troubleshooting regarding distortion on the uploaded result of an SVG file? I can't figure out anything to solve it except it somehow worked in Illustrator if I exported as an SVG instead of saving it as an SVG which opens up a boat load of options that I do not understand. I am beginning to think the solution is by not having the drawing hit just right on the border. If there is a confirmed fix to this, please make sure it gets stickied to OP post!

 

[BarryB]

Did you auto trace it? It may be that it created an excessive amount of points.



Simplest way is to find the logo on sites like brandsoftheworld.com, download it and run through an online converter, if it isn't already a svg.



This is a free software, but I do not know anything about it:
https://vectr.com

Other than that, the software mentioned in the beginning of this thread offer 30 day trials. Download them and try it out. If you like it, you can buy it. I expect there will be special offers between tomorrow and the rest of the year.

I downloaded vectr but am now using inkscape. I only autotrace, I have no idea how to set up a manual trace whatsoever. I think Ive found a way to remove the background and monochrome a decal (using gimp) before exporting it as a jpg and then using either inkscape to trace and save, or an online converter (not as clean sometimes) which converts to svg. This seems to keep sizes down and maintain half decent quality for use as a smaller decal (on side skirts for example). But beyond this Im at a loss tbh.

I need tomfind some tutorials written in simpleton for how to trace manually in inkscape I think.

 

[LastNinja]

Affinity question. Say I want to make a simple doughnut shape/ o shape. I make a circle, and another smaller circle that I then substract from the larger one -presto- nice doughnut. Upload to GTS, still looks good. Check it in-game, it's a solid circle!? Feel like I had this working yesterday, as I have shapes with several "holes in them", so to speak. What am I missing?

*edit* ...hmmm could it be something with "convert to curve"?

 

[Belifant]

Affinity question. Say I want to make a simple doughnut shape/ o shape. I make a circle, and another smaller circle that I then substract from the larger one -presto- nice doughnut. Upload to GTS, still looks good. Check it in-game, it's a solid circle!? Feel like I had this working yesterday, as I have shapes with several "holes in them", so to speak. What am I missing?

*edit* ...hmmm could it be something with "convert to curve"?

Unfortunately you didn't miss anything, I have noticed the same behavior. Strangely, sometime it works, sometime it does not. The problem is the way GTS is handling these "subtraction effects". I have not found a clear solution yet, but a work around is to make the subtraction twice. So you copy the smaller circle, and you subtract both small circles from the large one. As far as I can tell (haven't tested it yet in game), you can just select all 3 circles and do the subtraction at once. But be aware that this might create extra points, that you wouldn't get with just one subtraction, so if you are struggling for file size, you would need to clean those up.

 

[Normalaatsra]

So I can now confirm that upload distortion when viewing the SVG in game is caused by the design being too close to the edge of the artboard!

 

[LastNinja]

Unfortunately you didn't miss anything, I have noticed the same behavior. Strangely, sometime it works, sometime it does not. The problem is the way GTS is handling these "subtraction effects". I have not found a clear solution yet, but a work around is to make the subtraction twice. So you copy the smaller circle, and you subtract both small circles from the large one. As far as I can tell (haven't tested it yet in game), you can just select all 3 circles and do the subtraction at once. But be aware that this might create extra points, that you wouldn't get with just one subtraction, so if you are struggling for file size, you would need to clean those up.

Yup that seems to work. Strange that it behaves so seemingly inconsistent.

 

[Belifant]

Yeah. It also happened with a file that I did not create from scratch, just imported an existing file and changed it, so I didn't even do the subtraction in Affinity, and still it turned out solid.

 

[JamCar0ne]

Affinity question. Say I want to make a simple doughnut shape/ o shape. I make a circle, and another smaller circle that I then substract from the larger one -presto- nice doughnut. Upload to GTS, still looks good. Check it in-game, it's a solid circle!? Feel like I had this working yesterday, as I have shapes with several "holes in them", so to speak. What am I missing?

*edit* ...hmmm could it be something with "convert to curve"?

This was driving me nuts! Found if I added extra nodes to the inside of the hollow circle, it appears as a hollow circle in game. When you subtract a circle from a circle, the ring has four nodes on the inside edge. Adding additional nodes seems to 'trick' the game into letting it be a hole.

Edit - I am using Inkscape

 

[rui10]

Decals idea is great, but way too complicated

 

[LastNinja]

Yeah. It also happened with a file that I did not create from scratch, just imported an existing file and changed it, so I didn't even do the subtraction in Affinity, and still it turned out solid.

This was driving me nuts! Found if I added extra nodes to the inside of the hollow circle, it appears as a hollow circle in game. When you subtract a circle from a circle, the ring has four nodes on the inside edge. Adding additional nodes seems to 'trick' the game into letting it be a hole.

Edit - I am using Inkscape

I think I figured it out - at least for Affinity. What you need to do is COMBINE the shapes rather than SUBSTRACT which I guess is what I was doing yesterday (doh! old age starting to show). Seems to be working now with complex shapes with many "holes".

 

[Belifant]

I think I figured it out - at least for Affinity. What you need to do is COMBINE the shapes rather than SUBSTRACT which I guess is what I was doing yesterday (doh! old age starting to show). Seems to be working now with complex shapes with many "holes".

This was driving me nuts! Found if I added extra nodes to the inside of the hollow circle, it appears as a hollow circle in game. When you subtract a circle from a circle, the ring has four nodes on the inside edge. Adding additional nodes seems to 'trick' the game into letting it be a hole.

Strange, both of these solutions didn't work for me. So far I only had success with the double subtraction.

 

[graveltrap]

This was driving me nuts! Found if I added extra nodes to the inside of the hollow circle, it appears as a hollow circle in game. When you subtract a circle from a circle, the ring has four nodes on the inside edge. Adding additional nodes seems to 'trick' the game into letting it be a hole.

Edit - I am using Inkscape

Try using the difference option, if you have one shape on top of another, if there are more layers cut to path is the one to use, something I have yet to try though...

 

[Mush_nz]

View attachment 693562

So apparently I need to learn how to .svg properly because at the moment most of the ones I've been working on for weeks look like Kirk Van Houten's interpretation of dignity.

Anyone able to give me hand here?

 

[Belifant]

can you post some of the svg here? Hard to tell what is going on from that screenshot

 

[Mush_nz]

can you post some of the svg here? Hard to tell what is going on from that screenshot

Just added a few of them here from that screenshot.

 

[Jiffy]

So I've been trying to make what I thought was a really simple vector image in Inkscape. It's literally just text, but when I upload the .svg to the game it doesn't show any decal at all, just the transparent background. I tried making sure that the text was at the top layer of the image, but it still doesn't seem to work. It's obviously uploading something, just that the decal turns out being invisible for some reason. Any ideas?

 

[ThaSyn]

So I've been trying to make what I thought was a really simple vector image in Inkscape. It's literally just text, but when I upload the .svg to the game it doesn't show any decal at all, just the transparent background. I tried making sure that the text was at the top layer of the image, but it still doesn't seem to work. It's obviously uploading something, just that the decal turns out being invisible for some reason. Any ideas?

I'm having the same. Uploaded some decals which I converted to svg on the internet and it they are looking ok in the uploader but in-game I onlynsee a blank page.

 

[RACECAR]

Which one worked well for you? I tried one with an uploader and it kept saying 0% reduction no matter what file size the input was.

This is the one I used: https://tinypng.com/

And here's one example of getting that file size down:

 

[Mysticblaze21]

Which one worked well for you? I tried one with an uploader and it kept saying 0% reduction no matter what file size the input was.

A couple only worked if you paste in the xml and I havent figured out how to copy that out of Inkscape yet (tho I havent spent a lot of time in it yet).

This is the one I used: https://tinypng.com/

And here's one example of getting that file size down:

If only one for SVG. I have an SVG at 21.8kb that took me about three hours to convert (learning as I went with Inkscape) from a PNG I converted using this . So close yet so far. Can't remove or shrink anymore from the original or its just a blank sheet of wonder and regret. I have been using this https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/ to bring down SVG size, but it only works sometimes. Example as for me in this which is why I am back here would be that this site said I would have a 9.18 k (kb typo possibly) size for download and yet it was 23.5 from the 21.8. It made more lol. All boxes checked. Flipped between the "show original one".

 

[Islaygaz]

Apologies if this has been asked before!

Now i have access to the uploader, I have started uploading some decals. My issue is that a lot of them from World Vector Logo have white square boxes around them!!

I have downloaded Inkscape - is there an easy way to get rid of the box or is it simply a case of 'cutting' around the decal??

 

[Alienxpres51]

I know there's some guys in here using Corel. I was able to upload some logos the other day, but now everything I try to upload, I get..."a server error occured". Even with that, I think the issue is on my end. My files are well under the size limit, I even tried a simple box at 700bytes, and still got the error, so the problem is something else. Another test I tried was grabbing an SVG file off of a logo site, and it uploaded no problem.

I feel there's a setting in my Corel that's keeping the files from uploading, but I be damn if I can find it. I already have a day and a half in troubleshooting this, with no resolution.

Any ideas? @MatskiMonk @vicbol

Edit: Solution found. Under Styling Options, the drop down box must have Presentation Attributes selected.

Thank you your a life saver, been having the same issue and would never have found that, now I can finish those liveries off.

 

[Manasseh257NSX]

So my decals keep coming up in the game like incomplete or look like they been partially erased with an online eraser... Can someone PLEASE help me? I'm trying to make custom made logos of my own design and put em in the game (Like made up racing team logos) but they keep appearing incomplete and unfinished.. I'm using Illustrator btw.

 

[Belifant]

So I've been trying to make what I thought was a really simple vector image in Inkscape. It's literally just text, but when I upload the .svg to the game it doesn't show any decal at all, just the transparent background. I tried making sure that the text was at the top layer of the image, but it still doesn't seem to work. It's obviously uploading something, just that the decal turns out being invisible for some reason. Any ideas?

I'm having the same. Uploaded some decals which I converted to svg on the internet and it they are looking ok in the uploader but in-game I onlynsee a blank page.

see post 265 and 270 in this thread. Also, text needs to be converted to curves, not sure if you did that.

I have downloaded Inkscape - is there an easy way to get rid of the box or is it simply a case of 'cutting' around the decal??

It should be as easy as just delete the box. It may be grouped or compounded to the logo though, so you'd have to undone that first.

 

[Islaygaz]

It should be as easy as just delete the box. It may be grouped or compounded to the logo though, so you'd have to undone that first.

I'll try playing around and see if i can do that! thanks!!

 

[Belifant]

Just added a few of them here from that screenshot.

Strange, doesn't seem to be anything really wrong with them. There are some tiny shapes in there though which are not part of the design, but I don't see why they would be the problem. Maybe it's just how your software exports the svg?

Anyway, I did a quick clean up with two of them and saved them again. Try and see if they show up correct now.